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After finishing the drive in to central PA (we left CBus the night before and stopped in Clarion after about 4 hours) and dropping things off at our AirBNB, we headed to Waterville to check out the northern portions of the Keystone Gravelduro route. The event starts at the organizers farm and since the trip came together last minute (we originally planned to go to NC but the weather didn't look great there) I didn't have a chance to reach out and see if he minded us parking there. That, combined with a need to shorten the route to a reasonable half-day distance, meant missing out on the souther portions of the course. As it was, we didn't start riding until after 1pm.
We parked at a very nice lot for the Pine Creek Rail Trail just north of Waterville (note: nice country store and tavern/restaurant in town) and headed south on the trail (which was busy) before turning east to head towards the actual route. Immediately we got our first taste of PA gravel and climbing: long and steady. After heading uphill for 3 or so miles (and discovering that we felt ok having never done an effort like that before) we joined the event route. This is natural resource (gas it seemed mostly) country, and the roads were all in good shape with recent gravel to accommodate the trucks. Thankfully we didn't have to deal with any traffic.
After meandering around the ridge top we descended into Little Pine State Park. This is where we learned another critical lesson for the weekend: we often couldn't descend very quickly due to road conditions (larger rocks), meaning that our average speed plummeted due to chugging along at 4mph on the extended climbs. Our hands also got quite work out from all the braking to control speed when dropping 1000+ feet! We stopped in the state park to eat lunch but kept moving because it was surprisingly cold! We elected to skip the double-track and creek crossing on the east side of the lake but did check out the top of the dam--great views and even some picnic tables.
We headed up the paved road on the west side of the lake for a couple miles, then turned up gravel Schoolhouse Rd, only to be immediately met with a road closed sign. We went for it. Schoolhouse was the second super long climb of the day and did not disappoint. Everything all day was very scenic, though mostly a tunnel of trees without many defining features or wow vistas. The closure turned out to be due to some regrading of the road which meant soft surfaces and tractor tire imprints--tough going! After finishing that climb we elected to skip another section of very overgrown trail (ticks, anyone?) and added some miles to detour around it. No big deal, though, as the roads we took were fantastic hero gravel with a better downhill back to the valley. We hopped on the rail trail again (crushed limestone) and headed back toward Waterville.
At this point it was getting late and we needed to decide if daylight (or a desire to preserve our legs) would force us straight back to the car as there was no way we were finishing the whole route. We decided to keep riding and headed west up the third big climb of the day on Sinking Springs. This was perhaps the steadiest climb all day and I found I enjoyed it. The roads at the top were kind of a let down, though, the first being long and straight through a clearcut section of forest--boring. We got back on to paved roads and with the sun getting lower, decided to forego the remainder of the route (which we believed only had one gravel road left, and it would've been a downhill of unknown quality) and instead bomb back down to the car on PA-44. What fun! I've never done a descent like that where I never touched the brakes for miles and we probably averaged 25-30mph. We also didn't have a single car pass us!
Not an entirely successful first day, but overall quite good riding and we learned what the terrain would be like for the next two days. After shower beers we walked through downtown Lock Haven to pick a place to replenish calories. We were surprised to have many good options and ended up at a local bar/grill that had an entire menu section of Mac N Cheese! Cajun style for me, buffalo chicken for Dad.
Unfortunately as soon as we started riding I had noticed that my back brake was tremendously weak. I got through the day but decided I wanted to try to improve it before the rest of the weekend. Since I had done Pelotonia and another ride recently without issue, I assume it was contamination of the rotor on my gravel wheels, which hadn't been ridden for awhile. So off we headed to Walmart to pickup brake cleaner and sandpaper. After cleaning/sanding the rotor and pads, things were not better, maybe even worse. It seemed that with no amount of tinkering could I get strong engagement; there was so much slack before the pads hit the rotor. I assumed that sanding things had created that much more of a gap and that low fluid or some other issue was not allowing the caliper to make up for it. I tried putting in new pads, but these were actually too tight (rubbing) until I manually forced the pistons all the way back in, but that made things too loose again. Argh! Even with the pistons "pre-set" and the pads rubbing, I still couldn't get any force or real movement from the pistons. At this point I was convinced it had to be a fluid or piston issue and resigned myself to taking the bike to the local shop in the morning. We had walked past and it looked decent. They didn't open until 10, though, which would threaten the day's big ride plans. We didn't feel we had any other option, though. We got to the shop before opening and were let in--yay! Things quickly went south, though, when the only guy working said he'd never (NEVER) worked on hydraulic brakes. Ok.... his only advice was to go to State College for another shop. Thank goodness for Google. I busted out my phone and found a shop near where we were supposed to ride on Sunday, so we headed there thinking we would ride that route on Saturday instead and figure out Sunday later. After 45 minutes of driving Google sent us down a country road to find the shop (again, pictures online looked decent) and my heart sank again when we pulled up to a quaint farm. Sure enough, bike shop was in the back. Not thinking this held much hope, boy was I wrong. The shop (Brookside Bikes) was fantastic. Who would've guessed, on a farm in the heart of PA Amish country, they got me up and running in no time (apparently only an adjustment, no fluid needed; I was off talking maps and routes with the other owner so I don't know what he actually did). Dad and I decided at this point to head back to the originally planned route, since there was no way we could do it on Sunday, considering we had to leave at a decent time to also drive home that day. Another 45 minutes of driving and we were looking at yet another 1pm ride start.
By: | Eric Tippett |
Started in: | Lycoming County, PA, US |
Distance: | 42.6 mi |
Selected: | 42.6 mi |
Elevation: | + 4547 / - 4506 ft |
Moving Time: | 04:07:12 |
Page Views: | 534 |
Departed: | Aug 23, 2019, 12:56 pm |
Starts in: | Lycoming County, PA, US |
Distance: | 42.6 mi |
Selected distance: | 42.6 mi |
Elevation: | + 4547 / - 4506 ft |
Max Grade: | |
Avg Grade | |
Cat | |
FIETS | |
VAM | |
Ascent time | |
Descent time | |
Total Duration: | 05:19:38 |
Selection Duration: | 19178 |
Moving Time: | 04:07:12 |
Selection Moving Time: | 04:07:12 |
Stopped Time: | 01:12:26 |
Calories: | 3510 |
Max Watts: | |
Avg Watts: | 239 |
WR Power | |
Work | |
Max Speed: | 33.8 mph |
Avg Speed: | 10.3 mph |
Pace: | 00:07:30 |
Moving Pace: | 00:05:48 |
Max Cadence: | 151 rpm |
Min Cadence: | 10 rpm |
Avg Cadence: | 66 rpm |
Max HR: | 254 bpm |
Min HR: | 80 bpm |
Avg HR: | 150 bpm |
Heartrate zones: | |
Zone 1: | 15 minutes |
Zone 2: | 18 minutes |
Zone 3: | 27 minutes |
Zone 4: | 56 minutes |
Zone 5: | 1 hour 5 minutes |
Best format for turn-by-turn directions on modern Garmin Edge Devices
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Useful for any GPS unit. Contains no cuesheet entries, only track information (breadcrumb trail). Will provide turn by turn directions (true navigation) on the Edge 705/800/810/1000/Touring, but will not have any custom cues. Works great for Mio Cyclo. Find GPS specific help in our help system.
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