RideTheLightning

A Walk in The Woods.

sunset.

If someone were to have asked us way back in Montana sometime, how we envisioned crossing into the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I can assure you that no Lightning member would have predicted Thursday evening’s scenario. Even as of late Thursday afternoon, we had no idea we would find ourselves ankle deep in mud, miles from the highway, pushing our bikes up a path all but lost in the woods. Then again, if there is anything this trip has taught us, it’s that anything can happen. That, and it’s going to rain. 

We have to back up a bit to get the whole story in. About 4:30 we were parked at an Elementary school just short West Lebanon, NY, looking over the remaining 20 miles of our ride. It was hot. We were tired. One route, the one derived from the “map”, formed a large triangle that led us South through Lebanon, NY  before jogging back North towards our final destination in Pittsfeild, MA. The other route was a nice  purple line on BJ’s iphone heading perfectly East to West. We needed only to make a few turns on some country roads and we would surely cut off some 5 or 6 miles. Fantastic. Let’s go for it.

By the first turn we were already grumbling. Grumbling is par for the course out here on the road though and so long as we were all in agreement we figured why not. Let’s go for it.

The second turn brought more bad news, two roads, one unmarked, both bearing the warning “Dead End’. No matter, it’s probably just a blockade for car traffic, we’ll go around and have the road to ourselves. Go for it. We even stopped to ask a father and son pulling out of their driveway. They smiled recognizing our mistake,

‘Oh yeah, that road hasn’t been there for 30 or 40 years, sometimes it shows up on people’s GPS and they have come back down.’ But, they promised us, “There is a path, I bet it would be okay on bicycles…go for it.’ 

So we did. Up Old Mtn Rd, passed the culvert, the no trespassing sign and, very quickly, the pavement. We had done gravel, what’s a little low gear trail riding. Go for it.

About 1/2 mile in we were pushing our bikes. The trail had proved too steep and too a rocky for our slick tires and 70 pound bicycles, but there were fresh ATV tracks and we were bound and determined to have our shortcut. 

The local advice we got promised the trail was no more than 3 or 4 miles.  We alternated between pushing, dragging and some nimble coasting were able to do at least 3 pretty easily. Still, no sign of the otherside and Pittsfield. Cue thunder, lightning and driving rain. Yup, the “road” we were following leveled in the bottom of the valley just as the menacing clouds that had been chasing us all day decided to let loose. It poured. And as we sloshed along in drenching rain and near darkness our trusty trail decided to fork in three different directions. All with their own logical explanations: East, down and the most well travelled. 

We stood for a  few fateful moments (just a few) and recited Survivor Man mantras and made mental preparations for how and where we would camp in the woods. Really, we would have been fine. We had the gear, the food, and the dry clothes stuffed away, but it’s hard to not flash through worse case scenarios. 

We eventually tried all the options. The first of which we actually tried twice, the second time continuing on far enough to learn it was actually the correct way.

The storm broke and we caught the sunset that opens this post. Spirits were restored. The road out grew to resemble something a little more traversable and we wound down the hill out onto pavement again. And then there on the side of the road, Lebanon, NY. We’d flubbed our shortcut somehow. Either the road didn’t go through, or, more likely, we’d taken a goat path that wasn’t the iphone road at all. Oh well. We were out and now completely soaked, muddied and half devoured by mosquitos we peddled the final couple hundred yards up highway 20 to cross over the state line into Massachusetts.