http://www.franklinlandtrust.org/d2r2_cue_sheets.htm
The Deerfield Dirt-Road Randonnee was conceived in the 1990's as just a favorite dirt-road loop in the hilltowns of Franklin County, Massachusetts. Since its birth as an organized event in 2005, many have hailed D2R2 as the hardest, most beautiful, most fun, most traffic-free, most unique, and overall best ride that they have ever done. However, D2R2 will continue to maintain its original character as just a bike ride –

The courses will use the narrowest, oldest, twistiest, quietest, and most-scenic roads available.
A range of courses will provide access to novices as well as challenge the world's strongest riders.
D2R2 will never offer prizes for anything other than gags, nor will finish results ever be presented like it was a race.
Riders shall cover the course in a self-sufficient manner, without motorized crew vehicles.
The organization will put as much effort into its food offerings as it does the ride itself.
The event is a key fundraiser for the Land Trust's efforts to preserve land in the region, but the route sheets will always be available on its website for free.

D2R2 2016

I’ve been planning on doing this ride all year, I enjoyed this the last time I did it in 2012, and I haven’t had a chance to do it since. Last time I did what turned into a 100 mile ride, and this year I heard that the 100k ride is a great ride and still equally challenging, just less total time in the saddle.

In the intervening four years this event has grown from a few hundred foolhardy souls playing bikes in the dirt en route to drink beer to a much larger and more serious event more than 1,200 cyclists five different events (not including the family ride), and the diversity of rides has definitely increased, from the brand new carbon disc brake gravel racer to custom Grant Peterson fever-dream retro steel works-of-art randonneurs and random cludge-bikes bearing random collections of parts seemingly optimized for nothing other than riding for an Orange Julius at the local mall. One of the great things about D2R2 is seeing the variety of bikes spread out on the grass and leaned against each other around the central tent. Probably a few million dollars worth of rolling stock just laying about. 

Part of the expansion has moved the main tent from the same field as the campers to a whole different field 100 meters down the road and increasing the ground that one just rides around to just get where one wants to be. I got to the camping area a little after 7 on Friday evening, aware that the sun set at 7:45, I quickly got to work parking, setting up my tent and sleeping arrangements sorted out before it was too dark. I was settled in and wandered over to the main tent to grab a beer and some food and settled in to hang out by the bonfire. I didn’t last long because I knew the next day was going to be big, so I rode back over to my tent and settled in for the night. Of course I would love to say I rested and then awoke early ready for the ride, but that would be too easy.

Around 11 I awoke to a group of French Canadians who had pulled into the spot next to mine and started a discussion about setting up their tents which should have taken all of about 5 minutes but took them over 30 minutes to get all their crap sorted out and settled in, while giving a running commentary in French. I don’t know what it is about people pulling into a campground late but they always seem to assume that the tents are empty so they can be as loud as they want. Another hour later it started raining, so I had to rush to setup my rainfly in the dark, which I had neglected because the forecast had a 0% chance of rain for the next 48 hours, and finally settled in for a few fitful hours of sleep before a very early start.

5AM rolled around and I could hear people moving around and getting ready for their ride. Most of the 180k riders strike out around 6AM since they’re going to spend up to 12 hours in the saddle, they need to get an earlier start. I rolled over and closed my eyes pretending to sleep in for a little longer. I finally rolled out and got dressed to ride, and had some breakfast just as the sun was starting to peek out over the hills just to the east of us.

I rolled out a little before 8AM and started on my merry way for the 100k version of this thinking maybe I should have left earlier and done the 160k, but once I queued up the Garmin and turned south instead of north from the start my fate was sealed. No sooner had I rolled out that things started going sideways. Apparently late on Friday night the organizers had been alerted to an issue with the GPX file that took riders in reverse of the course for several miles (since the course crosses over at one point and actually covers the same road for a short while), I turned where the Garmin said it was and another rider shouted “100k this way” where she let me know of the GPS error. My Garmin said the ever helpful “Off Course” and I realized I was going to have to rely on cue sheets.

A little cue sheet digression. I normally can read and follow a cue sheet, but not the cue sheets for D2R2 which feature cryptic directions like “LEFT at hilltop, at yellow farmer-on-tractor sign!” the ever helpful “Bear LEFT at rock walls (other ways are jeep tracks)” because there aren’t a million miles of rock walls in New England, which 10 rock wall that I passed in the past 2 miles do I bear left at Sandy? Or the slightly terrifying for a steep rocky downhill section “Caution, livestock often in road next 0.5 mile”, just what I need to plow into a 1200lb heifer halfway down a rocky rutted descent.

I pulled the cue sheet out and started to pretend like I knew how to navigate. The good news was the next section was all uphill, and I quickly gained on a group that was far more prepared than I and also collected four more folks who I would end up riding with the rest of the way. Keven, Bruce, Nathaniel and Matt would be my riding companions for the remainder of D2R2. They were all from MA, and had done this route before so there was some historical knowledge as well as the combinations of multiple GPS devices meant we might not get totally lost.

The good thing about this group was I was comfortably in the middle in terms of climbing ability with the rest of the group, and definitely working well on the few sections of flatter pavement to keep the group moving at a brisk-ish pace. We didn’t dilly dally but we waited to regroup at some major intersections (mostly just to ensure we had the right turn figured out), Our GPS would alternate being on course and off at times mostly based on access to satellite signal, so sometime navigation was a three out of five throw of the dice. Which seemed to work for the most part.

About 20 miles, as we begin to descend down a roller in I hear a scary pinging rattling from my rear wheel. I had broken a spoke. Granted these wheels are 7 years old wheels on my cyclocross bike that I have invested zero dollars or time in maintaining. They have remained relatively true and round despite the amount of times I’ve slammed them into immovable objects or had other riders insensitively put things like their bikes or body parts into these wheels. Eventually that abuse catches up to you. I now had a wheel with a serious wobble and 40 miles of tough climbing and descending ahead of me! Thankfully Matt had a spoke wrench and I set about tightening the two adjacent spokes in order to pull the wheel back into some semblance of rideability. I am glad I didn’t have to bash the rim with a rock to straighten it out, and I decided to take it easier on the descents from then on and make sure I avoided the more gnarly bits of road.

Of course the next almost 7 miles is dirt with some of the more extreme descending we’ve had to do so far. It was definitely exciting, picking lines trying to find smoother parts of the road while praying my rear wheel didn’t fold up like a taco as I leaned into a turn. I made sure to give others a wide berth on descents because I didn’t want my mishap to cause them to go down with me.

The wheel survived until lunch, and through the fun and steady descent down the Green River Road, before we turned a hairpin onto Nelson Road and started a series of climbs which would culminate in a one mile steep stair-step climb in the full sun up to Apex Orchards and a beautiful view east toward Boston, and a stop with an absolutely divine peach. It was really starting to get warm and for some reason I was dumping plenty of fluids into my system and I was sweating but I was slowly going into deficit because of the heat, and we had another 12 or so miles to complete, so we quickly refilled bottles and got rolling again for the last section of climbing before what promised to be a white knuckle descent down Hawk’s Road, we were having more and more GPS issues getting into signal shadows all over the road, we eventually missed an important turn and ended up at the end of a road, that was just at somebody’s farm. Matt insisted we were in the right place and started scouting the gravel bit ahead, claiming he saw bike tire tracks. We started making nervous jokes about getting shot because we were going up a farm road, rather than a town or county road. One would have assumed to see some tire tracks and the but no, it was downed tree limbs, and rutted rocky tracks. Good CX practice, but not normally practiced in the last quarter of a 60 mile ride. We could see a course on the other side of the ridge but our current location meant we had to climb straight up the truck tracks along the side of the hay field and around the rock wall that took up to the top of the ridge and a service road for a cellular tower site, a few minutes of left or right, orienteering and a few scouting forays we determined it was to the left and we popped out on somebody’s paved driveway from where we could see a road with power lines following it, and presumed it put us back on the route.

Now was the last stretch of descending which was supposed to be on Hawks road but ended up descending old Albany Road which was a road we had our first significant ascent, and it was way worse on the way down, steep, loose, rutted and downright frightening as I was not sure I could stop without going into a skid and losing control. All the while the missing spoke was filling a bigger and bigger space in my mind as I imagined all sorts of varieties of catastrophe as i bumped down this hill barely in control of the bicycle. The road flattened out and turned to pavement and I released my death grip and pulled my shoulders down from my ears. Now was the last 4 miles on relatively flat pavement, and we started winding it up, as we all knew that beer was near. We rotated for short pulls into the headwind and made the final turn onto the finishing straight and if it wasn’t for traffic actual car traffic we might have wound it up for a sprint but discretion was the order of the day and we rolled in to finish.

I didn’t know it beforehand but we were apparently timed, and I didn’t realize it but I rolled in top 30 out of more than 330 finisher for the 100k ride. Like all good mass participation things, I also can make myself feel better because I finished 9th for dudes 40-49 years old. Which considering I wasn’t really going for time I think that isn’t too bad (if I wanted to time it we wouldn’t have stopped for lunch but would have just eaten while rolling down Green River Road). My chip time was 5:35:55 and a spritely 11 MPH, which considering the amount of climbing and the descents are not the kind where you can open it up and just let it go, I feel like that was a good pace. We enjoyed a beer together to celebrate the end of the ride and the fact that we all stayed upright.

Apparently the first finisher was Pamela Robichaud who severely sprained her ankle four weeks ago and apparently rode a time of 3:24 which would require a shocking 16.5 MPH. Not that I doubt people associated with Scratch Labs but I swear I saw her still in her boot on Friday night walking her dog around the campsite. The next closest finishers are almost an hour and a half behind her time at 4:49, which puts them in a more reasonable 11.7 MPH average speed.

Brendan Rigby said:

I am excited about this, not committing yet though.  Which distance would you want to do?  I'm thinking of going all in on the 180k?