rusto

FOLLOWUP: Had a great ride yesterday. My brother and I left from my mom's in East Harwich at 8 a.m. and picked up the CCRT in Brewster off Long Pond Road. It was early (and chilly) enough that we pretty much had the thing to ourselves.

With the sun shining and a light northerly wind, we pedaled briskly under a canopy of trees along the path. For a short time, we rode along with a woman who was on her ride, headed back to Wellfeet and happened to live just a few towns over from me.

The CCRT road surface is well maintained and smooth and a great route for getting across quite a bit of the Cape without car traffic. One gripe is that when they cut the grass and brush that borders the trail, they shoot it ONTO the trail, so be wary when you take a blind turn with speed. There are only a couple of places where you get views of salt marshes and perhaps the chance to see an osprey or other wildlife, otherwise it's mostly overhanging trees that provide dappled shade.

There are some fairly frequent road crossings and you really should be prepared to unclip as many of the drivers don't stop for you as they should. Often enough we could get to a crossing and just track stand for a moment as the cars stopped to let us pass. There are also extended stretches of the trail where you can pedal along unimpeded by crossings.

As the morning drew on, more and more grannies/families/rollerbladers appeared and, as expected, we had to temper our speed more frequently. We got to the end of the RT in Wellfleet where it ends at a large parking lot without much notice. We took a right turn on LeCount Hollow Road and made our way to Ocean View Road to pedal along the Atlantic Ocean for a while. Actually, we had only occasional views of the ocean through gaps between houses and dunes.

At this point, which might surprise some, we started to encounter some decent short climbs.

We turned west on Cahoon Hollow Road and made our way across Rte. 6 to ride through Wellfleet Center and out of town via West Main Street, Pole Dike Road and Bound Brook Island Road where we picked up Old County Road. All of these miles were very picturesque with characteristically weather worn cottages, harbor views, small rollers and fun curves.

Old County Road led us into south Truro where we got on Rte 6 for a while. Although it's a fairly high volume roadway, there is (for New England) a generous and clean shoulder about 5 ft wide. This next stretch is pretty hilly (again a surprise for so far out on the Cape where you'd think it would be flatter) and we began to pass a number of cyclist laboring their way up. The grade was not torturous, but the hills were about 3/4 of a mile long each. I'd say from where we got on Rte. 6 to where we turned on to 6A (Shore Road), there were maybe 4 of these climbs.

The turn from 6 to 6A involves either showing some confidence and signaling your intention to get to the left lane on a downhill section with the traffic following along at 50 mph or going all the way to the intersection, stopping and walking your bike across Rte. 6. I put my left arm and a kind driver immediately let us drift left so we could cruise onto 6A.

From here all the way into Provincetown, we pedaled along the shore or just one row of houses/motels/hotels away from it. Flat. And windy. At this point we were knifing our way through a 10-15 knot northerly wind.

Once we were in Ptown, our progress slowed to a walking pace: there were to be some parades later in the day and all the car traffic was just poking along and the many other cyclists in town further clogged the streets. We rode to Pilgrim Tower and then found a shady place to sit, refill our water bottles and have a PowerBar.

We made our way back south, grateful that the wind was now at our backs. We agreed to keep the pace down a bit to allow our legs to warm up again but the tailwind encouraged us to go faster. We found ourselves out of Truro and back on Rte. 6 before we knew it.

We decided to stay on Rte. 6 until we could pick up the CCRT again, to save some time and take advantage of the tailwind. Traffic heading up to Ptown was at a dead stop for miles and many of the stranded drivers amused us with comments ranging from women shouting, "Nice legs!" to guys shouting "Nice legs!" (we were near Provincetown, after all) to many unidentifiable war hoots, cat calls, whistles and such.

We finally tired of all the near-right crosses, unexplainable braking and other bad car behavior and picked up the CCRT somewhere in Orleans. At this point, it was nearing 11:30 a.m. and the trail was now in full family mode. Our desire for speed had flagged significantly anyways so we poked along, passing the various groups without great urgency.

My brother, who navigated for the trip and lives in Chatham, spaced out and forgot to point out where I could jump off the trail and get back to my mom's in East Harwich, so I ended up all the way down in Harwich Center before turning back NE on Rte. 137 toward my mom's house.

Total miles: 85
Avg speed: 19 (not bad for all the stops and slowdowns on the CCRT)
Approx 2800 ft of climb

I don't recommend CCRT for speed demons unless you intend to head out very early in the day or simply want a nice route for recovery/spinning. If you wait until 10 a.m. to ride, don't be surprised if your average speed ends up below 17 mph.

If you're not so interested on covering a lot of ground, we passed one ice cream shop that takes advantage of it's proximity to the trail and there was one push-cart vendor selling water, soda and other snacky stuff. The trail passes through downtown Orleans if you want to wander off for a little shopping. There are also at least 2 bike shops that border the trail in Brewster/Orleans.