Seeking Beauty & Challenge on the Brandywine Valley Roubaix

Subscribers can see the whole photo gallery at this link.

I didn’t know if I could do this. I’d like to tell you about a bike ride, the Brandywine Valley Roubaix Fall Foliage. Organized by local cyclists in pastoral Chester County, it’s a big, difficult ride - over 50 miles, mostly unpaved, with over 4,000 feet of climbing (in other words, a lot of hills). It would be more challenging than any ride I’d taken before, and also different in kind than most of the cycling that’s within reach from Philadelphia, with its mix of rolling gravel roads and trails intersecting with sun-drenched farmland.

My goal isn’t for you to feel you've experienced it vicariously, or for you to be sad you missed it. I’d like to tell you about it so that you might experience it for yourself in the future - so that you’ll think, “Maybe I could do that. Maybe I will.”

It couldn't be better

Philadelphia is one of the best places to ride bikes in the country - that’s the operating premise of The Trellis, and I’ll admit that when I first read it, I thought, “That’s bold.” Maybe I’ve lived in Philadelphia long enough that I’ve absorbed some of its perennial underdog spirit, but if you’d asked me a year ago about the best places to ride bikes in the country, I might have said the Pacific Northwest, the Southwestern deserts, or the cascading Rockies.

But the BVRFF* is the kind of ride that makes you feel like it couldn’t be better anywhere else. The Pennsylvania countryside is gorgeous. The riding is a perfect mix of flow, difficulty, variation, and spectacular beauty. The people are kind, and of all kinds. This was the longest bike ride of my life (so far!), and while I’m not into cycling for the suffering, yes, I suffered a little on this ride. But even in the harder moments, I looked around in amazement at where I was and what we were collectively doing on an idyllic Sunday morning.

*I'm going to abbreviate it like this. It's a good acronym, since BVRFF is also the sound your back tire makes when you lose traction climbing a steep, gravelly hill, which happens on this ride.

Setting goals

Towards the end of 2023, I listened to an episode of the Femme Cyclist podcast about goal setting. I wanted to be a bit intentional about my seemingly ever-growing enthusiasm for cycling, and to focus on the parts of it that I love the most, exploration and community. I came up with two goals: to go on six social rides I hadn’t joined before, and to build up over the summer riding season to some kind of capstone ride in the fall. At first, I had the Cape May Dyno in mind as a possibility, but a midsummer surgery, long-standing camping plans and, well, not training for that kind of distance ruled it out. Instead, I came up with two possibilities: the BVRFF and the Damp Roads Fall Classic – and ended up being able to do both.

Both of those rides had a “sticker price” distance of 50-55 miles. I’d ridden 45 a couple of times, but slowly and with breaks. I figured I’d better train. My training wasn’t too complicated: I tried to go for a long bike ride every weekend or two at a modestly challenging pace, starting at about 25 miles and working my way up to 42. I took a couple of weeks off before the BVRFF to let my legs rest up, though as any long distance runner might know, that “taper” also made me nervous. I was worried I wouldn’t be fit enough, perhaps that I’d find myself in the woods in Chester County with a long walk back to the start.

We're Getting There

My partner and kids took the car out of town the weekend of the ride. Casting about for a lift didn’t find me a car ride to the ride, but it did find company - Dan Powers joined me for a SEPTA-to-the-ride adventure. We caught a pre-dawn train from Center City to Malvern, then rode the 13 or so miles from the station to the start with Peter, another cyclist with the same idea. Just this little “pre-ride” itself was gorgeous - we pedaled along on quiet country roads as the sun rose in the sky, and passed through a street fair setting up in West Chester.

After we arrived at the start, which is the parking lot of a fence business, we made our final preparations and headed out onto the route. According to RidewithGPS, the course is only 20% unpaved, but in reality it’s more like 60%. It’s what gravel bikes are made for. A wonderful mix of all the surfaces: dirt roads, gravel walking trails, just plain dirt, grass, horse trails, and mostly quiet roads. The route weaves alongside the Brandywine Creek, with plenty of tree cover, and with open sections of tarmac alongside farmland.

The fanny pack debacle

After an hour, minor disaster struck - I realized my fanny pack wasn’t on my body. Had it fallen off somewhere in the first 10 or 15 miles? I was taken aback. That bag contained my wallet and keys, not to mention food for the day. Dan and I stood on the side of the road, mulling over next moves. Amazingly, the next group of cyclists to ride by paused to tell me they’d seen it in the parking lot at the start, where I’d accidentally left it, and turned it into the registration deck. Crisis averted! For the moment, anyway.

I did, eventually, miss those snacks quite a bit. While there was a very pleasant rest stop at The Whip Tavern with refreshments including apple cider donuts, it came early in the ride, and there wasn’t another aid station for the final 40 miles. As the miles ticked by, and I slowly ran out of fuel, the hills kept coming, and I started having cramps in muscles I didn’t know existed. I’m not sure how I’d have managed if Dan hadn’t pulled a couple of packs of Clif Blocks out of his bag. They contained just enough energy to get me through the last quarter of the course. My strongest possible “big ride” advice: don’t leave your food bag in the parking lot!

The way back

The last few miles of the course also helped me get to the finish by lifting my mood - they were quite whimsical! Much of this last section was on unusual sidewalk-width gravel tracks along berms on the roadside. There was also a section of just plain grass next to a cornfield. And most of this homestretch was decorated with pink, painted pumpkins that I’m pretty sure hadn’t been there when we rolled out in the morning.

Finally, back at the fence shop, everyone flopped in the grass, and feasted on pizza, soda, and any leftover food they had. I may have made a friend forever by sharing a few tahini chocolate chip cookies from my misplaced fanny pack. The respite didn’t last for long, though - we had a train to catch. Informed by the infrequent Sunday train schedules and a desire to catch some of the Phillies playoff game, we headed back not to Malvern but instead to Wawa station. This was even nicer, more beautiful riding, though it was a bit hillier. Still, it was only an hour of extra pedaling, and with a few slices of pizza and a bottle of Gatorade in me, it felt just fine, even celebratory.

Hard things

I didn’t know if I could do this, but I did. I’m left wondering not why we choose to do hard things but why doing hard things can feel so good. Perhaps it’s simply because it’s a huge confidence booster to know that we can. I recently took my daughter to a birthday party at a kids’ gym, and in the bathroom they had a list of 20 positive affirmations taped to the mirror. The very first one: “I can do hard things.” Doing hard things isn’t why I got into cycling, but I’m interested to keep exploring how the elements of community and exploration overlap with the rough stuff.