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".