Dutch Grinder

I love a good spring gravel ride. In Louisiana we had the the Rouge Roubaix and after relocating to NY about a year ago I missed the challenge of a really hard spring ride. I chartered a course on a winter night and shared it with Nate, a friend of mine that I have ridden with a few times since moving back up to ny. 70 miles. 6000 feet of climbing. We both thought it was crazy, but maybe do-able. I kept playing with the route on Strava and eventually it ended up 106 miles with 12,000 feet of climbing. There. That should do it.

Nate realized that we def. Might be in over our heads. Neither of us were remotely familiar with the route. Neither of us were in decent shape. He reached out to two top riders and asked if they wanted to join us, Rob Murray and Justin Cummings. Luckily both accepted the invitation.

We loaded up the course on to our Garmins and headed out at 6:30 am. The first thing Rob said was “Treadlemire?! Are you mad?!” I told him it looked great on google maps. He was a little skeptical of this whole ordeal. Genuinely, I had no idea what we were in store for.

The first climb of the day was Crawford, a 1,000ft, Cat 3 climb out of the Mohawk river valley. Next up was Sterling, a 533ft, Cat 3 climb that has a nasty 20%+ section that is brutal. The legs started to burn a bit and we were only 20 miles in to our adventure.

We turned on to Reynolds road and we realized a problem that was bigger than the hills we were climbing -- the gravel roads still had snow on them. Shit. We Dismounted. Walked through the ice and snow drifts. This is going to take for ever.

We headed down to Altamont, Justin, in his infinite wisdom, said he had enough and peeled off to head home. Nate, Rob and I continued on. Next up was the Rt 146 climb up to Thatcher park, a 931 ft Cat 3 climb. We muscled up it slowly, but it wasnt so bad. We can do this.

As we headed west from Thatcher Park, we entered in to the area that i had no experience in and immediately my Garmin started to flake out. We now had a new problem, where the hell are we and where are we going? Luckily Nates Garmin seemed to still have a signal. So we kept on trucking.

We hit Filkins Hill a 475ft cat 4 climb, a deceptively steep little sucker. I think it was gravel.. I’m not sure. Nate started to show display his climbing skills and I started to showcase how out of shape I was. I was starting to feel it. Rob and Nate waited up for me.

We continued to Woodstock Road, which was pretty much completely covered in snow. Alone, in the woods, in the absolute middle of nowhere we walked, one legged it, and eventually got through to a section that was dry enough to ride. That's where I immediately got a flat, and Nate’s garmin lost service. There was no cell service. It was quite a surreal moment. It’s not that often that you find yourself completely lost and disconnected.

Rob seemed not to worried all things considered..I was mulling over in my head how to find the closest town to get a cab to get home. But we just kept on going. Rob seemed to know where to go. He led us to the foot of Sickle hill, a 800ft Cat 3 climb. He warned us that it was doozy.. And it was. Nate again flew up it, Rob waited up for me, and i just kept trying to keep moving forward. I couldn’t have been pushing more than a 50 cadence grinding up it. At this point. I was out of matches with 50 miles to go.

We continued to Booky-Possum hill, a 843ft Cat 3 gravel climb. Ouch. Then we hit the infamous Treadlemire Road. Luckily we were riding down it. It was still covered in snow and even walking down it was difficult. This hill is an absolute monster. I can’t imagine riding up the thing with anything other than a mountain bike.

At this point, i was completely cooked. I asked Rob to just get us back, as quickly as possible with as little climbing as possible. Screw the route. Screw the 12,000ft of climbing. Nate and Rob were talking, but i was in stuck in bonk city. 8 hours after we started I was home. Nate continued on to Blatnick hill to try to get 10k feet of climbing total for the ride. What a nut.