Reason #1 = Exploration

Today I went on an amazing ride I've never tackled before. It was an exploration. With a little help from Google Maps and some guesses as to where it would be fun to ride, I was off.

In March, when it was still very much winter, I had managed to explore almost all of the dirt roads that weave in and out of Shrewsbury, VT. But now as I return in May, there's opportunity to go into areas that are the domain of cross-country skis and snowmobiles during the winter.



So I took a ride up the Old Plymouth Road that crosses over from North Shrewsbury to Route 100 between several mountain ranges. The road starts off as a tidy dirt road and then becomes a tidy snowmobile track before completely breaking down into the kind of muddy, rutted, rocky, sloppy road I look for.

It tames out a bit towards the end before dumping you alongside the Bear Creek Ski Club, a small little "exclusive" mountain with a single lift servicing a number of pretty good looking trails. I know it's only because it is nearly summer, but the "ghost town" look of this posh ski club made me feel that perhaps the party's over for the kind of people who can afford to be members of such a club.


Riding along Route 100 is a little boring, especially with an under-geared single speed, but it gave me plenty of time to exercise patience. Moving as slowly as I was, I also had some time to notice something pretty weird:


Perhaps you can't see it clearly from this wider picture, but this is a culvert allowing stormwater to run underneath someone's driveway. It is made of pieces of old marble, one of which is clearly from a gravestone:


Now I am all for recycling, but for the sake of discreetness, wouldn't you at least place this reclaimed rock face down? What's really strange here is that this is not even that old a stone; the former bearer died just over fifty years ago. Is someone robbing gravestones to make culverts? I suspect not, and my guess is that this is not actually someone's gravestone, but a "second" that never made it to the grave it was intended for. Of course I have no real idea of how this stone came to sit in this culvert...

After the flat monotony of Route 100 my reward came as I headed up the Dublin Road and onto Patch Brook Road. Patch Brook Road is this amazingly picturesque dirt road that winds along a glorious river. Roads that follow rivers are often pleasant to follow because in general the paths rivers take are moderate in grade, and the Patch Brook Road is a perfect pitch for my single speed, a gloriously smooth and relaxing climb.


Another aspect I like about the Patch Brook Road is that it used to be paved with asphalt who knows how long ago. Obviously whatever town or county agency is responsible for maintaining it decided that this asphalt was a little unnecessary for a road with no houses on it that connects the back end of two remote areas, so the asphalt was left to disintegrate. There's something very comforting about the way that the forest has reclaimed this road, slowly swallowing up the asphalt until it is almost unnoticeable.


This ride finishes up by Lake Ninevah, where I take my usual roads up and down and back to Shrewsbury. I have been riding this section all week, and every time I get stopped by at least one of the rocky river beds that barely pass for a road. This time, at least twenty-five miles into my ride, I cleared every section.

Interested in trying this ride? It is mapped here:

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