I have been exploring the area around Califon for over 5 years and have some really good routes that I use to lead rides a few times a year. There are so many good roads and ways to put a route together that you can ride here a 100 times an still not know it all. For this Saturdays ride around Califon I wanted to change things up a little and come up with route that felt a lot different than my normal ride. What I decided to so was to do a lot of the regular roads backward. Basically go up our normal downhills and down our normal uphills.
We ended up doing this route. When I first planned out the route it looked wrong and harder than the normal route yet as I looked at it there was no individual climb harder than are normal climbs. For example instead of climbing 440 feet up Valley Brook we climbed 450 feet up Black River Road. I did add a couple of new downhills and uphills but statistically the route did not look harder than normal. Of course actual physical effort may not match ride statistics. We have all be on 4000 ft vertical rides that were easy an other 4000 ft vertical rides that felt more like 6000 ft.
We started out from RVCC and I had a most of my normal riders. Laura, Jim. Blake, Barry, Cheryl and surprise guest Larry. We worked our way through Tewsbury and up Black River Road. I was concerned with Black River not only because I knew it would a long climb with a couple of steep spots but because last year when I came down this hill the road surface was really beat up to the point it was total gravel in some areas.
Luckily they had fixed or repaved most of the broken up areas the only problem was the actual climb. We have been down this road a number of times a when the road is in good shape it is a great down hill. It fact when you go down it and get to the bottom you say I'm glad we didn't have to climb that one. Well to be honest now that we were actually stupid enough to climb the hill I can say it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It was long and steep in a couple of spots and about halfway up I switched into the bottom ring of my triple but I was never concerned about running out of gears to get up the hill.
Once we got to the top of Long Valley I did a loop around some of the local roads before our rest stop. We found one cool totally unexpected downhill (Coleman Rd) which was smooth, straight and traffic free. This one will be on my list of must do roads the next time we are in this area.
Our rest stop was in a combination deli/liquor/coffee shop that has a everything and more a biker needs for a good rest stop.
After the rest stop was an immediate 240 ft climb to get back to the ridge. This was another hill we had been down a few times and I wasn't looking forward to going up but again it wasn't too bad. From here we headed down into Califon and down Valley Brook a 440 ft drop that we normally climb. That felt really good. I then made a hilly detour around the north side of Califon before going through town.
Then a flat ride along the Raritan before going up Hoffman Corner. Hoffman Corner is a steep downhill with a good view. I wasn't really looking forward to going up it. It was steep but the first part was doable. I think what most of us forgot was that there were two steep downhills on Hoffman Corner and most of us forgot about the first one which is almost as steep.
We took a break at the top of the hill since some of us were feeling the strain of all the climbs. Unfortunately we still had some more uphill to go. It wasn't real steep but since this was towards the end of the ride when even the smaller hills felt hard.
Once we got to Suttons Rd however we had almost continuous downhills for 6 miles. We started on Sutton then down Guinea Hollow and lastly down Rockaway. Although I don't think I want to go up Hoffman Corner again I am going to find a way to do the Suttons, Guinea Hollow, Rockaway downhill together again because it was a blast.
The last 6 miles of the ride was mostly flat until the last climb back up to RVCC which always sucks. Doing the normal roads backward turned out to be a decent route. I don't think I would do this exact route again but I now have a different perspective on some of our regular roads and how some of the combination work together so I have some more choices when planning rides around Califon.
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