Bike Ride to the Berkshires

Our original goal Monday was to ride from Northampton to October Mountain State Forest in Lee, Mass. In all, it was to be a 40-mile trip, a distance we had gone before (Ride to Bookmill). But this was different. This time we were weighed down with a tent, sleeping bag, sleeping mat, clothes, water and food. The high for the day was 95, and the route was hilly. So where our ride to Montague and back took 4 hours, Monday we road for a grueling 7 hours before essentially calling it quits.

We made it to Becket, in the Berkshires, just 6 miles shy of the campsite. We pulled over at the top of a hill, lay down in the grass in the shade of a big tree and tried to estimate how much longer it would take and whether we would make it to see James Taylor at Tanglewood with Lyon’s family. In the end, we talked to Lyon’s dad on the phone and he agreed to come get us. We took two minutes to coast back down a long gradual hill that had taken us half an hour to climb. And at the bottom, we dumped our bikes and our bodies to wait for Lyon’s dad to pick us up.

We had gotten up early so we could ride in the cool morning air for as long as possible. We had one false start which took us to downtown Northampton before I realized a) I’d forgotten my glasses and b) the load on my bike rack was dragging on the back wheel.

Around 9am we took off for real, towards route 66. To be honest, and I think Lyon would agree, the first 8 miles on route 66 were the worst out of the whole trip. The hills were the steepest and longest, and our bodies were all whiny, not realizing yet that this was how it was going to be. We stopped a lot and even dismounted and pushed our bikes up a few hills by foot. I quickly realized that the lowest gear on my 16-speed bike isn’t low enough, so on tough hills, instead of just sitting and spinning my legs as fast as I could, I would have to stand up out of the seat and pump, wasting tons of energy. I’d never had that problem before, but carrying the extra weight changes things.

Thoughts of the Westfield River kept us going. Soon (though not soon enough), we turned off route 66 onto Old County Road, which was shady and narrow and friendly. It turned into a steep, long, zig-zagging hill that took us careening to the bottom so fast that I couldn’t enjoy it like I should have. I kept having visions of my brakes snapping which they didn’t, of course. Once we turned onto 112, we could hear the river water rushing over rocks and we pulled over at the first place we saw. We lifted our bikes over the guardrail to hide them from the road, and stumbled down a little path on jello legs to the river. When we got back on our bikes with our heads wet and our flush faces cooled, we felt like different people.

At the Huntington County Store I rested with our bikes at some picnic tables in the shade while Lyon brought our water bottles in and asked for fresh water, which they graciously gave him. Our next turn was a right on Bromley. And as we coasted down towards route 20, we saw a sign that said the bridge on Old State Highway, where we were headed, was down. We could either take route 20 and be sure to get across the river, or we could take a smaller, shadier route with less traffic and just see what happened when we got to the bridge.

We decided that the “bridge down” sign wasn’t meant for us and opted to take Old State Highway. If we had to, we’d wade across a narrow point in the water with or bikes. Lyon kept making covered wagon references like “ford the river” that I’m sure he learned playing Oregon Trail. When we got to the end of the road, it was completely dead since everyone else had heeded the sign’s warning. So we had no human interference as we figured out how to pass our bikes awkwardly around a pole to get to the other side of the roadblock.

What remained of the bridge was just the foundation, accessible by wooden stairs. Lyon pointed out that workers must walk across it every day (it was empty because of the 4^th of July weekend). So we picked up our bikes and walked across. A short climb up a steep hill, a right onto route 20, and we were at another swimming spot. So we stopped to splash our faces and dip our heads.

Route 20 took us through Chester and as we passed their local hill country store Lyon said, “do you want to stop for Gatorade?” but I had so little momentum going up the hill we were climbing at that point that I yelled “no way!” and we kept going. After we had inched our way up a couple more hills and were resting in the shade (we did this rather frequently), Lyon finished the rest of his water and asked me how much I had left. I had some left in each of my bottles so I figured we’d be okay for a while, but Lyon seemed to know how long it would be until we found another store. At the time I couldn’t imagine it would be that much longer. One thing we did agree on though, was that we couldn’t ride back up those hills, so there was no going back to the Chester hill country store. We kept working our way up a long gradual hill that kept us pumping the entire time. When we got to Wade Inn Road, we said goodbye to the river.

At this point I really didn’t think I could keep going. I realized all of a sudden how hungry I was and I felt all wobbly and weak. I wanted to stop at the intersection with 20 and Wade Inn and have our lunch. But Lyon made me walk up the Wade Inn hill until we at least found shade and big cool rock to sit on. Happily, on many occasions on the trip, when one of us felt down, the other seemed to have a little reserve of energy and optimism that could be tapped into.

Basically, the rest of the trip was uphill. From Wade Inn to Route 8, to Yokum Pond Road

And that’s how we found ourselves at the top of a hill, in someone’s front yard, with a dog barking at us, and the words on the tip of our tongues, about to be blurted into a cell phone, “yeah, we’re done riding. Think you could come get us?”

As we let the day’s ride sink in (and after tallying up how long it had taken us), we went over the things we’d learned and made some quick and well-informed decisions/observations:

1) I totally heart my gladiator sandals. They are black and strappy and pleather. I can wear them with a cute dress, ride my bike in them, or wear them while wading in a river.

2) We need to re-think the bike situation. I don’t have enough speeds, I don’t feel comfortable with my brakes. We both need more racks and tires and Lyon’s brakes aren’t so good either.

3) Extra weight on our bikes changes how you ride and what you can do

4) We are glad we’re leaving in the fall and won’t be riding in 95-degree weather

5) We don’t want to ride 40-miles a day, which is what we would have to do in order to get to Los Angeles in 6-weeks.

6) We are re-thinking the length of the trip

7) Whatever happens, we will still take a bus to Los Angeles to see Hina