Bike ride concludes with pig roast

NORFOLK — The Norfolk Curling Club Pig Roast Fundraiser went down at the team’s clubhouse on Saturday, Oct. 19, capping off a day of cycling through the town’s bucolic back roads for the Tour de Forest and Icebox Gravel bike rides.

Curling Club member Bob Gilchrest said that the “first annual” designation was a little cheeky, but he does hope it happens again next year.

Gilchrest is the chair of Norfolk’s Rails to Trails Committee and organizes the yearly bike rides to fundraise for the development of the town’s rail trail that stretches down to Winchester. He first ran the event in 2018 as a way to bring awareness to the rail trail and also to “have an event that involves the whole town” and brings cyclists to Norfolk’s gorgeous roadways, he said.

The Tour de Forest course snaked its way up Wangum Road and back down through the Great Mountain Forest’s dirt roads, while the Icebox Gravel track explored the town’s northern country routes. “Having the Great Mountain Forest be a quarter of the town and having the course track through its dirt roads is really a treat,” said West Lowe, who volunteered to help set the courses.

Gilchrest and others emphasized that this event was not a race and there would no winners, a sentiment which several participants apparently took quite seriously. When a group of cyclists didn’t return after the sweeper had made it back to the finish line, an envoy was dispatched to locate the missing riders. They were found happily enjoying a pint in the sunshine at Norbrook Farm Brewery.

The pig roast, which was a new addition this year, followed the rides at the Curling Club which also served as the start and finish to the bike rides. The bike rides were the main event, Gilchrest maintained. The pig roast “piggybacked” on the cycling – “no pun intended.”

Secondary or not, the jovial atmosphere at the pig roast indicated that it was a fun way to raise money for the Club, whose season begins in a few weeks.

The pig was prepared courtesy of five-year Curling Club member Bryant Massey, who said he roasted the 120 lb. animal outside the clubhouse. His wife Gail was in the indoor kitchen and “did pretty much everything else,” Massey said. The results were delicious, this reporter assures.