This morning I rode the preliminary Raid Rockingham course alone, in the soupy fog that gradually burned away into a sunny, pleasant afternoon. Following the Raid Rockingham MapMyRide post was pretty straightforward (or it would have been if my phone hadn't died 3/4 of the way through.
What's a Raid?
Here's Raid Rockingham's definition:
"Raid – Our definition? A raid is a challenging route that includes a significant amount of packed-gravel riding and at least one major climbing segment. This is not a race. A properly prepared rider and bike of most any type can do this. Our guarantee – you will finish tired but feeling accomplished.
The course is surprisingly challenging. Living on the coast in Portsmouth, I have dipped into a few of these gravel sections here and there on far-flung road rides, but I had no idea you could link so many together to form such a rolling, challenging loop in forty miles!
Heading south out of Newmarket the course pretty quickly gets you to the eastern terminus of the Rockingham Recreational Trail (a 25.3 mile rail trail that extends all the way to Manchester). After 3-4 miles of relatively smooth packed dirt and gravel that you can easily navigate on a road bike with 28, 25 or even 23c tires, the last 2-3 miles, at least at the end of May, were severely chewed up by what looked to be at least a half-dozen sets of horse tracks. This was the "grumpiest" section of the entire route, and even with my 34c cyclocross tubular tires I was more than ready to get back on the pavement by the time I reached Route 27 near Epping.
The course does a great job of interspersing 1-3 mile long sections of dirt/gravel road with longer pavement sections, and the "Cat 5" climb is tougher and seems to go on longer than the vertical would lead you to believe. The most memorable section for me came just before the finish on the wonderful Dame Road in Durham Point, which in late May was in the process of being graded. I got the bipolar experience of ripping up some solidly-packed, smooth-as-silk dirt road (like carving alpine ski turns on fresh corduroy just after dawn with nobody else around), but then had to slog through an extended ungraded section covered in two inches of beach-soft sand/dirt/gravel! Hopefully the grading will be completed long before the Raid.
I can't wait to ride this course again with a bunch of riders. What a great concept! Kudos to Arlon Chaffee for putting the effort into organizing this ride.
