Great Eskape goes wild and wonderful in West Virginia.

KEEP CROSS WEIRD!!!!

Summertime can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

To Great Eskape it means sweaty, unstructured adventure rides surrounded by Appalachian tunnels of green foliage and oppressive humidity. To escape the humidity but embrace the green tunnels we set up a team base camp in Michaux State Forest and enjoyed 3 days of mixed surface adventure riding in the rugged PA backcountry.

The first weeks after I arrived in Bozeman were full of dreams of a bikepacking trip. The mountains, the public land, and the remote dirt roads were just begging to be explored and strung together into elaborate multi-day trips.

Back in the before times (2019) Great Eskape and our birds of a feather kook squad, Team BBCBBW, got together on neutral territory (MoCo, Md) to tackle a gravel metric together. It was supposed to be an annual event and, with a year off because of the pandemic, we were happy to get back at it this summer. The ride featured a cafe stop, brewery stop, great rural and forested scenery, some tough gravel sections and tons of stoke. I brought my trusty Minolta SR T201 35mm camera along and captured this photo set from the day. I think the medium of film enhances the bucolic aesthetic of Montgomery and Loudoun Counties’ rural roads.

Make no mistake, we really, really wanted the record. Straightshotting this is “fun” and worth doing for its own sake, but Jeremy and I are both pretty competitive, and we basically funneled an entire year's worth of race hype in to this one big dumb ride. We both talked about only wanting to do this once.. and though it was unsaid, I think there was always an implication that if we didn't get the record on our first go, we'd probably try it again. As much fun as this was, I'm very thankful it didn't come to that.

Over the summer I spent three weeks visiting my mom and decided to ride my bike as much as I could physically handle. She has relocated to South Burlington from my childhood home in Fairfield and her new house is at a crossroads of amazing riding. I did road rides out her front door that are some of the most scenic I've ever done. The dirt roads ("gravel" for you flatlanders) were hilly but the payoff was well worth it. I stumbled on more covered bridges in two days than I've seen in all my gravel riding in rural Virginia and West Virginia combined. On my "off" days I'd drive the short ways to my favorite gravel and mountain biking playground: Catamount.

It’s not always about those big, epic, multi-day excursions – although those are awesome too! Sometimes eskaping means that 3am wakeup call to be the first to greet the day. Sometimes it’s ripping out the pirate trails on the canal to catch the sunset after work. Maybe it’s a sub-one hour jaunt to clear your head before your next Zoom meeting that you’re already dreading because, frankly who isn’t sick of those yet?

Getting Reckless on Tour
Great Eskape’s Biennial tour from Pittsburgh to DC on the Great Allegheny Passage has come and gone, and with it an experience that has generated great stories and pictures for the 8 Eskapists who made the trip that year. While the 2017 edition featured plenty of rowdiness, the 2019 tour included a lot more misadventure and character. Great Eskape does everything in our own way, and bike touring if certainly no different.

Pre-muddied and ready to party!

Dolly Sods is the highest plateau east of the Mississippi and is home to Alpine-like plant life only otherwise found much further north in Canada. It’s a magical place where blueberries and huckleberries cover the ground and a mile long cranberry bog co-exists with a tundra like heath barren at 4k’’ of elevation.

The official tagline of Tracklocross, “Bleeding is Believing,” sums it up perfectly. Do you love fixed gear riding but wish it was spicier? Then try racing your track bike on pump tracks, fire roads, and cutty trails…

Featured Gravel Routes Near DC

After a couple months of scouting routes we’re pleased to share with the world a metric century route that include a nice mix of mostly quiet roads, barring a sketchy bridge crossing or two. The route includes some challenging climbs, a lot of sweeping views, pastoral landscapes, and a lunch stop in the beautiful town of Brunswick, Maryland. We hope you enjoy!

So my challenge was to find a good gravel cycling route that started on the Maryland side of the Potomac and didn’t involve an endless slog down the C&O canal. After a second (somewhat snowy!) weekend of scouting gravel roads in Montgomery, Frederick, and Loudoun Counties we’re pleased to say we have a metric century route that incorporates a good amount of great gravel roads, beautiful country lanes, some epic views, challenging climbs, and some awesome historic towns and structures. We’re mostly just excited to have a route we can use to scratch that gravel itch that is closer to home than the routes all the way out in Leesburg, as well as something just a little bit different.

The New Mexico Offroad Runner

The route will test you, and wind is a factor, but importantly it was really fun and really beautiful. The terrain is rugged and can be really remote, so be prepared for a long series of what-ifs. People were friendly, and the land of enchantment held up to its nick-name.