Miles of Metacomet: Day Three, Vermont to Rhode Island Adventure Ride

Despite it being part of New England, I’ve never looked at Connecticut with the same respect or admiration as I do to Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and yes, even Rhode Island.
It has vast tracts of wildlands, hard flowing rivers, and abundant trail networks, and yet I always felt like the state was one large suburban neighborhood for New York City.  I always pictured busy ten lane highways with jersey barriers, dirty highway rest areas, pretentious manicured “towne” centers, and traffic choked suburban hell. That’s because I was prejudiced against Connecticut.  There, I said it out loud. And like any ill-informed opinion, the cure was experience.  It was time for Connecticut and I to spend some quality time together: and what better place than on the Metacomet Trail.

Seven Levels of Wet: Day Two, Vermont to Rhode Island Adventure Ride

I was on the second day of my Vermont to Rhode Island adventure ride trying to link together trails all the way across New England.  Thunderstorms and thousands offeet of elevation had served up a slice of humble pie on day one.  I was already forced to improvise.  But day two promised to be drier.  At least that’s what the weatherman told me.   Instead I was about visit the seven levels of wet.

Taconicked: Day One, Vermont to Rhode Island Adventure Ride

How far can you get on trails?  That’s the burning question that has motivated my bike adventures for the better part of two years now:  The Kingdom Sampler, Boston to Northampton, Southern NH Overnighter, the Trunkline Adventure, and the Big Dirty South ride. All iterations of the same goal: get as far as I can using as little road as possible.

Singletrack Mining in Southern New Hampshire

Bikepacking highway.

The White Mountains.  Winnipesaukee. The Seacoast. 

Ask any New Englander to talk about must-see destinations in New Hampshire and these three areas invariably come to the top of the list.  Dig a little deeper and you might get mentions of Mount Monadnock, Santa’s Village, or even Manch-Vegas.  You’ll have to wait a while- a long while- before you hear someone tell you that you should definitely go visit Milford.  Or that you can’t miss Mason or Brookline.  And Greenville?  Yeah, that’s not going to be on the list.  But it should be.  It is time to visit the region that put the granite in the Granite State.

Why Plus Bikes Make So Much Sense

There was a time when I obsessed over skinny tires.  2.1, 2.0 and even the svelte 1.9 inch offerings in bike catalogs and seedy online part wholesalers got me all hot and bothered.  In my mind, less rubber on the trail equaled less friction and more speed. Skinny was fast. Skinny was light. 

But skinny was wrong.

The Best of Leominster

I recently re-visited one of my all-time favorite places to ride, and put together a  route for getting the best out of Leominster. 

Trunkline or Bust: Finding Adventure in Eastern Massachusetts

Rolling singletrack through Upton.

 I was a desiccated sock- dry, crumpled and salt caked.  The thirst that had been building in my throat suddenly left me feeling stale and flimsy on the bike as I rolled out of the woods and onto the blazing hot pavement.  I had gambled against a water break before my last foray into the woods and now I was going to pay the price. And let me tell you- getting behind on your hydration schedule is no way to go through an endurance ride.

Big Dirty South : A Dirty Fifty South of Boston (July 2017)

Like Endor without the adorable little chipmunk people.

I bought a gravel grinder/touring bike recently.  And so naturally I had to start riding insanely long mixed pavement and gravel rides.  The first of these rides took me to the southwestern suburbs of Boston where I strung together a fifty mile loop through the quiet trails and suburban streets of Wellesley, Needham and Dover.  I called this one the "Big Dirty South Ride".

Unfinished Business: The Last Slice of the Boston to Northampton Trail Epic

Like stairmaster.  With a bike.

Andy “One-Slice”. That’s the nickname my mentor jokingly gave me after noting my habit of ordering a small pizza and then eating all but one slice. The nickname was entirely in jest, but like any good nickname really put a burr under my ass. You see, I hate to start things and then not finish them. So much so, that I will put off starting something I don’t think I can finish right away. On more than one occasion, I’ve developed a plan, then shelved it for another day when I would have enough time - only that “time-free” day never comes. The only thing more annoying than a shelved plan, is the almost-finished one: bookmarks before the last chapter, and stories without endings- like pizza boxes with orphaned slices rattling around inside. And not all pizzas are created equal. Some of the slices ask-- no, demand- to be eaten.

A Kingdom Sampler: Bikepacking Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom

Brandon and I were running out of daylight. Miles short of our goal, we pushed our bikes through dense forest and around jagged rocks, lifting them over blowdowns on a barely visible trail that seemed more a figment of my imagination than reality. I had been nervous about this scenario all day- and now my fears were materializing. We were hitting the most difficult section of the day at precisely the wrong time. The thick woods were closing in around us, further choking out what little light remained in the gray skies above. Just as I began to consider retreating to the road we crested out of gully and my perspective changed completely.

FOMBA to Bear Brook Epic (October 2016)

Red carpet treatment.

 I've heard it said that Autumn is the reason New Englanders put up with the long, cold, dark winters.  While there are other reasons to love living in New England, I have to agree that Fall is at the top of the list.

But like most things, it is fleeting, and you need to make the time to breathe-in some of its essence before we descend into the hellish hangover that is November.   And what better way to capture the sights, smells and feels of the season than a leg crushing epic mountain bike ride in the hills of sourthern New Hampshire?

Boston to Northampton Epic Trail Ride (July 2017)

My bike took me here.

 The light was fading fast as I slowly walked my bike up a ribbon of steep, rocky singletrack beneath the high canopy of old hardwoods.  My only companions, the mosquitos, urged me along the trail despite the empty feeling in my legs.  I looked up to see the top of the hill, seemingly miles away,and put my head back down.  I was broken.  Physically and mentally.  Although I was in the homestretch of my second day, it had been a hard day.  Hot. Humid. And what I had hoped was a flowy five miles of singletrack to end the day became a five mile slog on slick, steep, and rocky singletrack.  I didn’t have any choice but to push on.  There was no other way I was getting home.  And so I took another long pull from my water bottle, pushed one leg in front of the other, and brushed the swarm of mosquitos from my shoulders and back.  Only a couple more miles now.  It wouldn’t be long. And that’s when I heard the thunder.

Your Bucket List is Weighing You Down: A Harvard-Boxborough Study Proves It

Sweet, sweet, singletrack descents.

The perfect is the enemy of the possible, dreaming is the enemy of doing, and the bucket list is the enemy of a life filled with adventure.

The Other Side of Highland (September 2016)

A hint of Fall on the trail.

It was all starting to look the same.  I muddled along a trail I was hoping would lead me northward and onto my planned route, but discovered yet another dead end as the trail began to loop back in on itself.  Gunshots echoed in the distance and the forest began to darken in the mid afternoon light. Freshly fallen twigs crunched under my tires as I rolled downhill and back to a familiar looking trail junction.  I loosened my elbows to absorb the logs and rocks hidden in the tall grass that had sprouted up under the break in the forest canopy.  As I watched the sharp broken stub of a branch roll under my tire, it occurred to me that my spare tube was sitting miles away in the back of my truck.   My anxiety level, already high, was now thick and suffocating.  I was running out of time.

Moosalamoo's Leicester Hollow & Chandler Ridge Loop (August 2016)

Sun, bike, singeltrack and water: a winning combination.

"Just beware of the stinging nettles."  Those were the words of Chas, co-owner of Frog Hollow Bikes in Middlebury after recommending that I check out Leicester Hollow/Chandler Ridge loop in Moosalamoo National Recreation Area.

I'm no stranger to brambles, having stumbled through more than my fair share of bushes over the years.  I regularly fished for baseballs in rasberry bushes wearing only shorts and a t-shirt when knee high socks and parachute pants were all the rage.  Heck, you'll still find me waist high in thickets of prickers looking for hidden singletrack.  I've picked more thorns out of my body and cursed more burdock than I care to remember.   So a warning about "stinging nettles" didn't phase me, until he repeated with any hint of a smile now gone from his face: "Really, watch out for those stinging nettles."

Fat Biking and Finding Humility in the Adirondack Backcountry (July 2016)

Big wheels keep on turnin'.  

Until recently I was particularly proud of the fact that I couldn’t remember the last time I shit my pants.  I knew it must have been thirty-five plus years since it last happened, because, really, who forgets a thing like that?

To The Chic-Chocs, We Don't Stop (March 2016)

"What have I done?"  Cowering the backseat of Justin’s truck, I lay my head against the cool window as Justin, Silas, Kirk and I rumbled through the Quebec countryside in the wee hours of the morning.  I was ten hours deep into my thirteen hour journey from Boston to the Chic-Choc mountains on the Gaspé peninsula in Eastern Quebec and seriously questioning whether I should have made the trip. 

Fat Bikes: Making Warm Snowless Winters Suck Less

It was about this time last year that I carving lines in deep untracked powder through the woods in the Blue Hills.   Those were the days- "were” being the operative word.

As if a look out the window wasn’t enough to nail home the sad state of the snowpack, this morning’s long term forecast is calling for temperatures in the 40’s for the foreseeable future.  While there's still plenty of winter left to fulfill our backcountry skiing plans, the next few weeks aren't looking so good.  But like anything in life, you can sit home and cry in your Cheerios or you can adapt, evolve, and find a silver lining.   If you’re a winter outdoor enthusiast, you may need a fat bike to mine that vein of silver.

Zwift and How I Spent My November Mornings On An Island in the Pacific

Right in the middle of the lane.  What a dick.

Sweat was pouring down off of me onto the bike as I closed my eyes, got out of my seat and hammered the pedals.  The gate was in sight just a few hundred yards ahead and I was in a dead sprint trying to outrun a shifty Canadian who had slid in behind me mid way through the climb.  I was pedaling as hard as I could in the highest gear for what felt like an eternity.  I looked up in time to see the other rider edge over the line just ahead of me.  But my disappointment was short lived as I realized I had set a personal best on the climbing segment.  So much for my planned "recovery ride".  Just another morning on Zwift.

Luther Forest and Life Choices (July 2015)

It was 11;00PM.  Brian and I had spent two hours driving around Saratoga looking for a cheap motel with vacancy.  We finally overpaid for a couple dirty mattresses surrounded by four slabs of moldy sheetrock and a grubby plastic bathroom.

As I lay there with a belly full of potato chips, doughnuts and Four Loko, I began to doubt the wisdom of some of my recent decisions.