Detour

A detour is sometimes a good thing. Sunday I set out on a familiar route to Concord. As luck would have it, there is still a detour at the bridge on Monument Street, so I cut through the park at the Old North Bridge to get back on track. This was a really fortunate turn of events, because riding on the little spot of dirt trail was fun and inspired me to continue on to the Battle Road trail farther down the road.

The Battle Road is a gentle six miles of dirt trail between Concord and Lexington, but it was pretty spectacular to have it to myself early in the morning. There are few informational posting near historic landmarks. Though the better part of it is the scenery it offers through shady wooded parts lined with stone walls, a few brief boardwalk bridges over marshy spots and some short twisty stretches.


Riding on some dirt trail for the first time in a long while also allowed me to see how the bike handles the terrain that I'll be riding this weekend in the D2R2 . Sure, the D2R2 is about 20 times as long with lots of hills, but this little opener gets me excited for the main event.