Rail trails - a side effect of America's defunct railway system. Now, a great way of building long-range recreational trails on a budget. Some cyclists love them, others - not so much. Yes, they can be boring. They are built in place of former railway after all, which means they are flat and often with long, straight sections. I actually don't mind rail trails as long as (1) they remain unpaved and (2) scenery along the trail changes frequently.
This weekend I decided to give rail trails another try and visit Mass Central Rail Trail (MCRT) between Rutland and Templeton. It's over an hour drive from Boston Metro Area so getting there by bike from your door step is probably not an option, unless you happen to have a lot of time. My main motivation was to give my new bike a spin over a longer, unpaved section and see how it rides in rougher terrain. The planned route was 70km (44mi) long and more importantly 85% unpaved and that should give me a good feeling of how the new bike handles.
I started at a small parking lot just at the trail head on Glenwood Rd in Rutland. It was raining heavily the previous night and as such, morning was soggy and foggy. I moved quickly along the trail, which along its southern section between Glenwood Rd and Rt122 resembles an unpaved cycling highway. It's graded well, smooth and overall very "civilized". I met a few joggers and dog walkers on the way, likely due to proximity of Rutland.
But if you think that the full length of trail is going to be that easy, you would be mistaken. Once you cross Old Worcester Rd and enter the trail section running straight north, conditions change quite a bit. Clearly, this part of MCRT is used mainly by snowmobiles in winter as it remains much more wild, muddy, rough and... empty. During the next 20km (12mi) all the way to Templeton I didn't see anyone on the trail. Or maybe it was the foggy weather that scared locals off?
Once I got to Covered Bridge Rd I went off the route for just moment to find out whether the bridge was still there. A look at Google Maps a day earlier told me that it likely wasn't going to be the case and I would need to find a different route on the way back. Unfortunately, Google Maps was right. The old covered bridge was missing, as well as another bridge at Lackey Lane, just a bit further north. At this point I knew I would have to stick to Plan B and go Granger Rd on the way back.
The rest of the ride to Templeton was uneventful - just a few more miles along the mostly straight and very flat trail. Since, as I mentioned earlier, this part of the MCRT is more wild, I had to cross several muddy sections and some with pretty deep sand. Rolling on 2.2" wide tires certainly helped a lot. I would had to fight it really hard, had I been there on my old bike with "skinny" 35mm tires.
The route. Red sections are unpaved. Blue are paved.
Crossing Burnshirt River. Seriously, who came up with that name?
The next section of the route ran along Williamsville Rd, which is unpaved but starts as a very hard packed, smooth street, only to turn into a muddy forest fire road later on.
The real fun starts a bit later though, once you enter Gilbert Rd and then Granger Rd. Both are rocky, rough, with some steep sections. In other words - perfect testing ground for my "mountain road bike".
Granger Road in late morning sun.
The rest of the ride was just a fairly typical mix of short paved sections, wide forest fire roads, some rough double-tracks and a few rocky paths. Exactly after 4 hours on the bike I was back at my car and now I think I would need to pay a few more visits to western Massachusetts pretty soon.
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