Riding the Farmer’s Daughter Gravel Grinder

Riding a Gravel Grinder has been on my bucket list. Gravel grinders are challenging endurance bike events that are typically ridden on gravel or dirt roads. The best bikes for these events are gravel bikes, cyclocross bikes or even hardtail mountain bikes. Jordan and I both recently got gravel bikes, mainly because we wanted a bike to ride a gravel grinder!

The Farmer’s Daughter starts at Crellin Park in Chatham, about a 30 min drive from Albany. There were no race bibs or timing chips, this was just a large group ride, with some serious riders! A total of 65 miles, the Farmer’s Daughter course rides along the hills of Chatham with views of the Catskills, along the countryside with a grueling 6,000+ feet of elevation change. Thankfully the organizers offer two “bail out” options that take you directly back to the Park, one at mile 28, and the other at mile 46. I knew going in I wasn’t going to ride the entire 65 miles due to my previous knee injury and lack of training, but I wanted to go as far as I could.

The ride starts out right away on the roads and begins to climb. Thankfully the climb is pretty short. The was no shortage of mud on the singletrack portion, thanks to the previous night’s rain.

We passed so many gorgeous farms throughout the day, too.

One of the many gravel roads on the Farmer’s Daughter course

The aid station at mile 16 was at S&S Brewery in Nassau. They offered up some hydration, along with shots of delicious maple syrup for a quick burst of energy.

There is no shortage of views on this ride. There is also no shortage of hills…

One of my favorite parts of the ride was on the trails at Hand Hollow Conservation Area. Riding some technical terrain on a rigid gravel bike was challenging but fun!

We got to the aid station at mile 28 and grabbed the cue sheet for the 12 mile ride back to the park. We had some food and then the rain started! We rode the last 12 miles in the rain until it finally let up right before we got back to the park! We changed, packed our bikes up and then enjoyed some post-ride beers (Chatham Brewing Farmer’s Daughter, of course) and delicious tacos.