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Delaware County Summer Solstice Dirt Classic (D2S2C2)

In what’s becoming an annual ritual, we grabbed the kids out of school a couple of days before school was officially out (our district’s school year ends late compared to most), loaded up the car until the suspension protested and sagged, and headed for the hills. For the past few years we’ve done this the weather has been perfect for ushering in summer– warm and sunny, green and lush. This year was no exception.

Building on my previous loops around my summer home, I set out on my most ambitious Catskills ride yet. I had planned it for months. I mapped out a 150k loop that would take in my favorite roads from previous, shorter loops, while exploring a few new ones. It would take in three covered bridges, 70k of dirt roads, seven major climbs, and it would have strategically placed rest stops at well-spaced intervals to enjoy excellent food in pleasant, rustic village settings.

Alas, that plan got derailed midway into the ride, but I still managed to make this my longest Catskills ride yet, at 116k, or 73 miles, with 6500 feet of elevation gain. And it was still an amazing ride, the kind that resonates in my mind for days after and keeps me yearning to come back for more (which, thankfully, will happen soon… I’m returning in August).

I started out from my house atop a steep hill in Bloomville, and within five minutes I was bombing down the first of many 40+ mph descents, a speed easily attainable on most of the descents around here since I’ve switched to the new Compass Babyshoe Pass “Extralight” 650x42B tires. These are the third 650B tires I’ve experienced, and clearly the fastest. Highly recommended!

From Bloomville, I headed onto the Catskill Scenic Trail–one of the common launching points for my Delaware County rides–for a short mile, getting off at Kiff Brook Road via the tractor path shortcut off the trail. First climb of the ride.

Onto MacArthur Hill Road, past the former one-room schoolhouse-turned-private residence, past the Alpaca farm, onto a couple more dirt roads before the rapid descent down Braehead Road into Doonan’s Corners.

From Doonan’s Corners, the next climb is Turnpike Road, another favorite road with some spectacular views.

Turnpike Road takes me down into West Kortright and Meredith, with another steep climb up Ehlermann Rd before a deliciously steady and continuous four mile descent down Houghtaling Road, a dirt road I hadn’t yet ridden (John F had, in his Delaware 85 ride from last year).

Dirt roads are common here, but 4-way dirt intersections are less so.

I wonder how long this VW microbus has been here?

Dilapidated farm structures, vestiges of a dried up dairy economy, are iconic around here.

One more steep climb up Warner Hill Road before descending into Treadwell, a tiny village I discovered last year and fell in love with.

One of the things I love about Treadwell is its charming old general store, where I’ve gotten lunch before (I mentioned Barlow’s in my Columbus Day ride report from last year). To my dismay, they were closed! This was the first of several setbacks leading to the shortening of my planned route… I had a limited amount of food with me and had planned on stopping. Not a big deal, yet, but I did need to refill my water bottles. Across the street I spotted a sweet old 19th century neoclassical building with intriguing sculptures in the yard. The front doors were swung open invitingly, and I noticed the unassuming sign propped up against the mailbox post: “Art Gallery Open”. Great! I could stop in, look around, and get my water bottles refilled.

Upon entering, I was blown away by the prolific collection of sculpture and paintings. A magazine stand filled with years of newspaper clippings, essays and photocopied reviews of the artist’s work revealed him to be Joe Kurhajec, an internationally renowned sculptor who’s lived in Treadwell for 43 years. Here’s a YouTube interview with him, and his work will be on exhibit at the West Kortright Centre from July 18-August 25.

After a chat with Mr. Kurhajec, I was back on my way, heading up the hill to an area known as Arabia, with stunning mountaintop views.

At the top, Douglas Hall Road ends, and Ridge Road, a narrow dirt road, follows the ridge along the top of the hill for miles.

This is where the second setback occurred. Road crews were rebuilding the road, dumping truckloads of fresh dirt down before grading and compacting. The un-compacted dirt was several inches thick, and too difficult to pedal through with the fine tire treads of the Compass tires– knobbies or cyclocross tires would have been more appropriate here. One of the men yelled to another, “Hey, there’s a guy on a BIKE over there. You think he rode up the mountain?!” I yelled back that I had, but that my tires weren’t optimized for soft dirt, and how far down the road did the fresh dirt extend? 1/2 mile, he replied, and I decided I didn’t want to schlep it. The next stop would be Hamden, with a farm store/cafe I could stop in for food, but now I’d have to detour.

Fortuitously, the road work started at an intersection with Gray Road, another dirt road I hadn’t been on, but which had been on my radar for awhile. Gray Road would be my detour to Hamden, although it would eventually lead me to Route 10 closer to Delhi. I’d have to ride on Route 10 for four miles back to Hamden–much less desirable than the planned route along Ridge Road to Launt Hollow Road, which would whisk me down five miles of smooth pavement all the way down to Hamden, avoiding the highway. Route 10 is hostile to cycling. A major 55-mph highway through the northern Catskills, it sees lots of truck traffic, and the shoulders are usually in rough shape, sections of which are completely unridable. Fist-sized chunks of broken asphalt litter the crumbling shoulder. When you see that fully laden logging truck fast approaching in your helmet-mounted rear-view, the idea of ‘taking the lane‘ is not very appealing! (I conjured this image a few minutes before arriving at Route 10, and sure enough– within a minute of turning onto 10, a loaded logging truck came barreling down the road, albeit in the opposite direction.)

As I approached Route 10 between Delhi and Hamden, I realized the third setback of the day, the coup de grâce to my original route plan– I had forgotten my cash and credit card at home! No chance of stopping for food in Hamden, or Delhi, or anywhere for that matter. With only 41 miles covered, I’d have another 53 to go with only one Clif bar left. So instead of heading west toward Hamden, I detoured east to Delhi on Route 10, in the direction of my home, cutting 35 miles off the route. If I felt up to it, I could add another loop closer to home to recoup some of the lost miles.

I stopped in Delhi to refill my water bottles again, and to finish my last Clif bar. Delhi has some wonderful old store fronts, like their beloved Dubben Bros. Hardware, chock full from floor to ceiling with vintage artifacts and ephemera:

Past Main Street, Delhi, I continued on the flat Back River Road and past Fitch’s Bridge, toward Bloomville (at least I got one of the three planned covered bridges in this ride!)

Re-energized by the last Clif bar, I felt I could take on another loop before heading up the last climb back to my house. So before Bloomville, I turned onto Bramley Mountain Road to cross the mountain to Bovina. This would give me some more lovely dirt roads and another 15 miles– a fair compromise between the original 94 miles and the abbreviated 58. I’ve written about Bovina before, so I’ll just show you some of the delightful views I enjoyed from this loop:

Pink Road provides a really smooth, fast descent back into Bloomville (before I have to tackle the final climb to my house). Thanks to the Compass tires (a stable bike helps, too), I hit a new personal speed record of 49 mph!

In all, the route clocked in at 73 miles with 6500 feet of elevation gain. Although a big chunk of my planned route got deleted (I’ll reattempt the full 150k version in August), the ride was nonetheless magical. The only highway segment was the short Route 10 detour to Delhi, and despite the heavy traffic and dicey shoulder maneuvering, the views were still sublime.

Detoured route, including the additional Bovina loop. Food stops are indicated. Dirt segments are shown in green:

–Anton

From steep trails to smooth sails – Catskills Outdoor Guide 2014

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Coming up shortly, I’ll have a nice ride report from my Summer Solstice ride in Delaware County, in which I took in 73 miles of wonderful mixed terrain: some familiar, some new, and as usual, all of it hilly and breathtakingly gorgeous. Here’s just a teaser:

In the interim, I’d like to point Catskills area readers to the 2014 Catskills Outdoor Guide in which you’ll find a short guide to cycling around the Catskills by Riding the Catskills co-authors John F., John S. and myself.

The Watershed Post did a great job of putting together a comprehensive guide to outdoor activities in the Catskills, from hiking to boating to cycling (and eating! With a separate food guide as well). So many wonderful reasons to visit…

–Anton

Back in Gear

Water? Yeah, we’ve got that

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– By Somervillain

After a brutally long, cold and snowy winter, I had been itching to get back to cycling. I bike commuted the short distance to work through most of the winter, but that type of cycling is insignificant and serves little more than utility. It doesn’t count. Cycling for the sake of cycling largely ceases during winter in New England, and I was eager to get back into doing long distances, to take in scenery, to have no deadline to be someplace, to explore. I happened to be up at our Catskills home for the weekend for other reasons, and the weather was promising to be perfect for a spring ride.

I had been wanting to try a new route that I mapped last year, which would take me to the Pepacton reservoir. It would take me over a couple of mountainous dirt roads which I’ve ridden before, but other than them it would be mostly new territory. I was keen on doing this route not because I was particularly drawn to seeing the reservoir, but because the route takes in a 10-mile, continuous descent, and the thrill of the descent is, primarily, what compels me to climb hills.

I had done only one long ride this season, just last week, so I wasn’t in good enough shape to tackle a mountainous ride of too much distance, not this early, but I wanted to get in 100k. Typically my Catskills routes average 1000 ft of elevation gain per 10 miles, but 6200 ft would be too much this early in the year– that’s like D2R2, a ride I spend all summer preparing for! So I cut some of the mountains out of the route, and incorporated 10-15 flat miles on either end, leaving some pronounced hills in the middle (and that 10-mile descent!) for a more reasonable 5000 ft overall elevation gain:

I started out in Bloomville, after having an excellent breakfast at Table On Ten, just down the hill from my house:

From there I followed the Delaware River, West Branch, along the flat Back River Road for 15 miles through Delhi to Hamden. But the flatness ends abruptly with the turn onto Basin Clove Rd, which takes you over the mountain separating Hamden from Downsville, shown in this photo:

Tapped sugar maples line Back River Road:

On to Basin Clove Rd, the first major climb: cat 3 with an average grade of 9.5% for more than two miles.

I’m never good at capturing the intensity of a climb looking up a hill, it always appears more accurately steep looking down it, so this is what it looked like behind me:

Initially, I lamented the lack of flourishing tree buds and other signs of sprouting greenery that mark the progression of spring. A little early for that in these parts. I’d have to settle for the residual shades of grays and browns from a retreating winter. But I soon realized that early spring in the Catskills is the season of water– equally beautiful in its own right, and what I missed in terms of emerging spring color was made up for by the tumbling kinetics and sounds of water, everywhere and all around me. Mountainsides turn into waterfalls, drain ditches into mini rapids. It occurred to me that it was perhaps most appropriate that I was riding this route in early spring, because the visual (and audible!) cues to just how impactful this region is to New York City’s water supply were unavoidable. You see, NYC gets its water from a network of man-made reservoirs located in the Catskills, built between the 1940s and the 1950s. The Pepacton is the largest of these. The water from the reservoirs is channeled through a network of aquaducts and tunnels to the city more than 100 miles away. NYC prides itself in its water, routinely judged among the finest municipal waters in the nation, and the city goes to great lengths to ensure the quality of its water is maintained through extensive land conservation efforts.

And it was here, climbing up Basin Clove Rd, that I first realized how much water drains down the mountains. This is what the drain ditches looked like:

The sound of running water created a soothing wall of white noise, which helped me settle in to that meditative zen-like state you need to get into to help you focus on getting up the mountain. Of course, stopping every so often for a break to take photos helps, too.

Eventually I reached the top of Basin Clove Rd, and got to enjoy a similar view to what I just showed you, only this was taken without turning my head backwards: the start of the 10-mile descent down, down, down Gregory Hollow Rd to Downsville:

More water along the way.

Did I mention water?

The sound of water was so pronounced, I took a recording of it:

Eventually the descent ended in Downsville, a small village with a convenience store, convenient for filling up my water bottles and using the restroom. The Pepacton reservoir’s western tip is in Downsville, less than a mile from the Downsville covered bridge.

From the Pepacton, there’s no way to get back to Bloomville without going over another mountain with at least one cat 3 climb. For the return I took Huntley Hollow Rd to Fall Clove Rd to Maggie Hoag Rd– each of these roads is a milder climb than Basin Clove Rd, but the first two still qualify separately as cat 3 climbs and collectively the three roads accounted for 2/3 of the total climbing, in just 1/3 the total distance of the route.

Fall Clove Rd is a beauty. Long and winding, with lots of moderate ups and downs, none too intense, and lots of pleasant pastureland views.

Maggie Hoag Rd, the last dirt segment and last climb of the route, was hard. Not according to the elevation profile, but because by now I had exhausted my reserves. Here it is (head turned backwards again):

Back in Bloomville, I realized that in just a few more weeks the dreary remains of winter will have finally vanished, having yielded to spring’s new growth, and by the time I get another ride in, everything will look different. And just as slowly as spring marches on toward summer, the sound of water will diminish. And I’ll miss it.

Full route, with dirt sections in red.

The Big Move

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Hi all–John F here!

It’s finally time. I’m moving on April 16th to my new place outside of New Paltz, New York. It’s only 25 miles from where I currently live.

The good news is that it gives me a whole new area to explore. Although I’ve ridden over the ridge many times, I haven’t spent nearly as much time over there as I have in the Catskills proper. In general, it’s flatter (unless you ride over the Shawangunk ridge, of course) and maybe a bit more populated. Nevertheless, this is good news for all you NYC area riders, because it’s much more accessible from the train than where I’m at now. Even though the hills are fewer and much less severe, it’s still gorgeous.

Now that the house hunt is done, I’ll be getting back to my regular twice weekly posting schedule shortly after the move. New routes and pictures!

John

medicalwriter.net

Riding the Gunks?

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Globecanvas has been so prolific that it has been tough to post here, as I don’t want to top post one of his carefully crafted posts with my garbage. Remember to click on Worth the Trip to get right to the cycling.

Guys, feel free to top post this whenever.

I’m happy to announce that Riding the Catskills is number 1 on Google for searches for Catskills cycling these days–above even the Tour of the Catskills! But it looks like with Globecanvas’ contributions and my impending move, we’re going to have a shift in focus around here.

There’s not enough change in focus to change the title of the blog, because I’m sure we’ll all be Riding the Catskills whenever possible, but I’ve just signed a contract for a house in Gardiner, New York, only about 5 minutes south of New Paltz. That puts me just a few miles from Minnewaska Park and the Shawangunk Ridge, and less than 4 miles from the entry to the park described in Globecanvas’ contribution here. Riding the Catskills proper will turn into more of a weekend ride for me rather than a daily event, as to get there I’ll have to ride over the ridge. However, Somervillain will still be covering Delaware County intermittently and Doug H, hopefully, will be covering northern Ulster and Greene. I’ve also invited George from the Hudson Valley Randonneur to cross post if he sees fit.

The Shawangunk ridge—which is also known as the Shawangunk Mountains or just The Gunks, is a ridge running from Orange County, through Sullivan County, and pretty much terminating near Rosendale, where Globecanvas lives. My understanding is that The Gunks are the continuation of the easternmost ridge of the Appalachian Mountains. Based on a little research (thanks Wikipedia!) the name of the ridge essentially means “in the smoky air”, and refers to the burning of a fort by the Dutch in 1663.

Globecanvas was saying that he has trouble capturing the vistas around here. The secret is to load yourself down with something more than an iPhone 🙂

So, the house: I am relieved to be staying in the area. We went through an unusual process when purchasing the house. How do I explain this? I had contacted a prominent and well-regarded local architect to give us some ideas and an estimate on a house we almost purchased in Stone Ridge. We subsequently found out that he was selling his personal home in Gardiner. Skipping all the details, I ended up negotiating directly with him on the purchase and came to a great win-win situation for everyone involved (including the respective brokers); in fact, we consider him a friend now. He clearly loves his house, and has gone far above and beyond what most sellers would do to ensure the house is perfect when we move in—a benefit of buying an architect’s personal home and having a good relationship with the seller! The house inspection only revealed a few minor issues—the kind of stuff that would be expected in even a new house—and some other stuff that would be considered upgrades. Well, the seller is taking care of both the minor issues and many of the noncritical upgrades, many of which we didn’t even ask for but he decided to manage proactively.

We have a few unusual provisions in the contract, for example, he asked for a right of first refusal if we ever decide to sell, meaning we will contact him or his children first to offer them the house before putting it on the market. He’s also staying in the house 4 months beyond when we purchase it.

All in all, the way a house should be sold. I hope to extend the same courtesy to his children if we ever move.

I know I’ve said this before, but now I can get back to riding. My neck is feeling much better, and I’m off for a quick 30-mile ride right now. Like Globecanvas, I’m hoping for big miles this winter!

John F

medicalwriter.net

Quick Update

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Yeah, I know. I’ve been lazy. I have been riding, just not much more than 15 miles a day. Plus I have two guest posts I need to get up, including the winner of the Win a Garmin! competition.

But I’ve been busy!

We had some issues with the inspection of the house I had planned to purchase that couldn’t be resolved. So here we are again, house hunting. As I think I’ve said before, I work from home, as does Margot, so our choices are wide open in terms of where we can live. We found an amazing house in Lambertville, NJ….

But it needs a lot done, including a new septic system and other issues. We’re working on it with the seller because this, quite frankly, is my dream house, but I’m not going to let emotion get in the way of a rational decision. Unfortunately, the seller does not appear to be very rational at all; in fact, he has been so difficult that he has torpedoed multiple potential sales.

So if I have to let it go, I’ll let it go, and happily live in a standard stone farmhouse ever after. I heard that the riding is great around Lambertville, which brings me to another point….

If I leave, obviously Riding the Catskills will be no more. Are there any local riders with an interest in taking over? Before my house hunting hiatus, the site was getting great traffic; it would be a shame to let it die. I’d even be willing to pay to keep the lights on for a few years.

Nothing is for sure, of course, but I just thought I’d put that out there. Contact me if you’re interested.

John

medicalwriter.net

Buying a House

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In case you were wondering where I am…

I rented a beautiful house in Olivebridge, just south of the Ashokan Reservoir.

As it turns out, I love it here. So now I’m looking for a house to buy. My current landlords indicated that they would sell us the house we’re in now. It’s a great house, and I have good neighbors, but there is one thing that is a major deal breaker: satellite internet from Exede. I know most of you won’t believe this, but there are major swathes of our country with decidedly third-world internet access. That is to say, we can’t even get Time Warner cable here. As bad as Time Warner is, you haven’t experienced bad until you’ve had satellite internet from Exede! Their service is a borderline scam. It’s definitely a ripoff. For $120 a month, we get 25 GB of service–any more than that is $10 a gigabyte. So no movies, no software updates during the day, and nothing graphics-intensive unless I want to go over my limit. About 10% of the time it doesn’t work at all, another 30% of the time it works very slowly–we’re talking click a link and go get a cup of coffee, because you’re not getting anything done for a few minutes. The other 60% is less than optimal, but that is excusable because of physics (every click requires 4 trips to a satellite: my dish to the satellite, the satellite to the server, and back again).

Not a big deal, you say? Well, if you’re self-employed and in a field that requires lots of research and large file downloads, a day without internet carries an enormous cost in terms of lost income. In fact, since I’m self-employed I can put a precise price on what Exede Internet has cost me–and it’s more than a few mortgage payments even over the course of a single year. I can’t wait to tell Exede Internet to go to hell, it really is one of the worst things that has happened to me (professionally, that is).

Anyway, rant over. So we’re looking at houses. Today we looked at this one, which–provided they accept our offer (which is 100% contingent on a fully tested hard-wired Time Warner internet line)–should be ours. It’s on 15 acres. I haven’t quite decided if it needs a repaint or if we leave it au natural. It definitely needs a little landscaping, the front of the house reminds me of some of the shabbier neighborhoods in Detroit.

The inside of the house is amazing. We had always envisioned ourselves in something ultramodern and architect-designed, or at the very least midcentury. Needless to say, our furniture collection is going to look odd in here.

That’s all for now; I just wanted to provide a brief update to assure everyone that I haven’t abandoned the blog altogether. Hopefully I can get back to riding significant distances again soon, but as I’m sure you understand, when we spend half the day looking at houses, it means I’m working until 10 pm every night.

And in case you’re wondering why I repeated “Exede Internet” multiple times in this post, I’m hoping this post starts to show up in searches for their crappy service. Of course, anyone with an actual choice would never use it, but still I want the world to know how bad it really is.

John

medicalwriter.net

I Have Returned

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I’m back from Anguilla and the wedding. Anguilla was great, but the bikes the hotel promised us would arrive by 9:00 am never showed up despite repeated requests. Taken together with the 10 days I didn’t ride before the vacation because of my knee, I’ve now been off the bike for almost 18 days. That’s the longest I’ve gone without riding since at least 2008!

It’s all good, though. My knee feels perfect again, and now I’m on the English 650B with a much lower low end–34/36 vs 34/25 on the 700C English. Hopefully spinning up mountains, as opposed to grinding up in the 34/25, will prevent the knee pain from coming back. I also made a deal with the devil, and I have some Speedplays coming. These pedals always struck me as a little dumb because the mechanical bits are part of the cleats rather than the pedal, but if they reduce the risk for knee pain, so be it.

After a quick trip to California next week, I’ll be back for the rest of the summer, so expect lots of new routes in July. They will be of the shorter variety, say 50 to 80 miles, for a while. I don’t want to push out a 200-mile ride until I’m sure about my knee. I need to get back into fightin’ shape, because I have a 400-mile ride planned for August, starting in Albany and circumnavigating the Adirondacks. Note that this isn’t a bicycle tour, we’ll be doing it rando-style, meaning that I have a hotel reserved at about 250 miles so we can pass out for 3-4 hours before completing the ride.

And of course, don’t forget to enter the Win a Garmin contest!

John

medicalwriter.net

Out for a Few Weeks

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I’m off to a meeting in California, and then Anguilla…to get married. I asked my bride what time the ceremony will be on Saturday and she said “why, do you want to go for a ride first?”

Do I have a problem?

Anyway, it works out well because I’m still working on rehabilitating my vastus medialis obliquus (VMO) to make my knee track a little better. I’ve only ridden about 80 miles in the last two weeks, as compared with about 250 miles weekly before the knee pain. But when I get back, I’ll have the English waiting for me with low, low gearing to get me up those hills without destroying my knees again, and my knee should be all better.

So check back in 10 days, and consider entering the Win a Garmin competition. The best thing that could happen is you’ll win a Garmin or a set of the best tires ever made…worst that could happen is you have a great day on the best roads in three states.

John

medicalwriter.net