1speed
Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
I need a better name for this ride.
It's funny how the evolution of an idea can take it in a completely different directions than initially planned. A few years ago, I was accidentally introduced to the Green Ribbon Trail (GRT) by a friend of mine. It's perhaps one of the most unique biking experiences I've encountered over the years: it's a trail that runs from the suburbs above Philadelphia down to the edge the city itself, and it passes through neighborhoods and business areas, quite literally. There are sections of the trail that snakes through the narrow space between backyards in very typical neighborhoods. It's not a challenging trail in any way, but it is very interesting because it's like someone decided through sheer force of will to impose a recreational wooded trail on an area that really had virtually no room for it.
At any rate, the GRT planted the seed of an idea in my usually barren head and over time that small idea evolved into a plan to hit the three major trail systems that are closest to my home in one day. It would be a massive ride that started out on roads from my home in Lansdale up to Green Lane to ride the trails there and then head toward Philly along first the Perkiomen trail and then the Schuylkill River Trail (SRT) to Belmont Plateau, and then on to Wissahickon before completing the loop on the GRT to get home. In laying it out, I estimated that it would be a pretty big day all told -- about 135 miles of road, singletrack and gravel. So I set out to do it for the first time in 2015. That first time met with some problems late in the day and I had to forgo a portion of Wiss to get my bike fixed at Wissahickon Cyclery so I could make it home. But other than that one small adjustment, the ride overall was a success.
But even then, on that first trip along what I called "The Philly Big Friggin' Loop" after similar rides that had been created out west, I noticed something that I knew eventually I'd have to address. Without even leaving the trail, or at worst going perhaps a block off the route, I noticed that there were several breweries along the way: Appalachian on the Perk Trail in Collegeville, Conshohocken and Manayunk on the SRT in their respective towns, Forrest & Main in Ambler (just a block off the route at Butler Pike) and (at the time) the trail ended right where Prism's original location was. Just up the road from that in Lansdale, I knew there was Round Guys just a couple miles from my house. And so, in 2016, I decided to make a go of what might be the longest, dumbest and dirtiest pub crawl anywhere. I didn't plan much in the way of logistics that time, and quickly realized I'd need to do some fine tuning if I wanted this to work out. For one thing, Appalachian had to be crossed off the list because they changed their hours a few weeks before I did the ride, only opening at 4 pm on Saturdays. So I had to bypass the first location, which wasn't too big a deal since I would have had to sit and wait for them to open anyway since I hit Collegeville a full 45 minutes before their previous opening time of 11. But that was one brewery down and I didn't hit anything until Conshohocken, about 75 miles into the day. Then, Manayunk was only 20 minutes further down the SRT, and I may be Irish with all the boozy goodness that implies, but two full pints minutes before starting Belmont Plateau with all it's gut shaking log-overs was not "ideal" by any measurement.
But the ride overall was once again a success and I knew even then that I'd be doing it again a year later. The one smart thing I did (if anything associated with riding a SS for 13+ hours on challenging trail systems while periodically ingesting pints of microbrews could be called "smart") was that I did all this on the weekend closest to the solstice. And so I planned for it again this year on the same weekend.
The onward march of local brew progress necessitated a few changes, though: for one, Prism moved to a new location about a mile up the road, but that was no big deal since it was still more or less on route. Second, a new player emerged just this year when Wissahickon Brewing opened just a block off Ridge Ave at the end of the Spaghetti Bowl section of Wiss. This gave me an opportunity to reshuffle the deck in a way that made the whole ride "smoother": my ride would stay the same up to the point I enter Philly, and then I'd hit Belmont before doubling back to hit Manayunk Brewing, then I'd head over and ride Wiss before finishing my Philly area with Wissahickon Brewing and then heading toward Ambler on the GRT. All in all, an excellent plan.
So even though I'd had a fairly uneven spring so far, between health issues and bike issues, my only thought going into the weekend was how great a time I'd have riding 150 miles on a (slightly pre-)summer weekend. (The added mileage was for a few trail changes in Belmont, and the whole doubling back thing - laying it out, I think it came to 148 on paper.) With an excellent resolve to ride and imbibe all day long, I set out from my house at 6 am confident in my plan.
Just *one* small thing I failed to account for ...
Hiding out from biblical rains in Wissahickon
A buddy of mine met up with me in green Lane to ride the trail there at around 7:15. I knew I was a bit over-geared for the more challenging areas of GL and Wiss at 34:18, but knowing that a lot of miles in this thing are on flat gravel and paved trails, I think the bigger gear was a good choice overall. I had some issues dropping the chain early on, which seems to happen on my Sir9 anymore anytime I run a cog smaller than 20t (perhaps because my 19t and 18t cogs are worn out? Not sure.) but I managed those issues okay and they largely stopped altogether after GL. The first rain started when we hit the Perk Trail and it was a downpour, but more like one of those spring downpours where it doesn't feel like buckets of water, just a constant soaking. That eventually cleared up after my buddy turned around and I spent most of the rest of the Perk trail snaking around big puddles. The SRT was dry as a bone, though, and I made up time there with a nice 15 mph pace for 20+ miles, reaching Conshohocken shortly after 11:30. One blonde pint later and I was on my way ...
In all, I have six photos almost exactly like this one, so to avoid repetition, just picture this with slightly different backgrounds a bunch of times, and me looking dirtier and wetter each time ...
The folks at Conshy (and in fact at every stop I made all day) welcomed me like a conquering hero when I told them what I was doing. No one said it sounded like a really stupid idea or look at me like I needed counseling. Beer people just get it, you know?
After Conshy, I headed downt he rest of the SRT to Belmont. As a few folks on the board know well, Belmont Plateau is kind of famous for a certain trail feature ...
Log-overs at Belmont are the real deal ...
Just like last year, there was Philly Carnival, a Caribbean Music Festival, going on on Chamounix Dr in Belmont. It's basically an ear-splitting cacophony of bands playing on the back of trucks rolling through the park. You can hear it for miles away. I'm all for a good party, but I'm amazed the entire city doesn't go deaf when that thing is going on.
I was a bit worn out finishing Belmont, and was happy for my second beer stop at Manayunk. I down a hoppy Wit and headed over the Wiss. And that's when the day went form shizophrenic sun, clouds and a little rain to one angry, vicious flooding downpour. After I finished one whole side of the park, the rain started falling so heavily that I couldn't see and it felt like it got 20 degrees colder in minutes. I made a beeline for the stables and hid under cover for the storm to pass with a bunch of runners and hikers doing the same. It took over a half hour for the rain to stop, and when it did I realized singletrack portion of the day was over: Wiss was ompletely flooded out.
Northwestern Ave at one end of Wissahickon ...
I also realized that the GRT was now out of the question altogether -- that trail sits in a flood zone and so it's bad whenever there is any rain. Rain like what we had around 5 on Saturday would have made it impossible to get through. Reluctantly, I realized it would be a road ride home. That meant less miles, but if I tried to continue on trail, I'd probably have destroyed my bike and myself. So the road it would be.
But first, I had a stop to make, because rain or no rain, I was completing my quest. I'm kind of like the Postal Service of booze in that regard. I navigated the horrible mess of Forbidden Drive to get to Wissahickon Brewing, and was celebrated by the crowd for looking like a muddy drowned rat as I chugged my third ale of the day.
I retraced my steps back through the flooded out mess of Forbidden Drive and hit the road home. Conditions improved as I made my way north along Morris Road, and when I reached Ambler for Forrest and Main, the sun was out again. I grabbed my pint and was asked by a disbelieving couple what I was doing there. I explained it and I think I am now the guy's personal hero, which is nice.
After that it was an easy ride to Prism, and then a finish at Round Guys. Those two beers were a bit too close together, though, and for the first time all day I felt a bit shaky. It wasn't even the booze hitting me -- I suddenly realized that with all the other stuff going on all day, all I had eaten the entire time was a single Clif Bar. There was a car show going on Lansdale, and I pulled over next to a sweet El Cam to call my wife and ask her to please order a pizza that I planned to absolutely destroy once I was cleaned up (and that's a promise I indeed kept.)
Lansdale Car Show ... by far my favorite vehicle as I rode through ...
At about 8:15, I rolled into my driveway, another Solstice Brew Tour (that name really does need to get better ...) in the bag. The tale of the tape:
Miles: 133.2
Ride Time: ~ 11:30
Total trail systems: 2.5
Total Beers/Breweries: 6
A colossally fantastic, stupid, reckless, wet and totally enjoyable day on the bike ...
It's funny how the evolution of an idea can take it in a completely different directions than initially planned. A few years ago, I was accidentally introduced to the Green Ribbon Trail (GRT) by a friend of mine. It's perhaps one of the most unique biking experiences I've encountered over the years: it's a trail that runs from the suburbs above Philadelphia down to the edge the city itself, and it passes through neighborhoods and business areas, quite literally. There are sections of the trail that snakes through the narrow space between backyards in very typical neighborhoods. It's not a challenging trail in any way, but it is very interesting because it's like someone decided through sheer force of will to impose a recreational wooded trail on an area that really had virtually no room for it.
At any rate, the GRT planted the seed of an idea in my usually barren head and over time that small idea evolved into a plan to hit the three major trail systems that are closest to my home in one day. It would be a massive ride that started out on roads from my home in Lansdale up to Green Lane to ride the trails there and then head toward Philly along first the Perkiomen trail and then the Schuylkill River Trail (SRT) to Belmont Plateau, and then on to Wissahickon before completing the loop on the GRT to get home. In laying it out, I estimated that it would be a pretty big day all told -- about 135 miles of road, singletrack and gravel. So I set out to do it for the first time in 2015. That first time met with some problems late in the day and I had to forgo a portion of Wiss to get my bike fixed at Wissahickon Cyclery so I could make it home. But other than that one small adjustment, the ride overall was a success.
But even then, on that first trip along what I called "The Philly Big Friggin' Loop" after similar rides that had been created out west, I noticed something that I knew eventually I'd have to address. Without even leaving the trail, or at worst going perhaps a block off the route, I noticed that there were several breweries along the way: Appalachian on the Perk Trail in Collegeville, Conshohocken and Manayunk on the SRT in their respective towns, Forrest & Main in Ambler (just a block off the route at Butler Pike) and (at the time) the trail ended right where Prism's original location was. Just up the road from that in Lansdale, I knew there was Round Guys just a couple miles from my house. And so, in 2016, I decided to make a go of what might be the longest, dumbest and dirtiest pub crawl anywhere. I didn't plan much in the way of logistics that time, and quickly realized I'd need to do some fine tuning if I wanted this to work out. For one thing, Appalachian had to be crossed off the list because they changed their hours a few weeks before I did the ride, only opening at 4 pm on Saturdays. So I had to bypass the first location, which wasn't too big a deal since I would have had to sit and wait for them to open anyway since I hit Collegeville a full 45 minutes before their previous opening time of 11. But that was one brewery down and I didn't hit anything until Conshohocken, about 75 miles into the day. Then, Manayunk was only 20 minutes further down the SRT, and I may be Irish with all the boozy goodness that implies, but two full pints minutes before starting Belmont Plateau with all it's gut shaking log-overs was not "ideal" by any measurement.
But the ride overall was once again a success and I knew even then that I'd be doing it again a year later. The one smart thing I did (if anything associated with riding a SS for 13+ hours on challenging trail systems while periodically ingesting pints of microbrews could be called "smart") was that I did all this on the weekend closest to the solstice. And so I planned for it again this year on the same weekend.
The onward march of local brew progress necessitated a few changes, though: for one, Prism moved to a new location about a mile up the road, but that was no big deal since it was still more or less on route. Second, a new player emerged just this year when Wissahickon Brewing opened just a block off Ridge Ave at the end of the Spaghetti Bowl section of Wiss. This gave me an opportunity to reshuffle the deck in a way that made the whole ride "smoother": my ride would stay the same up to the point I enter Philly, and then I'd hit Belmont before doubling back to hit Manayunk Brewing, then I'd head over and ride Wiss before finishing my Philly area with Wissahickon Brewing and then heading toward Ambler on the GRT. All in all, an excellent plan.
So even though I'd had a fairly uneven spring so far, between health issues and bike issues, my only thought going into the weekend was how great a time I'd have riding 150 miles on a (slightly pre-)summer weekend. (The added mileage was for a few trail changes in Belmont, and the whole doubling back thing - laying it out, I think it came to 148 on paper.) With an excellent resolve to ride and imbibe all day long, I set out from my house at 6 am confident in my plan.
Just *one* small thing I failed to account for ...
Hiding out from biblical rains in Wissahickon
A buddy of mine met up with me in green Lane to ride the trail there at around 7:15. I knew I was a bit over-geared for the more challenging areas of GL and Wiss at 34:18, but knowing that a lot of miles in this thing are on flat gravel and paved trails, I think the bigger gear was a good choice overall. I had some issues dropping the chain early on, which seems to happen on my Sir9 anymore anytime I run a cog smaller than 20t (perhaps because my 19t and 18t cogs are worn out? Not sure.) but I managed those issues okay and they largely stopped altogether after GL. The first rain started when we hit the Perk Trail and it was a downpour, but more like one of those spring downpours where it doesn't feel like buckets of water, just a constant soaking. That eventually cleared up after my buddy turned around and I spent most of the rest of the Perk trail snaking around big puddles. The SRT was dry as a bone, though, and I made up time there with a nice 15 mph pace for 20+ miles, reaching Conshohocken shortly after 11:30. One blonde pint later and I was on my way ...
In all, I have six photos almost exactly like this one, so to avoid repetition, just picture this with slightly different backgrounds a bunch of times, and me looking dirtier and wetter each time ...
The folks at Conshy (and in fact at every stop I made all day) welcomed me like a conquering hero when I told them what I was doing. No one said it sounded like a really stupid idea or look at me like I needed counseling. Beer people just get it, you know?
After Conshy, I headed downt he rest of the SRT to Belmont. As a few folks on the board know well, Belmont Plateau is kind of famous for a certain trail feature ...
Log-overs at Belmont are the real deal ...
Just like last year, there was Philly Carnival, a Caribbean Music Festival, going on on Chamounix Dr in Belmont. It's basically an ear-splitting cacophony of bands playing on the back of trucks rolling through the park. You can hear it for miles away. I'm all for a good party, but I'm amazed the entire city doesn't go deaf when that thing is going on.
I was a bit worn out finishing Belmont, and was happy for my second beer stop at Manayunk. I down a hoppy Wit and headed over the Wiss. And that's when the day went form shizophrenic sun, clouds and a little rain to one angry, vicious flooding downpour. After I finished one whole side of the park, the rain started falling so heavily that I couldn't see and it felt like it got 20 degrees colder in minutes. I made a beeline for the stables and hid under cover for the storm to pass with a bunch of runners and hikers doing the same. It took over a half hour for the rain to stop, and when it did I realized singletrack portion of the day was over: Wiss was ompletely flooded out.
Northwestern Ave at one end of Wissahickon ...
I also realized that the GRT was now out of the question altogether -- that trail sits in a flood zone and so it's bad whenever there is any rain. Rain like what we had around 5 on Saturday would have made it impossible to get through. Reluctantly, I realized it would be a road ride home. That meant less miles, but if I tried to continue on trail, I'd probably have destroyed my bike and myself. So the road it would be.
But first, I had a stop to make, because rain or no rain, I was completing my quest. I'm kind of like the Postal Service of booze in that regard. I navigated the horrible mess of Forbidden Drive to get to Wissahickon Brewing, and was celebrated by the crowd for looking like a muddy drowned rat as I chugged my third ale of the day.
I retraced my steps back through the flooded out mess of Forbidden Drive and hit the road home. Conditions improved as I made my way north along Morris Road, and when I reached Ambler for Forrest and Main, the sun was out again. I grabbed my pint and was asked by a disbelieving couple what I was doing there. I explained it and I think I am now the guy's personal hero, which is nice.
After that it was an easy ride to Prism, and then a finish at Round Guys. Those two beers were a bit too close together, though, and for the first time all day I felt a bit shaky. It wasn't even the booze hitting me -- I suddenly realized that with all the other stuff going on all day, all I had eaten the entire time was a single Clif Bar. There was a car show going on Lansdale, and I pulled over next to a sweet El Cam to call my wife and ask her to please order a pizza that I planned to absolutely destroy once I was cleaned up (and that's a promise I indeed kept.)
Lansdale Car Show ... by far my favorite vehicle as I rode through ...
At about 8:15, I rolled into my driveway, another Solstice Brew Tour (that name really does need to get better ...) in the bag. The tale of the tape:
Miles: 133.2
Ride Time: ~ 11:30
Total trail systems: 2.5
Total Beers/Breweries: 6
A colossally fantastic, stupid, reckless, wet and totally enjoyable day on the bike ...
