2026 D2R2 Edge Hill Metric+

 

Team Karl's Sausage Kitchen is off on another D2R2 adventure.  Since it was Will's birthday today, I did some map recon the night before and found some dirt roads that we hadn't ridden yet that would add a few more miles to our route and give Will his birthday milage.

Mike and Scott were going to ride the 105K but decided to join Will and I at the last minute. Something about 10,000 feet of climbing on their route vs only 5,000 feet of climbing on the 90K to Edge Hill swayed their decision to change routes. We got off to any early start.

The forecast called for a 30% chance of rain in the afternoon and that it was supposed to be overcast all day, which made for excellent riding weather. It was mid 60s when we left the Fairgrounds and it was absolutely delightful. I did bring a jacket just in case.

The only downside to this route was there was a lot of pavement before hitting dirt.

There were some cows, though.

We finally hit First Dirt a little over 7 miles into the ride.

As we rode between the fields one thing stood out, everything was brown. It was as if Round-Up was sprayed on these crops. It reminded me of a Science Fiction movie where some alien pathogen affected all our crops. It was eerie.

First Cow!

First Climb!

On Whatley Glenn Road to Roaring Brook Camp.

Just a 2.5 mile Cat 3 hill to get the blood pumping.

Everyone was in high spirits by the time we reached the top and I broke out the dried Kiwi. The road surface at this point was what Massachusetts calls a Surface Type 1 road and what we would call a Class 4 Road bordering on primitive in Vermont. Very rideable for gravel bikes.

It got better as we continued on

and was quite pleasant, too.

Then the road turned into more of a primitive, track/trail, road but again still very doable for fatter tires.

Exiting the State Forest we were greeted with this sign

and nearby there is what appeared to be free bike tires and handlebars although I wouldn't want to be carrying anything while on this ride.

From this vantage point I think we were looking at the Northern Berkshires.

Somewhere off to the right was Mt Greylock but it was obscured by the trees.

Climbing up Nash Hill, we hit the first Checkpoint.

While we were fueling up a woman passed us that was on the ride but she didn't stop and then an older guy, whose name was Jeff, rolled in on Trek 720 with downtube shifters riding on 32c cross tires.

At the lowest point of the route we turned north and rode through Williamsburg.

Williamsburg FD

Then came a 7.6 mile, Category 2 climb that was mostly gravel.

So we climbed,

rode by a really cool pond just off the road, that according to the maps, is the headwaters for Cold Brook.

We continued to climb on dirt

and there was more dirt.

We were still climbing when Jeff caught up to us and hung with our groupetto for awhile. Jeff was only a cue sheet and mile counter. No fancy GPS other electronic routing.

There was another checkpoint at Mile 32, which didn't seemed excessive after stopping at one 12 miles back.  We stopped anyway for more water and I planned out our extra credit loop.

We have ridding up this way in the past but always up Lilliput Road to Bug Hill Road.  The bottom part of Bug Hill wasn't on our Wandrer map so we used it for the start of our extra credit loop.

This is always a welcoming sign.

According to RWGPS this was supposed to be dirt all the way to Bear Swamp Road but it looks like civilization has caught up to Bug Hill.

It did turn back to dirt.

I wanted to turn onto Ford Road but we rode right past it. At Old Stage Road we turned around and went back looking for it. I rode into a drive way and figured that the drive way was probably the lead in to the road. A nice woman came out and told me that the road did go through but and she saw people ride through there and not come back so thought it went through. 

Will and I have had enough of roads turning into hike-a-bike/Napoleon Death Marches so we headed back to Old Stage Road and Will got his birthday mileage and then some.

Back on course we passed by a lake that I tried to take a picture of but ended up with a selfie instead. We missed the turn onto Baptist Cornell Road and then when the road split and the right fork was dirt I assumed the route went that way but I was wrong. Eventually, we got to Edge Hill where the lunch stop was.

After lunch we hit some fun dual track 

With some surprises along the way.

One of which was an angled rock that I hit one handed as I was putting my phone away and I ended up dropping my phone. The front wheel survived.

Apparently, on the way back to the start for every 500 feet we climbed we would loose about 1000 feet in elevation.  That meant a lot downhill to bring up the average speed.

Some Black Angus cattle

and some welcoming signs on Pine Hill Road

with a little more climbing before a steep descent.

Last time I passed this sign I was on the first D2R2 Mystery Ride and we went this way on the bailout route.

Crossing over the Deerfield River again we hit the last climb on Upper Road and then we were back to the Fairgrounds. All and all a really good ride. There was a lot more gravel than what RWGPS said, many of the dirt roads on the 2026 D2R2 90k to Edge Hill route don't show up as dirt on the route map so I would say this route is more like 40% paved and 60% gravel. Definitely a worthy route, especially if you want to get some decent miles and not have insane climbing. Looking forwards to next year!