Audax Vermont: February 2012

Ok... it has been a while. Obviously the Tour Divide followup will be a long time coming. Meanwhile - I gotta kick some life back into this web log. It has been a miserable winter for a snowboarder and even worse for an ultra endurance Nordic skier. I quickly put aside my dreams of skiing Canadian Ski Marathon as a silver level skier. Instead I've been going through old ride notes and planning the 2012 cycling season.

I came across this little email exchange with Dave Blumenthal. He and I both worked on this training route for the Tour divide. We never got a chance to ride it together... in fact when we did ride it, his opinion was to ride it counter clockwise - while I went the other way around. I have since done some variations of this ride with local trail guru Carl D as well my dear ol' 650b pal Randy. It hurts not to be able to ever do this ride with Dave B, but I am eventually beginning to understand that reality. I also know that he isn't going to be an easy friend to replace ... it has been 2 1/2 years now :(

The smooth section of Taylor Valley Rd.

David E. Tremblay wrote: I did it... I did the Washington 47 today - Clockwise. It was great. I started a Woodchuck Hollow - saw that the first geocache wasn't even on the fun part of the road and decided not to bother and tried to get down to business. Dead camera battery helped. I shot straight across Woodchuck Hollow - if riding in a group it would be nice to have the first person stop and give the all clear sign as this is quite the gravity dip. Threshold Rd -is perfect. I took a picture of two pumpkins sitting in the river by the old mill on Gristmill rd. Magoon Rd was nice - got chased by a dog up the hill - but not too bad as it was a dachshund (named Coco) the last bit looks like someone's driveway but isn't, trail goes to right of their house. Rowell made the trip down to Vershire worth it. Got a flat going too fast down Taylor Valley - ripped a hole in the tire tread and lost pressure so fast bead came off rim. I could not get the valve stem nut loose. Cut it from inside then filed it with swiss army knife. 30 min operation - my pump got about 25 psi in the tire. realized I did not have patch kit or another tube. decided to ride very gingerly the rest of the way. Skipped Holt hill and took a right onto County to Jenkins. Cows in the road at Braman Farm on Doyle Rd - beautiful. Too dark to see left off Doyle onto Sky Acres. My gps indicator arrow was moving sideways to my motion, and it was dark and the map showed more roads than there were. Seemed like I was suppose to turn near abandoned camper and I was trying to figure it out when this lurking man stepped out of the shadow of the dark camper with another lurking figure behind him. He gave me bad directions so I went up the driveway instead of the road. Asked directions at the house at the top of the hill and they let me cut through their hay field to Sky acres. Almost popped down rt 110 but took Richardson to see what the fuss was about. Had to walk to the top of the hill. Poor Farm to the right is nothing special. Not sure if that section is worth it or if we could change this a bit. So: 47 miles in 4:24 of riding, plus 1:26 stopped with 8mph avg speed total. Elevation 3291up 2550 down ? Something is wrong with the elevation... nowhere near your 9,000. lessons: patchkit - always turn valve nut into real nut - bring tool to remove, use a real tubeless rim could use more light

Local politics.

From DaveB:

Cool!I merged our data to create the attached: 50.5 miles. 7300-7900' gain, depending on what you look at. Also edited the waypoints to make them good for either direction.I understand why you had trouble at Doyle by the camper. Clockwise, you go around the turn by the camper, go maybe 50', then left uphill on a left track. 50' more uphill, then bear left again to stay on leafy track. The attached file has the "correct" way, I also added some clarifying waypoints there. With adequate light you wouldn't have a problem. Certainly going the other direction its more clear Braman Farm is very cool, reminded me a lot of the farms we hiked through in Austria: http://www.studiozoic.com/adventures/2007/almenweg/index.htmThe only part of the route I'm not that thrilled about is the long road bit through Chelsea. However, after looking at the maps and quads, I don't really see that there is an alternative. I'd call it good.How did you patch the tire? I have some Park Took tire boots, some kind of self adhesive thing, never used one. I understand the nut issue. What if instead of some kind of hex nut you filed a z-axis groove or two in the nut so that you could spin it with a straight blade screwdriver? Already have that tool in the kit probably.One of us should put a cache on the County-Quarry link....Dave