Finally got around to scouting out a portion of a 100K gravel route I created a couple of years ago. I drove most of the route in an SUV back then, but never took to tackling it on a bike. Today was a feasibility test of the first segment of the route out to Lucille's restaurant. Afterward, we would retrace the route back to the Batsto State Park start. I summoned friend Bill C to join me as he is experienced with MTB riding as well as gravel riding. He is also familiar with many areas of the Batsto park. Spoiler alert: after riding the route, I nixed any notion of using these road sections for a Randonneuring permanent. Today may have been close to as ideal conditions as one might get on these roads and yet there were sections of soft sand that just were too squirmy to be riding in. On a worse day, it would not be fun. Having said that, I did not have the ideal bike set up for the conditions. I was running 38mm tires, but they are without knobby tread. I was able to rip through the gravel sections with little fanfare, but when hitting the soft sand it would have been useful to have had a boat rudder as I was all over the place looking for a firm line through. But it was a joy to be out on a nice day in the scenic pines with a friend. Any ideas of riding again would have to be with different tires.