Unipacking Western Massachusetts

[johnsjaunts]

Well, here I am again. 5 years and change since my last trip in 2020. I got a little distracted with life, backpacking and marathoning and being in a relationship like a nerd.

I’ve had the basic idea of this ride since 2021-ish since I moved from Virginia back to New England and was on a weekend drive through Western Mass doing some Mountain Unicycling and drinking coffee. I wanted to put together a ride that went through some of the storybook New England towns, past the farmlands, mountain views, and some sweet rivers to jump in along the way.

Western Massachusetts has some great scenic byway’s through the CT River valley that lead you up into the Berkshire foothills (and on if you so choose) that are great for biking and all connect to some real Hallmark towns. And of course, plenty of woods, cricks, and random nonsense in between. So, here it is. The Western Mass Art, Crick, and Coffee (and ice cream and pie and deerfly) Crawl.

First, let’s look at the new setup! (Not that different from the old one). It starts off with the welded T-Bar that fits around the seatpost. It was the one offered by Cary Gray back in the early 2020’s (I’m not sure if he’s still making them). It took some kink ironing, but as of now it’s pretty dialed to my unicycle. The front bar is a Nimbus Shadow Handle (straight) and the back is a random piece of tubing from a bike parts bin at my local bike shop. I used it previously on my 29 touring setup. Attached to that back bar is a handlebar clamp (i think) and it is used to attached a bottle cage to, sometimes a stem bag, and it keeps my saddle bag in place.

The fender is made from materials from an Ace Hardware. I have no idea what the pieces are used for, shelving I think, and I just bent them to the angle i needed, cut them down and filed the edges, and then attached it accordingly. The supports attach at the fork, one side tied into the brake screw and the other is braced around the arm of the fork. The fender bit was a straight piece of thin metal that I just bent in the shape of the wheel, cut to size with a hacksaw, and clamped around the fork as well. The support pieces were drilled out some and then secured to the fender with bolts and those butterfly nuts that screw down. I think everything cost me around $50 USD (largely because i needed some of the tools).

The rear bag was one that was hand-sewn back in 2020 and has been taking up space for 5 years. I added a new top strap, shortened the existing ones, and added zipper stops. Pretty inspired by the Cary Gray bag. The front bag was just a stuff sack bungee corded to my handlebars. Which are just aero bars with a clamp attachment I found at a bike shop. They attach to a length of PVC pipe with a copper tube hammered through it that was all shoved through the Nimbus shadowhandle to lengthen it enough so the handlebars could attach. My bottle cages were at the front and back and the remaining bags were 2 tube bags.

The unicycle itself is:

• Nimbus Oracle 36"
• Yellow flat pedals I found that I thought were cool
• Mad4One triple cranks for 148/129/110
• Kris Holm street saddle
• Schimano Disc Brake

The rear bag carried my:

• Cooking kit (stove, those ~24 oz stanley steel pots you can find anywhere for cheap, a coffee cup, my alcohol stove, matches, birch bark, water filter, coffee filter and silicone foldable pour over)
• Spare Clothes
• Sleeping Pad
• First Aid Kit
• Camp Shoes
• Food (rice, oatmeal, coffee, a garlic scape, macaroni and cheese powder, taco seasoning, some Indian lentil pouch, a mayonnaise packet I took from a food court, some dehydrated meals)

My front stuff sack carried my heavier sleep system

• Tent and accoutrements
• Alpaca Bag Liner (which was my sleeping bag of the trip)
• Blow up Pillow

My front tube bag was

• My keys
• Chamois butter
• my knife

Back tube bag

• All tools (spanner, patch kit, allen keys, pedal wrench)
• Power bank
• Face mask

Bum Bag

• Spare tube
• Wet wipes
• Toiletries
• Wallet
• 1.5 litres water
• bandana/small towel
• sunscreen

The hardest part was balancing the weight. I needed the front to be heavy enough to be my counterweight to get on easier with the heavy back. But I also needed the back to be heavy enough to help me with the downhills since I find it easier to fight gravity with something else helping me stay backwards. In this case, a bag was able to keep my leaning back enough to find against the gravity of some of these absolutely stupid descents. The first day my tent was in my back bag and the food and cookware was in front and while I had no issues riding (once I was used to riding a fully loaded unicycle and accustomed to how it turned and swung with the extra stuff) getting on was really challenging. Once I moved the tent up front, mounting was better for me.

I decided to go with 5 bikers from the local bike group. Much like my last trip with 3 bikers. Riding with bikers is so a mixed bag. On one hand, they will bend over backwards for you to keep you upright. A shoulder to mount on, someone to hold traffic for you to cross the street, a walk-sign button pusher, people to run point to scout for issues. On the other hand, riding with bikers is incredibly stressful. They can easily navigate city streets, constant stops and starts, hills, turning. Just turning around because we took a wrong turn is something nobody considers until they’re on a full loaded 36" unicycle on a busy cycle path and you need to start up a hill…It can be stressful to keep up, be able to get on and off at an instant, and the stage fright of all the people who are curious. I chose not to free mount a lot of the times (all the time) because I didn’t want the pressure. I chose to push through stops because remounting on a busy road with nothing around just wasn’t going to happen. You miss cool stops along the way. The price you pay when you don’t practice enough…again. I think my riding skills are fine, but fully loaded mounting? I have no clue how Ed Pratt did it for 3 years! Wild.

The Route

We started in Northampton, Mass. Specifically at that CT River Greenway State park that links up with the Norwottuck Rail Trail. We parked over night (without issue) from Friday to Sunday. The goal was to ride out of Northampton to Florence Mass, hit the pie bar, continue on the path until the street route to Williamsburg, take a quiet side road to the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) State Forest and Campground in Goshen, descend from there to the Three Sisters Sanctuary Sculpture Gardens in Ashfield, loop into Shelburne Falls and Buckland, climb to Conway and then return to Northampton along the same bike path. All in all, the loop was approximately 90.5 kilometres (56 miles), 1050 m of elevation and descent, the steepest grade was measured to be ~18% uphill and I believe the steepest downhill was ~8-10% negative grade. The steepest uphills were short and punchy and the long uphill stretches were luckily super gradual and manageable depending on your fitness. The steepest downhill segments were all the longest, at approximately 6 km (3.7 miles) of downhill at 6-8% negative grade. More on that later.

https://www.komoot.com/tour/2425309389 <---- Link to the Komoot link, if you desire it.

Here’s a photo of us all at the start of the ride in front of a funky bike mural. More to come! Stay tuned for part 2 that I finish writing in October…

[Wheelou]

Looking forward to October, then.

[johnsjaunts]

Okay, so it’s now the start of the ride. We missed the turn to the Taco Bell meaning we missed the chance to get Baja Blast Freezes. Not the best way to begin the trip, especially in the okay-ish heat. The humidity was shockingly low for the summer months on the East Coast of the US and that should always be a win for anyone who lives in humid areas and gets annoyed by it.

Our first stop, after a mile and a bit wrong turn, was the Florence Pie Bar. A home to all things pie related, both savory and sweet, galettes, rugelach, cookies, coffee. The true experience.

I believe I had a curried tofu hand pie and a coconut lime cream pie. Always a treat.

And…back on the trail. The bike path cuts through a lot of the neighborhoods in Northampton, Florence, Leeds, Hadley, and, in our case, would bring us to Williamsburg. Or at least to the backroad that would take us there. The riding was pretty standard. Flat paths, few crossings. A quick trip through Look Park where a man in a booth yelled at us for not riding on the path (it was really just me on the road). We were still in The Valley at this point so the roads were still fun.

Williamsburg was our next stop. A quaint little downtown in the middle of Route 9 with a lovely General Store that held even more pie, ice cream, and literally every souvenir thing you could name. Including Magic Shirts that change color in different temperatures. There’s also a Hot Chocolate Bar, which would have been pretty sweet if it weren’t 90 degrees F (32 C). We stopped for some Ice Cream and camp supplies since the next segment would just be the 10-ish mile (16.5 km) shot to the campground along the East Branch of the Mill River on a quiet, shaded road

I got Tipsy Peach Ice Cream and then, as Anakin Skywalker said in the hit 2005 Film: Star Wars Episode 3 Revenge of the Sith, “This is where the hills begin.”

The ascent was gradual, steadily increasing in grade as we rode further and further until the turn. It wasn’t terrible on the Unicycle because the wheel is so big. I believe we maxed out around 8% uphill grade before the turn at Ludwig Road. And then it just got kinda stupid. The road led us up Moore Hill, approximately 540 m at it’s highest point. Ludwig Road was approximately 3 kilometers, mostly uphill, with steep 12-18% grades.

My partner had driven out to meet us and found me walking up the final hill. I ditched my tent in their car to lighten my bag, and rode the final descent into the DAR State Forest Campground waiting for everyone else to catch up.

And that’s the first day in the books. Just over 30 km (18.5 miles). Almost entirely a uphill in some capacity.

The rest are all photos of the campground. The DAR Forest campground was pretty sweet. Water, showers, bathrooms, sinks for dishes, fire pits, 1000’s of kids on bikes, a bunch of hiking trails, and a lake for swimming. All for 17 dollars. Honestly, if you want to see this part of Western Mass, I highly recommended camping here and then just driving to all the cool towns. Or bike if you can.

We set up camp, made dinner, hit the lake to wash off, and played some card games. Honestly, a great time at camp. I didn’t want to leave.

[Wheelou]

So good that we didn’t have to wait for october. Thanks for sharing your trip with us. Looking forward for day 2.

I like this picture of your uni. It reminds me of a mix of a T-Rex and a hippo …on a wheel.

@johnsjaunts

[johnsjaunts]

Okay, it’s Day 2. The DAR State Forest to Conway, Massachusetts. We woke up and milled around for too long. Slow breakfast, a few rounds of card games, morning swim. The beauty of bike packing, really. All you really need to do is wake up and bike. And don’t forget to eat/drink as well. Definitely don’t forget to do that in the summer!

This photo is at the campground before we took off. (It looks really bad because I had to screenshot it off a video). You obviously cannot ride into a campground on a unicycle carrying all your stuff without drawing some attention to yourself. Here is me talking to one of the campers who curious about the basic of how people get onto a unicycle, how I’m supposed to get off, what happens when I need to go up/down hills.

One guy at the site next to us was from Northampton and used to ride unicycles when he was a child. I’d estimate he was in his upper 30’s/early 40’s. We got to speaking for a little bit about our unicycling experiences and then he asked to try and ride it (unpacked). Normally I’d say no both because having no idea how to ride (or properly bail from) a unicycle is super dangerous on a 36, especially set up to tour, but also if anything broke as a result of his fall I’d be stuff with a broken cycle. His mounting was a bit unorthodox but he got on without a problem and rode about 20 meters. And I feel like I got to watch a father be 15 again for a brief moment. Which is always cool.

Up the hill out of the DAR and onto the Three Sisters Sanctuary Sculpture Gardens!

So this place is super cool. It’s constantly being worked on to add new exhibits, hosts artists-in-residency to work on new projects, and protects open space for people to experience. And we had a great time playing with the weighted hula-hoops. Which makes it really easy to hula but also it quickly starts to hurt the back organs. My kidneys were woofing.

Okay, so I’m going to Shelburne Falls now. With everyone else. And, I’m going to be real with you all because sometimes I worry that I just gloss over the parts of these trips that just really suck but this leg of the trip really made me question if it was worth recommending this trip to anyone.

There was a stretch from the Sculpture Gardens down off the Ashfield hills back into the valley stretch that was absolutely freaking terrifying. Long stretches of steep, strong enough winds, and S-curved descents. Fully loaded, kinda tired already, busy-ish roads. So much mental energy, and I guess the physical side too, and stress from needing to focus on the descent for kilometers on end. I can’t help but think I was riding, no fooling, 1 km/hr for the entire time. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t glamorous. All I thought about was how much WORSE it would be to have to walk the heavy unicycle down the 8-12% grade and hold up the party even more. Sweet Beans, this part was absolutely terrible and I have to advise to only ride this way if you are prepared to walk or feel super comfortable/capable riding in these conditions. I don’t know where I stack up in the world of physical fitness and I’m far from aware of what kind of fitness is needed to handle fighting gravity on a unicycle, but I run about 160 km a week and there were points in this part of the ride in which I felt my quads beginning to clock out. Be careful out there.

So now that I’m back in the valley, it was about 10km to Shelburne Falls. I figured I’d just push on until I was off MA Rt 112 and onto a quieter road to take a break. The roads from here were mostly flat but occasionally pitched to one side or another (probably to deal with rain water runoff and all that) which made flat land riding just little bit more of a pain in the butt. I wish I could see myself riding on these stretches sometimes. Full Michael Jackson lean to one side to offset the pull of the pitched road. Real high school physics stuff. The views were cool. Farmhouses, barns, the other side of the mountains we had just road over the day before. At one point an older man had pulled over in his pick-em up truck and held up his own personal unicycle and yelled “This has been my secondary transportation for 30 years!” I wish I could have stopped to talk to him but there was just nowhere to safely re-mount on the busier road. I’m sure he had a lot to say and I would have loved to hear his stories. It makes me kind of sad to have missed some. Especially from another unicycler. Which now makes 2 other unicyclers I met on this trip. Awesome

We road into Shelburne Falls around 2:30 to a man playing the accordion. The Bridge of Flowers is officially back up and running, in case that interests anyone. I, for one, did not have time to care. I wanted food, and a place to sit, and to be out of the sun. I’m pretty sure I had blacked out for most of this point. I sat catatonic in front of a Middle Eastern Food truck for my entire time in town. Which is a shame because it is a very picturesque New England town. Real Hallmark Movie vibes. Cool bridges, and mountain views, and places to get ice cream. And I was so out of it that I didn’t even want to get ice cream. What have I done? And there was still 10 more miles to Conway.

My partner came to see us and go swimming in the river while we rode. And I feel like, at this point, that might’ve all been a dream. Anyway, it’s about 4:30 now and it’s time to go to Conway.

10 miles, mostly gradual uphills back out of the Valley but not quite up the big hills we just descended. And, honestly, riding uphill on the unicycle was way more manageable than the downhill. The incline wasn’t terrible which probably made it not impossible, but the size of the tire is super beneficial for carrying momentum up the hill. Outside of Conway, we found this tiny water feature where we decided to sit and hang 10 for a bit. Also some of us were behind and it seemed like an appropriate thing to do in order to wait for them. We had no choice, we needed to go swimming.

And now we’re in Conway. A real small market, church, inn, and library kind of town. Small, few residents, everyone knows everyone. Our second stop of the night was with a family that I think my friend knew from another friend. And they just let us stay the night on their lawn and gave us full access to their entire property. Which was wild and amazing.

Here’s the property, a large garden full of flowers and foods, a fire pit, an outdoor shower, and a workshop where the owner of the home makes wooden spoons for a living. I’d say I’ve probably seen 1% of the world in my life so far and I’d say that this place was an absolute utopian haven and everything about it was impossibly beautiful. The large village green surrounded by older farm houses for everyone to walk out to and congregate, the giant town lake that is surrounded by horses in their pasture, the mountains and associated creeks in the background, the fact we were only 15 minutes from a major highway somehow but also without service. The family was so inviting and welcoming that it genuinely made me feel uncomfortable. Which is probably just because of what I’m used to in the USA. Other countries seem to have a default level of acceptance and welcoming attitudes and the US just kind of always felt like this level of distrust or not altruism that I just assumed it was normal everywhere. And when I’m not met with skepticism or discomfort, I assume that the family are weirdos instead of just genuinely nice people. And these people, if I asked, would have let me burn their house to the ground and eat them alive and then would have responded with a “Well, that’s quite alright.”

In times like this for the world, seemingly always negative and getting worse, this was really something special.

We went swimming really quickly at the town pond, built a fire, and then sat with the family by the fire sharing travel stories and crazy adventures. Truly the best part about these trips are the people you meet along the way. Then I fell asleep in my chair next to the fire under the stars. Which were everywhere. If not for the neighbors massive porch light that never turned off it would have been immaculate