Cycling in

The Berkshires

Day One

by Michael Heyes

Summertime in the Berkshires! It's a great time to bring your bicycle and enjoy some much more interesting terrain than Indiana has to offer. Nestled in a valley surrounded by Mount Greylock, the Green Mountains in Vermont, and the something or other range that is traversed by the Mohawk Trail, it's hard to find a flat piece of road. So, climbing gears are definitely the order of the day.

North Adams to Lanesborough

I put on my 25/13 cassette to go with my 39/53 and headed out. On my first day, I travelled south. There is a flatter way to travel, but I came here looking to climb, so I stick to the back roads. First stop, Jacks Hot Dog Stand. Damn. Closed.

Heading to Adams, the best road is just east of McCanns high school. Besides the great climbing there are spectacular views of Mount Greylock, the highest mountain in Massachusetts at 3491 feet. Continue on and up until you get to Rt. 116, right above my high school's arch-enemy, Hoosac Valley High School. Head down 116 and turn left, resisting the urge to continue down the excellent descent (unless you're really looking for some hurt climbing back up) and continue towards Cheshire.

If you look behind, you'll have a great view all the way up the valley, past Adams, North Adams, Clarksburg and beyond straight to Vermont. This section has some nice rolling hills, and finishes with a fun, fast descent into Cheshire and the Ashuwillticook Rail Trail. This rail-trail is one of the best I have ever been on.

The Ashuwillticook Rail Trail is a beautifully scenic, paved, 11 mile path connecting the Berkshire towns of Lanesboro, Cheshire, and Adams. TheTrail passes through woods and marshlands, and alongside a lake and a river, with wooded hills and Mt. Greylock, as a backdrop. The Trail has become a popular resource for biking, walking, roller-blading, jogging, etc.

The word Ashuwillticook is from the Native American name for the south branch of the Hoosic River and literally means “at the in-between pleasant river,” or in common tongue, “the pleasant river in between the hills.”

I stayed on it only until I got to the end of Cheshire Lake, and then went up the Mt. Tabor-like hill to another back road, headed towards Lanesboro.

Lots of climbing here, and I got to use my 39/25 again ;) At the end of the road you turn right to get to Rt. 7 in Lanesboro, but first, turn left and go down a beautiful one-mile descent to the fresh water spring to refill the water bottles. Of course, then you need to climb back up the one-mile+ to Lanesboro, but that's my purpose in life today: climbing.

Lanesborough to Williamstown

After a brief stop in Lanesboro you head back on Rt. 7. It's a pretty fast road, 50 mph speed limit, but there is a nice 5 or 6 foot shoulder that is well suited to bicycles. And it seems that drivers are much more courteous than here in CornTucky. I could see that the drivers seemed to have most of their teeth too.

You have several miles of gentle climbing until you get to Brody Mountain in New Ashford, and then it's several miles of gentle descending. You can easily ride at 30+ mph on this stretch. Then it's a few miles until you get to Williamstown, where you turn right down Green River Road and follow that into town.

Williamstown was first settled in 1749 and was officially incorporated in 1765. The town was originally named West Hoosac. A leading resident, Ephraim Williams, was killed in the French and Indian War, and left a significant sum to the town if they renamed it "Williamstown" and started a free school. The school eventually became Williams College.

From Williamstown it's a short five mile ride to North Adams. My mother used to live at the top of a pretty good one mile climb. Her new home is now another mile higher. I'm so glad I brought that 25!

Below are some pictures from this ride. The date on the pictures is obviously wrong; I changed the batteries in the camera but forgot to correct the date. Click on a picture to see a larger version.

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