What could possibly be more fun than a weekend upstate with all your best pals? How about a weekend upstate where you and all your best pals thrash yourselves on gorgeous country roads, in a truly epic ride (or is it a race? honestly I still don’t know)?

The very large TBD crew (13 humans, two completely absurd dogs) made our way up to near Chatham, New York, for this year’s Farmer’s Daughter Gravel Grinder this past weekend and I can confidently state that we had an absolute banger of a time. While my report will in no way compare to Cullen’s classic 2019 dispatch from Farmer’s Daughter, I can confidently state that the event has invested in an actual finish line. There’s still no timing, but you will at least know when you’re done!

Having been doing gravel ‘stuff’ out in Colorado for a few years, I found Farmer’s Daughter as a bike ride / race / whatever it is to be super interesting. The ‘neutral start’ was not neutral at all, thanks to our teammie Matt sitting on the front absolutely drilling it to stay with the lead pace car. I figured compared to the Colorado events I had done this would be a piece of cake and it was decidedly not at all. The climbs are so steep! I definitely saw 20% grades on my bike computer more than once. I (stupidly or wisely, you be the judge) didn’t have any power or heart rate data on my screen so I had to use my level of exertion to know if I was dying or not. The answer is, I finished, and sometimes I thought I was dying. My most excellent (and Cullen-reminiscent) move of the day was, on the second singletrack sector, watching my pal Emma crash herself out on a large protruding water pipe, saying to myself ‘well she didn’t make that but maybe I will’, and promptly crashing myself out on the exact same pipe.

While the conditions ranged from outright soup to bright sun, it never rained during the day which was sort of incredible. We all just kept going, stopping at all the rest stops (except Ben who is a complete legend and finished sixth even though it’s not a race), and trying to eat enough that we wouldn’t just curl up on the side of the road. I loved almost every minute of it.

Unfortunately one of our teammates was not as lucky - actually, both Matts had bad days. Matt LT ended up in the hospital with a broken collarbone after he wasn’t able to avoid a pothole, and Matt V rode back to our AirBnB a little over halfway thru the ride after finding himself thoroughly dehydrated on the first hot day of the year in NYC. Luckily, they both seem to be on the mend, and I’m sure Matt LT will be riding his trainer about 20 seconds after surgery.

In spite of injuries, mishaps, and bonking, we had a terrific weekend upstate. As the official Cruise Director of TBD, I’m already working on planning for next year. We hope to see you there!

The Farmer’s Daughter Weekend Gallery