D2R2 2010

The Deerfield Dirt Road Randonee, or D2R2, is a challenging bike ride in western Mass, riding up into Vermont. Last year was my first time riding it, a 100km (65 mi) ride which was more demanding of my abilities and equipment than any other. It was so much fun that I wanted to try a longer version this year. My goal, if all went very well, was to ride the longer, 180km route to the lunch stop shared by the two routes, then switch to the 100km route for the way home, making a medium-sized route of 93 mi.

Training did not go perfectly, of course, and as the ride approached on the calendar, I wrestled with whether to swap my early start time for the later 100km start. All of my friends from last year's ride either stayed with the 100km route or had to skip it altogether, so the longer ride would also be solo. But a pair of dirt road prep rides went better than I'd expected, and I decided to go for it.

My 4am alarm was unnecessary after I naturally woke at 3:15, and this was a lucky stroke because it took longer than I'd planned to get out the door. Drove 4:25-6:20, watching the sun rise and the temperature drop to 50 degrees F. After weeks of heat, I hadn't imagined it could be cold, so I didn't have any extra layers. After registering, I found a pair of bags the OJ cups had come in, and fashioned them into ersatz arm warmers.

"Sea smoke" floated on the river next to the parking area as I started riding at 6:53. The earliest start was 6, but the organizers wanted untimed folks like me to wait until at least 6:30. I hoped to start about then, so was behind schedule already. But I was determined to ride at a natural pace, to avoid burning out early, so I pushed time out of mind and enjoyed the scenery and some conversation with other riders. One of the main draws of this event is the alternating river and hilltop views of the beautiful rural landscape of the Connecticut River watershed.


The first water stop was at mile 21, where I learned I only needed two (XL) bottles and emptied the third. I also learned that I didn't need the helmet light I was wearing, when two of the staff asked whether I rode to the start before dawn. Later in the ride my neck muscles would also tell me I shouldn't have loaded that weight onto my helmet. A rider next to me commented that he'd already had 3 flats, and was out of tubes and into the patch kit. This was just partway through the first quarter of the ride, designated a warm up!



Randonees don't have marked turns, unlike most big road rides, so cue sheets are very important, and a GPS can be quite helpful. We came to a place where the cue sheet said, "CAUTION: wicked downhill next mile - steep, rutted, narrow, stony". This sounded good to me as I've always enjoyed descending, and this ride feels like a nearly constant climb. After a bit of dirt road descending, a fork was marked with one of the few D2R2 signs of the day. I'd have gone left without it, but saw the arrow, hugged the adverse camber and kept the momentum going right. A little levelling was followed by one of the longest, loosest, fastest descents of the whole day. I thought, 'I'm glad the riders have thinned out so I don't need to worry about other riders here!' as I hung on. I saw bike tracks in the dirt, a reassuring sign, but noted that the path was wavy, as if a roadie were skidding the brakes downhill. I again thanked my cyclocross tires for their wonderful grip. The cue sheet and GPS were beyond illegible with the handlebar's vibration. It crossed my mind that it would be nice to check them, but there weren't any real options since that D2R2 sign, so no chance of error until I passed a little road that had forked right. I stopped slowly as I was still on the loose slope, and the GPS read "U turn when possible". Oh no. I struggled back up the hill to the little fork, and the GPS didn't want me to go there either. Oh no. I had to go all the way back to the D2R2 sign, finding I'd misread the direction of the arrow. I'd backtracked 1.7 miles, including the first walking of the day. When I rode, I wobbled a bit for traction - just like the track I'd seen on the way down! This was not the right way to prepare for the big hill coming soon on the cue sheet.

"15% climb next 3/4 mile", read the cue. I'd been bracing for this all morning, and sure enough, it was a dirt road slog. The next cue included "super steep", which I'd pictured describing the descent which would naturally follow a climb. Nope, it was more dirt climbing, and here I did some more short walks.



A little after the next waterstop lay the most fearsome cue, "27% grade", a dirt climb. The Wednesday before, some friends and I practiced on a local gravel trail and succeeded climbing some very short climbs that were steeper than this, so I had confidence that I could ride this at least for a bit. But the reality today was a tall climb, perhaps 200ft, and a surface of loose dry sand and rounded pebbles. Almost as soon as the slope hit, my rear tire slipped right, tipping me left. I was unable to clip out of the pedals while falling over, so I landed on my elbow and started rolling backward, the bike coming over me. To cut through the frustration, I noted that this was the mirror image of a fall I took Wednesday on a steeper climb, and now both elbows were symmetrically scuffed. After walking around 100ft, the slope seemed to drop just a bit, so I tried again and immediately fell the same way, to the right, re-opening Wednesday's scab. The rest of the climb was a walk, during which I promised myself I'd get rid of these pedals. There were bike tire tracks in the sand, though I can't figure out how anyone could ride it. There were also shoe prints and one hoof print, perhaps from a donkey, the proper vehicle for this road.

At a tiny water stop I started fretting about lunch. It was 1pm, and lunch was to close at 2:30, with 12 miles between. My average speed indicated it would take an hour, but the ride had so many surprises so far that I couldn't bank on that. Mechanical troubles seemed to be plaguing the other riders too, and I couldn't be immune. If this were a novel, you might expect the devil to appear about now, and that's just what happened, though it wasn't clear until afterward. A few turns later, I saw a rider ahead of me take a left, then a pair went right. I stopped and checked cue sheet and GPS and decided the left was correct, so I caught up with the pair and said I thought we should go back and go the other way. The guy in front said, 'this is the quick way to lunch'. What a relief to find a way to stop sweating over missing it! And I'd seen that left led to yet another big dirt climb. But I shook myself out of it and turned back, rejoining the route. I hadn't given up the real route yet! And anyway, I didn't want to have that guy be my only guide to lunch. The more I thought about it the less I appreciated his invitation to join his shortcut.


One gravel descent here gave me what I think of as a "pinch kiss". (If there's a real name for this, please let me know.) It's related to the infamous pinch flat, in which the tire is squished hard against the metal rim by a rock or similar bump, cutting through the inner tube and causing a flat which is difficult to adequately patch. Lots of riders got pinch flats on this ride. A pinch kiss is similar but doesn't cut all the way through the tube, so it's more a warning than a problem. It makes a loud, bad sound like a cartoon kiss. Also, I believe a "kiss cut" is an industrial term for cutting partway through something, like cutting the shape of a sticker without cutting its backing paper.

I arrived at lunch at 2, and there was still plenty of good food. Like last year, the stop was at a covered bridge in Vermont, next to a small waterfall. This is a peaceful spot to eat and rest a little before the long ride back.


Navigation for the return was a bit different, except for the cue sheets. Amy had loaded the GPS with a turn-by-turn route for the first half, investing significant effort converting Delorme data for my Garmin unit. While this was great for many turns, in others the GPS indicated turns that it fabricated, probably due to differences in map details between the companies. Garmin didn't recognize an apparent logging track as a road? I can't say I'm too shocked about that. Anyway, I had no such route for the return. Last year's track, just a colored line on the map, should have helped, but it turned out that track was not loaded, so the GPS did little after lunch. On the other hand, I remembered much of it, so didn't need as much help.

At the end of the 100km ride, there was an optional 5mi flat loop called the "corn maze". (This was a mandatory part of the 180k route.) I don't think it was even available last year. I wanted to ride it, and felt pretty good when I reached it, so I stopped for a quick drink and bite of the sandwich I'd been carrying, and went into it. This was just a ride on the tractor path through a corn field, a fun cool-down after the hills. In the quiet, though, I could hear the grinding of the chain and gears loaded with the day's road grit. I finished at 5:40, getting home before 9:30.



It was a great ride, the biggest of my life. At 8:36 moving time for 103mi (2.4mi vertical), it was about 1.5 times the work of a road century. I recommend it! There are other routes available, down to 40mi flat.

Russel Mills

After colleagues GC and SM showed me these wonderful trails, I brought E there Thanksgiving weekend. Today was our third ride there, and E has rediscovered the joy of mountain biking.

Wicked Ride of the East

Sunday was the big autumn ride of the New England Mountain Bike Association (NEMBA). I haven't done one of these before, but after learning some friends were going, I decided to try it. This idea soon started unravelling, as I learned they were planning over double the distance I've ever ridden, and I couldn't line up our start times. I decided to go anyway.

Rain overnight made for a slippery start, over wet roots which tossed all of the group I found myself in. The start was crowded, and it reminded me strongly of a road century ride, so I tried to pass people when possible, to move up toward what I hoped would be a less crowded area. (Like day 2 of the PMC, this start was staggered over time and with random abilities, and I learned on those rides to move up as quickly as reasonable.) But passing opportunities were rare on slippery singletrack. I did see groups stopped at intersections, and moved up in those places. After a mile or two, the trail sped up a bit and the riders did thin out. I found myself riding in front of someone I took to be younger, and I called out some encouragement after he rode over some logs. We parted a little later, but then came an unmarked intersection where I couldn't decide whether to go left or right. At first I followed some folks to the left, but when it started to sound like they didn't know where they were going, I turned around, went past the T and found my log acquaintance looking for the next segment. I saw a sign then and we were back on the trails. (After the ride I learned that I'd gone the wrong way, probably at this intersection, and really rode the second half of the trail instead of the first.)

Harold Parker is a rocky place, mostly a continuous rock garden mixed with rolling short climbs and descents. It's a bad place to get tired because it takes a bunch of power to get up those climbs, even in low gear. If I put a foot down, it was hard to get back on, and efficiency fell way off. I got hot after a couple more miles of this, then wound up riding more conservatively.

Then I found myself at the top of a house-sized steep descent down the side of a huge solid rock. If I'd had more time to look this over I would probably not have dared to ride it, but I was already rolling into it by the time this occurred to me. The back of the saddle grazed my belly as I rode the brakes and tried to keep the front wheel out of any dip - fearing that would easily trigger an endo. Then I realized I had two different signs to read on the way down to stay on the trail! An extra set of eyes would have been handy.

The course was laid out in roughly a figure eight, with the start and end in the middle. I was feeling pretty tired on the approach to the middle and toyed with the idea of skipping the second half. When I realized I was out of water, the decision was made. In total I rode 12.6mi, which is still the longest MTB ride I've done at pace. My friends rode 22, and I'm glad I didn't try that.

At the end I enjoyed the rest of the event: various foods, a booth from a lighting manufacturer and another by Sinister Bikes. At the latter I saw a demo bike with a suspension design so familiar I almost exclaimed "it's a copy of the Heckler!" [by Santa Cruz]. I think the Sinister dudes would not have appreciated that.

It was a good ride and I'd like to try it again. I'll need to train more, though, and preferably on these trails.

Flight of the Monarch

Bumblebee came with a Monarch 3.3 rear shock, made by RockShox like my favorite forks. Last week I noticed it was leaking air, plus it had smeared out the anodized sag markings, so I contacted the bike shop. At first my sales guy played Mr. Hyde, saying up to 20PSI lost overnight is normal. Then he offered to sell me seals, take a class, or pay them to fix it. After arguing that it's not normal and pointing out it should be under warranty, then reminding him it's a Monarch rather than the more common Fox shock, he became Dr. Jekyll and ordered a free replacement and offering free labor in the shop to swap it. The new one is an upgrade to the Monarch 4.2 (shown above), and it's excellent.

I had thought this was just an air leak issue, and I should fix it to avoid the hassle of refilling the shock before each ride. But it turned out to be far more important. I'd taken the smeared sag marks to be grease shot through the seal, but now I believe it was rub damage from a seal assembled without any grease! (On the internet I've seen others had this problem.) Not only was the shock self-destructing, but the drag was wrecking the suspension action. The bike feels much better with the new shock, giving substantially better traction and a smoother ride. All is well - except now I need to start over learning the feel of the bike.

(Also, I finally cut down the handlebars, so they fit my narrow shoulders!)

Fall Century

I've ridden the past CRW centuries with DP and TT, until the Spring one this year which I rode alone. After learning that DP's injury was going to keep him out of this ride too, I was delighted to learn that my colleague CP was riding, and was interested in riding together. CP was one of our Deerfield crew, and is one of the few year-round bike commuters I work with. Later on he mentioned he had a friend who would join us.

As I looked forward to the event, one of my favorite rides of the year, there was a time or two when intimidation started to gnaw at me. CP has been training for triathlon, and is much younger than me. His friend is from his racing club. I have never raced and wouldn't consider it. To me, racers are another species, eager to wrestle each other for a fraction of a second, pushing each other to achievements ever further from the reach of us mortals. Would a bike commuter like me keep up across 104 hilly miles?

I did the usual hasty bike prep the day before the ride, even working in a quick wash of the frame. Then I packed everything into the car and was heading inside for the night when I remembered I wanted to check the chainring bolts, because the chain seemed to have a mote of wobble in the middle ring while riding. The sun was down, but by the car's roof light I found one bolt dead loose, and the majority not tight enough. The last one I tightened produced a snap sound, when the lip of the outer piece sheared off. These were aluminum bolts I'd "upgraded" to in the spring, to save some weight compared with the steel ones supplied by Shimano. I'd always feared aluminum bolts, and the shear was exactly where I'd feared they would break, at a sharp inside corner which makes an ideal stress riser. The only reason I trusted them is because the new Shimano cranks use aluminum, even the MTB (XT) ones. I replaced the failed one with an old steel one, and the rest will be changed out soon.

The morning of the ride was colder than forecast, 39 degrees and the first time I saw our thermometer under 40 since spring. I packed some extra clothing and headed out, passing beautiful sea smoke rising from the rivers along the way.

Right after I parked, I realized I'd left my cellphone at home. If my plan was to ride alone, I'd have gone back home to get it, then start late. Instead I redoubled my commitment to stay with CP. While the riders assembled and waited for the start, a pair of hot air balloons flew low over us, pointed out by CP. I can't imagine a more impressive send-off.

We met up with CP's friend, P, and chatted with some of their friends before the start. Then, much later than scheduled, the ride organizer gave us some advice and updates, including, 'There is a bunch of new asphalt on this route. The rest is potholes.' At the end, he staggered our start by first asking the folks who thought they'd ride it at 18MPH to go, then he worked down. Our group had been grumbling about waiting in the cold, so we went in that first wave, though we had no specific pace plan.

Around mile 30, a lot of us missed a turn, which degraded into dozens of cyclists debating which way we should go, while scouts ran both directions looking for the arrows painted on the street. I asked a man walking his dog, but when his name for the street we stood upon disagreed with my GPS, I decided he wasn't helpful. Later, someone who really knew both the roads there and the route spoke up and she led us back toward the start. We found that the turn we missed was earlier than we'd imagined, and later I realized that the dog walker was essentially right.

The kickoff speech had mentioned a short 15% climb, which is steeper than anything near my commute. In the 2 previous times I rode this route, I did not realize it had anything this steep, though I vividly recalled the two long climbs after the first water stop. Writing this with hindsight, my guess is the 15% was part of a rolling section near mile 30-40. Here I fell back behind CP and P, and started to wonder whether I'd catch up. But then I found CP stopped to take off his jacket, then P had stopped to retrieve a water bottle. We were together again!

Not long after that, I was toward the front as we started a long, shallow descent. This is about my favorite kind of riding, because it feels most like flying. I wound up at the front, then started to recognize the area. We were dropping into the Souhegan River valley, and riding along the river. I stayed in front and pulled, partly for the joy of it and partly for the contrast with my first time here. Back then, my first century ride ever (2004), I'd fallen behind my friends. This stretch has few intersections because of the river, so there were no CRW arrows to confirm I was on the right path. I'd started imagining I was lost and alone in NH. But this time I knew the water stop would be roughly the next right turn, and I was able to confidently pull till we arrived there (mile 52).

My preference at water stops is to minimize the stay, otherwise I need to warm up again. But these are social rides and P and CP knew lots of the other riders at the stop. I joined a group where a rider was saying she'd just had a 100 mile race a couple weeks ago. I was thinking, 'that's a dedicated cyclist,' when she clarified it was a running race! She made the cutoff at 30 hours (no sleep) and she reported it wasn't so bad, as long as you don't mind the beat-up feeling from all the blisters and such. I'd never even heard of an event like that - where do these people come from?

In my experience, CRW rides are happy to travel closed roads, so it didn't bother me when we ignored two different marked detours. But even I hit the brakes as we approached the sign reading "bridge closed", and saw the wall of chain link across what had become a cliff with a river running far below. Another rider found a pedestrian bridge not far away, and we rode across.

I really felt the cumulative effort in the last part of the ride. On a climb, I fell to the back of the group, and started to drop off. Then CP came back to give me a pull - and it was a good one, since he's tall and wore a water pack, so I enjoyed a big wind pocket. With his strength, we were soon near the front, and after a nice rest, I took a pull on a descent. But then the cycle repeated, as the next climb dropped me to the back again. Just as I felt I was getting dropped, we arrived at a stop at an intersection, allowing me to catch up. Mysteriously, I found myself in the lead across the intersection, until a climb. This repeated a couple more times, surprising me each time. I felt like I was putting out constant power - the little bit I could manage at that point in the ride. Were the others speeding up for the climbs and then resting on the descents?

In the end we made really good time overall. In fact, my average was half a mile per hour faster than my previous rides over this route - quite a lot in the bike world.

Overall, this was a great ride and a wonderful way to both end the summer and begin autumn.

(post script: 4 days later, my legs are starting to feel recovered.)

Chamois Creams

Chamois creams are handy for controlling chafing, irritation caused by skin rubbing against skin. They can also be used for hot spots between the skin and pants, and are named for this.

(Historically, real leather chamois was used as a pad between the skin and clothing over the saddle. Chamois creams helped keep that leather soft and flexible, while also protecting the rider's skin. An old quick remedy for chafing on the road is a banana peel, which may account for some of the enduring fondness of cyclists for bananas.)

For years I've used the Assos product, and it served me well. Unfortunately, it was recently changed, and I don't like the new version much at all. The old stuff, shown on the left above, was light tan in color and came in a jar with red on the label. It felt just right and was made of natural ingredients. The new version, shown in the center, is light blue and comes in a black and white jar. It's mostly synthetic chemicals by my reading of the label, and isn't as nice. I've also read on the net (for what that's worth) that the new version isn't as good at preventing saddle sores, which comes down to antimicrobial properties. Like the old version, the new one is expensive and found only in bike shops.

While net surfing on the topic, I saw one comment that a couple folks were using Noxema as a chamois cream, and strongly preferred it over the new Assos. I tried it and I'm now in that camp. As with anything affecting your body, try it on a short, non-critical ride first. But after it served me well on Deerfield, I feel comfortable recommending it. It's also around 1/5th the price and available in grocery stores.

I use it at the top crease at the front of my inner thighs, where pedalling can otherwise cause friction.

(If this all sounds like an over-share, this post is partly in response to my quest for advice years ago. I worked up the courage to ask a bike shop staffer I'd spent hours with, and with whom I'd formed a good working relationship. He just mumbled something about checking my saddle adjustment and changed the subject. I hope this post can help someone.)

Blur LT Lower Pivot

I'm a big fan of Santa Cruz engineering. In fact, I think there are several examples of objectively better design than many of their competitors. But I have found an element of this design which makes me worry - though it has not actually failed in any way.

This frame has a bottom linkage which drops down toward the ground when the rear end is not heavily loaded. This means rocks and logs can hit it, and they do. There's a grease port (fitting) for re-greasing the bearings, and it's effectively a hook shape and smacks hard into those rocks. The swingarm is also vulnerable there. I've only ridden it through rock gardens a couple times, and it's already looking a bit rough there. The 'net has several posters who claim no one has actually damaged the grease port, but my luck tends toward things breaking if I think they can.

The top picture is my second attempt to protect this area. (The bike is upside-down.) The bottom pic is au naturel. I've started an email thread with Santa Cruz, including these pics, asking them to address this and to offer a protective plate. (I'm glad I don't have a carbon swingarm.)