Deerfield 100k

The beautiful scenery of the Connecticut River Valley, dirt roads and friends - all the ingredients for a memorable bike ride. This year's Deerfield Dirt Road Randonee was a blast.

We had eight riders in my group, mostly from work, and we brought a wide range of bikes to the event.



I carried four water bottles, a new record. The fourth rode in my jersey pocket.


DB brought a classic mountain bike.


CP had a homebrew semi-cross bike with a special "wide-range" double crank based on mountain bike gearing.


DH brought classic European cycling style and his wife's hybrid bike. Thanks for the French and Italian cafe music for the drive to the start!


GC modified his full-suspension hard-core mountain bike for the day.

The 100km ride starts at 9AM, which makes logistics easy but means the sun is high for the whole thing. After arriving early, we waited for almost an hour in the farm field we parked in. The forecast was for a high of 90, and I wished we could have started early.

The first dirt road climb was a shock to most of us. Riders from another group, just ahead of us, slipped their road race tires in the loose gravel and switched to walking, leaving us an obstacle course of people and bikes to try to ride through. On the other hand, we riders got a bit spread out along the trail, and we never got blocked like that again.


We spent some time on roads, along farmland and rolling hills. The terrain in the picture above made me think of giant fingers lying on the ground. We all knew we'd be riding up those hills soon.

GC, our only rider on a full suspension, had the most amazing joie de vivre of the ride. He flew by me on a loose gravel descent that made nearly everyone nervous and caused a couple crashes. In fact he bombed down every descent I saw, and even wheelied up a chunk of a switchback! If I could imagine going this distance on my MTB, I'd consider trying it - GC made it look fun.

At lunch, next to a covered bridge, we ate baked potatoes and drank what we could. PF trained me long ago to bring my "cytomix" (a blend of Cytomax and a little protein powder). Others drank what was offered at the stop, (grape?) Kool-aid. We thought Gatorade was going to be available, and a couple of our group decided to home-brew the stuff by mixing Kool-aid with the table salt set out for the potatoes. Another rider, unknown to our group, snapped a picture of us here. (I'm standing between the two yellow shirts with sunglasses on my hair while most of the rest of the group is sitting along the river nearby.)


After lunch we rode a delightful flat dirt road along a small river to let the food settle a little, then veered up into the hardest climb of the day. The top part of the hill was the worst: although the dirt transitioned to pavement, the tree cover we had enjoyed suddenly evaporated and we felt the 90 degree sun-baked heat in the utterly windless low-gear grind. But just over the crest, all was well again as we had the view shown in the topmost photo above, and a water stop with fresh produce from the farm there.



SM, above, on a 29er rigid MTB, led us a lot of the time and knew the course perfectly. I'm afraid I over-relied on his guidance, and predictably I noticed this only when I found myself alone and unsure of my location and cue sheet position.

Over the after-ride dinner, the topic of next year's ride was never far from thought. At one point I got into a rant about how I'd like to try the 112mi ride sometime, and it won't get any easier. 'If I could ride it, even just once, it would be the kind of accomplishment that would go on my tombstone!' GC added, 'maybe the same day.' That gave me my biggest laugh of the weekend.

One definition of a good ride is it leaves you inspired for next year's ride. Deerfield was a great success this way, with all of our group discussing route options, bike upgrades and nutrition for next time, starting midway through this ride.

SM took some video and compiled it into a taste of the ride. The video was shot with a hand-held Flip, and I'm impressed he could keep it as steady as he did. Thanks, SM!

For those of us dreaming of the full ride (maybe it's just me?!), a nice blog of the 112mi ride this year was posted by another rider. Sounds inspiring, but also very intimidating!

Honestly, my most ambitious idea is to ride the 112mi route until the lunch stop shared by both routes, then switch to the 65mile route, making a 93mi version. Still, that's probably not sensible unless I can train way better next year. But it would be nice to be on the road starting in the nice cool (and dark) air of the 6AM start the 112-milers get...