Eastern Bloc Cycling Club
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4th Annual Sugarhouse Scramble - April 4
Ride Postponed until further notice. See reply below.
One of the first signs of Spring for me is going to the sugar house for pancakes and fresh maple syrup. I wanted to do a gravel ride that combines my love for syrup with the enjoyment of riding on our local dirt roads so I came up with this ride that will do the trick! Now in the fourth year, we've definitely experienced early Spring weather with snow-covered roads plaguing the rides, but riders persevered and dare I say, even enjoyed the experience!
Last year's ride was plagued by poor weather and on the day that it did happen we encountered snow on some of the roads just to make things interesting! A good time was had by all and we plan to do it again this year, but with less hiking through snow!
The plan is to leave Berg Field (East Hartland) at 9am and ride to Maple Corner Farm where we will stop and have a pancake or any of their other delicious goodies. From there we will take a pretty direct route back to the starting point, all fueled up on maple-y goodness!
The route can be found here: Click Here
This route contains ~16 miles of dirt roads in five sections over the 29 miles total. Expect riding times to be between 2 and 2.5 hours as the pace should be "early season". This is a no-drop ride. (I figured I'd mention that even though the stopping for pancakes part might have made it obvious!)
Bikes with 32c or greater tires will be best suited for the terrain as some of the roads are fairly rough from the winter "maintenance". There is one long stretch of pavement, ~6 miles, that might make a MTB work harder, but I wouldn't be afraid to bring the big bike if that is all you have available. I've ridden this route with 30c slicks and on my full suspension MTB so it is totally passable with just about any equipment.
In the event of a rain/snow event the following day, Sunday the 5th is the rain date for the ride. Any cancellations will be posted here as far ahead of time as possible.
If you are planning to attend the ride please either let me know here or via email (snoskier16@gmail.com) so that I can let Maple Corner Farm about how many of us to expect. We don't have a cap on the number of riders, but I just want to give them a head's up to be able to plan for the group.
As you probably had assumed, we have to postpone the ride until later in the season.
Since Maple Corner Farm will not be serving breakfast at that point, we'll change things up a bit and after the ride we will serve pancakes and syrup at our house. We've made about 20 gallons of syrup this year so we should have enough for the ride!
I'll post again when we are ready to host the ride. Thanks!
Sounds great! Be well!