NCC Thursday Hilltown Gravel series: #2

The sky looked pretty ominous, and we expected snow flying any minute, gathering for the start of the 2nd episode of the 2025 Hilltown Gravel Series. John, Jason, David, Jack, Chris, Steve, and myself gathered at the Conway Ballfield parking lot and departed at 5:30pm sharp. We headed north via a nice descent down Emerson, and took Shelburn Falls road towards our first climb up Truce rd. After a quick regroup at the bottom of the hill, we continued on Reeds bridge and took a left on Boyden, where we had a stop and had a look to the hills of our next destination: Roaring brook.

Shortly after, we crossed rt 116 and turned onto Roaring brook. If you haven’t been on this road yet, you should definitely try it out. It starts with pastoral views of cows, farms, farmlands and hills(all the way into Vermont), and then turns into a roller coaster of three dimensional winding gravel through the woods and then dumps you on Whately rd. With the road in good condition, we soon made it through. Jack, who was on his mountainbike, did not seem to have any trouble keeping up.

With 45 minutes before sunset and two more climbs to go we headed towards Cricket Hill, this is the longest climb of the ride. After gathering at the top, we turned around and halfway the descent we stopped to have a view that included mtn Monadnock.

After a quick regroup back at Whately rd we went to our last climb of the day, Fields hill, shorter but steeper than Cricket, we made it to top and rode to the field wih a view of Conway, its surrounding hills, and even Patton hill. After a quick group photo, we made our way back to the parking lot and the end of the ride. Fortunately the snow kept away.

See Activity on Strava for more photos. Route on RideWithGPS.

Next week’s Gravel ride will start at Stillwater in Deerfield, and will explore Hawkes and Old Albany.