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U.S. Built Custom Bicycles in Titanium and Titanium-Carbon Mix

Summer Seven Style

Riders in the sun

We rolled thirteen deep, our course winding seventy miles north and west of our Watertown home. It featured a variety of classic New England highlights like olde town centres and ice cream parlors, lakes and rivers, farms and country stores, cows and chickens, hawks and herons, mountains and views. And best of all, a company picnic and camping at the finish!

It has been a big, big year for us here at Seven. We’ve worked hard. So, for the first time in years we decided to have a non-holiday party, simply for the sake of enjoying the weather, a long ride, and each other’s company.

There are several camping trips in the folklore of the company. Senior Seveneers have long alluded to these trips of yesteryear, but until last weekend, the young ‘uns could not relate.

We were excited as we left the Boston-area. We had no idea what to expect, even as pavement gave way to dirt, as we crossed into New Hampshire, as the road turned up and up and up. And when we arrived thirsty and exhausted, we found that a dedicated few had arrived early and prepped the food, grills, chairs, darts, horseshoes, and quite lite rally every other amenity a party-goer could want. Our fatigue quickly faded.  Every few minutes people would arrive, by bike or by car, until every chair was filled.

A plate of cookout food and craft beer

Seven Cycles fire barrel

Based on the laughter and smiles it was clear that the company, as a whole, was looking to cut loose and relax. Kids scrambled in and out of the circle. People left for short hikes and took naps in the hammock. By 6:00 there were three grills cranking out burgers, dogs, kebabs, and plumes of smoke.  Tents were set up and as the cool mountain air descended upon us, the bonfire was lit.

It carried us to midnight.

It’s no secret that we have a pretty special group here at Seven. That more than half of us rode our bikes the 70 miles (and some rode further), tells you all you need to know about who we are and what we do. These would be our sixth and seventh consecutive days together, but the only arguments we managed were over horseshoes.

Seven at D2R2 2012

Seven Ti Tandem
Matt & Susi’s Tandem

 D2R2, or the Deerfield Dirt Road Randonee, is an annual event on the Seven calendar. Not only does the ride support the Franklin Land Trust, an excellent cause, but it also takes in some of the sweetest back roads and sweeping vistas in New England. It is both brutally hard and magically compelling. For some of us, it is the most difficult thing we’ll do all year, but we sign up over and over. It’s that good.

This year we had Seveneers riding the 100k (Matt and Susi on their Ti tandem), the 115k (Mike Salvatore), the 150k (John Lewis on his Axiom SL) and the 180k (Jake Bridge) routes, and of course we saw more Seven riders on each of the courses, some on road bikes, some on cross bikes.

John's Axiom SL
John’s Axiom SL

As a randonee, D2R2 is not a race. It’s a challenging group ride. It requires cooperation, camaraderie, resource planning, group navigation and a lot of hard work. It is not unlike running a bike company.

And of course it’s all smiles and tall tales back in the food tent after the ride. All the descents were gnarlier and the climbs were longer and we came that much closer to crashing, as pulled pork and mac n’ cheese and Rice Krispy treats disappear in the feeding frenzy.

Jake, who did the long route, has the best story. Two miles into the ride his rear derailleur came apart. The lower pulley and its bolt flying free across the road. Only able to locate the bolt, he road back to the start area, cased the parking lot for any charitable soul with a spare pulley, FOUND ONE, installed it, and hammered back out onto the course, doing the entire 180k of dirt and mayhem on a cobbled together drive train.

Matt and Susi cut two hours off their 100k time from last year. Susi says it’s because they stopped to chat less. Matt believes they still stopped to chat too much.

An event like D2R2 can sustain you for a year. It will leave you with much to think about, climbs you could have handled better, gearing choices that seemed right at the time, and it will send you searching for long stretches of dirt road to conquer, if only to recapture that feeling of being out in the middle of no where, on your bike and flying.

Road no Longer Maintatined by Town