2024 Nutmeg Nor’Easter: Dissecting the Cult of Romance

With additional photos by Cass Gilbert where noted

He pulled away from me like a fighter jet. 

“To be continued,” his lips read as the race grey of his 38mm Ultradynamico Cavas buzzed along a perfect fall Connecticut afternoon. Ronaldo Romance was showing me the best road riding his corner of Nutmeg Country had to offer. In conjunction with the last of the fall leaves, by god, it delivered. 

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I caught up to him on the climb and continued my barrage of questions. Anything from New Haven’s pizza scene to thoughts on modern aluminum was up for discussion. 

“It’s a real working-class joint. The crust has a nice crumb to it, and it’s not oversaturated by a layer of grease over top.” 

He had as stark opinions on pizza as he did on the quality and aesthetic of modern bikes. 

“It’s funny because I started out on something exactly like this. You come full circle!”

He glided over the smooth country tarmac on a heavily patina’d, Connecticut-made Ron’s Road prototype, navigating the undulating cambers as if he’d laid the asphalt himself. As we crawled over three of southeastern Connecticut’s seven sisters, I couldn’t help but try to piece it all together. Earlier that day, we’d sat around his front yard’s empty fire pit and spoke with the same range we covered on the ride. Conversations about lessons from owning their own manufacturing company to origin stories and tales from the first Nutmeg Nor’Easter weaved and bobbed just as the meandering roads of Hadlyme followed the surprisingly hilly terrain of this mysterious state. I was here for my first Nutmeg Nor’ Easter but also to better understand cycling’s enigmatic alt-biking media mogul. As Ronnie, Tenzin, and I sat beneath a shedding tree, we dug in as best we could.

“We learned a lot from that experience. Years and years of learning. It was hard, but the perspective we gleaned is invaluable,” Tenzin said. I’d inquired about the state of their longstanding bag business, for which Tenzin organizes production. “We know a lot more about every step of the process. That bit is great. But the experience toward the end was tough.”

Toward the tail end of the last year, Ronnie and Tenzin were forced to transition their bag-making manufacture. After a few years with Swift Industries, then Nutmeg Needleworks as clients, they’d purchased the facility from the retiring owners with hopes of focusing on themselves and a few other bike-specific clients. Following a three-year crash course in ownership, manufacturing logistics, and the managerial wringer, they were forced to close the shop when two vital employees abruptly left to care for family in Puerto Rico.   

“Now we know a bit better and how to spread the load across a few different manufacturers. We weren’t organized enough to really ever be bosses, but now that we’ve seen how it all gets made, we have a much better idea of how to run things on our end as clients,” said Tenzin. As they reclined in the bench seat of Ron’s lawnfront YouTube studio, I could feel the toll the business had taken on them. 

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“Thankfully, we have a lot of irons in the fire, and the arrival of the shoes and frames tided us over during that period. Works better for my ADD anyway—I like doing many different things at once,” Ronnie chimed in. 

Having seen an increase in the number and variety of frames coming out of Ronnie’s various media means, I asked if he ever intended to do a large-scale production run. 

“Not really. I think keeping things small batch allows us to manage expectations and never get too big. I think that’s the issue with any of this. Growth is difficult to say ‘no’ to, but really hard to do well. That’s how we felt with the bags and how Patrick and I feel with the tires. We can keep it small for the sake of our sanity,” he said. 

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“So there are no plans to have the Nor’Easter compete with Unbound?” I retorted. 

“Maybe Lifetime will buy us soon,” Ronnie smiled.

Checking the blog entry of his eccentrically styled site a few days before departure, I couldn’t help but agree with some of the recent comments. One read, “I’m not really sure what this all is. From what I can gather, it’s just a hangout with some camping and routes—Is that right?” This being my first Nor’Easter, I had some expectations but not much in the way of actual experience in the land of the Nutmeggers—a sort of caricature in alt-cycling parlance meant to describe those actively engaged in the cult of Romance. Rivendell, Crust, or retro-grouched ’90s MTB/ATB in tow, the kind of person who engaged in the event donned a uniform. An aesthetic signifier suggesting they’re privy to this mode of bicycle-oriented thinking. As the Nutmeggers piled in on the Friday of registration, the description rang true.

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At first, slowly, and then all at once, folks from the surrounding area and well beyond arrived at a large wooden hall in the deep thicket of southern Connecticut. The Deer Lake property is a sprawling, idyllic, grassy haven free of bugs, harmful fauna, or any other kind of outdoor hurdle to anything less than a perfect time. In contrast to the year prior, the weather was perfectly temperate, with dry weeks on either side of the forecast. 

“Last year was a little rough. We had weeks of rain leading up to that weekend, and then it continued to rain right up to the day of the event. It was still fun, but probably less than ideal for a few people,” Ronnie laughed, recalling the mud year of 2023. 

“So, how did this all begin?” I asked. 

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“Well, we just sort of wanted to share a place we both call home with friends and like-minded people. I remember I didn’t think anyone would come if it wasn’t a race. For the first year or so, I marked the course and created some sort of timing system. But we’ve moved away from that,” said Ronnie.

“Remember you made pancakes the first five years?” Tenzin added.

“Oh, yeah. This is our ninth technical Nor’Easter but the eighth official event. We always had a good group of friends that did a lot of off-road riding around this time of year, so we just sort of put it out there that we were doing a big ride together. It gathered a lot of internet attention, but only one person actually showed up. It grew from there, and as we’ve nailed down a venue, a lot more people have shown up,” he reminisced. 

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About 500 riders were set to arrive for the weekend’s festivities, and by the sheer number of bikes, vans, and people transports that descended upon the sunlit knolls of the campground, that may have been a conservative estimate. As old friends wrapped each other in hugs and bikes with their bags of choice, I watched the lackadaisical nation of Nutmeg coalesce at their summit. Unlike other events, there was so much variety in the nature of the experience. With three days of happenings at the venue, there was no culminating apex to which the event or its attendees gathered. Almost as soon as people registered, they jettisoned off to whatever little corner of the plot they could find and rejoined in conversations that had paused just a year prior. An air of comfort and familiarity beset nearly every passing conversation, almost as if time had stopped for 365 days and slowly, easily came back to our interpreted notion of reality somewhere in Killingworth, Connecticut. 

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Meandering around the grounds, I larked around the concentration of interesting bikes and riders populating the campground to try and get a feel for what people came to do. “So, which route are ya doing?” I barked nearly a hundred times. Most folk, it seems, had aspirations for the rough stuff. With nine routes ranging from seven to eighty-five miles, there were plenty of options for getting rowdy. Having admired Ron’s road bike summer, I brought my Velo Orange Rando. It only cleared 33mm tires, but I’d hope to stick to the gently curving asphalt I’d seen pictured all summer long. With a 57-mile, “smooth enough” route on offer, it sounded like the ideal choice, especially given the small sampler Ronnie had provided a few days prior. 

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“When Tenzin and I came back in 2020, I really didn’t want to be here for long. We had traveled for years and made it work, but I just didn’t see why I’d want to stay,” said Ronnie between climbs. “But the riding here is world-class. I mean, I’ve ridden pretty much everywhere, and I still find so much joy in this place. There are so many good routes and roads. That’s part of what we want to share with people.” 

In the first miles of my own Nor’Easter odyssey, I could see exactly what he meant. The winding roads that dot the hills of the small state create a sort of roller coaster effect. In conjunction with the cool temps, explosion of fall colors, and occasional dirt sojourn, “world-class” certainly wasn’t a stretch. 

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“That’s great, though! You’re sort of easing into this next phase of your life—a less nomadic one,” I suggested, doing my best to keep to Ronnie’s wheel. 

“Yeah, I hadn’t thought of it that way, but yes. That’s just about it.” 

The miles only escalated in intrigue as I continued upon my selected Nutmeg adventure. From perfect pavement to picturesque forest paths, the variety and ease with which the routes cut through the countryside made for some of the best riding I’d ever pedaled. Though I always enjoy riding alone, I welcomed the groups I started to leapfrog as that perfect Saturday eased into itself. All make, manner, and attitude of bike bumbled along the quiet roads and dirt tracks as a peaceful procession moved through town and country lanes all the same. While I usually quiet my mind on rides with an ambient hum of random tunes in my ears, forgetting my headphones provided the kind of peace probably only possible here in Nutmeg country. Making my way through the turns, hills, and minor descents, peace sat with me from that very morning. 

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“You’re probably going to be passing some roadkill and other violence that we normalize in our day and age, so let’s take a second and try to be peaceful,” Tenzin said, standing before the gathered Nutmeggers who’d braved that early morning cold. They treated us to a blessing from their mother, a woman who I’d learned was never formally educated but found a way to provide for all their children in a foreign land on the salary of a hotel attendant. When speaking to Tenzin a few days prior, they’d echoed some sentiment of settling where they never really thought they’d end up. 

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“I’ve had to confront a lot of unpleasant memories here. You know, having grown up in a place, things happen. But renegotiating those experiences through the bike—that’s special to me. The place takes on a whole new meaning,” they said, looking wistfully out onto their picturesque lawn.

Contextualized a few days later, the experience of their mother’s blessing felt all the more sacred.

“We’re a disappearing culture. One that is displaced and erased,” Tenzin said softly into the microphone. “It’s important to share our culture and pass it on as best we can. So, please join us in bowing your head, and then we’ll throw the barley, a sacred grain, out into the field.”

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After standing in a field with about 200 strangers and throwing barley up into the air, I took a moment to take it all in. Ronnie chased a nephew around the lawn as folks gathered their belongings for their journeys. I couldn’t imagine this was something present at other events. Despite my limited experiences at larger bike events, the nature of what folks endeavored to accomplish here felt both amorphous and specific—the only throughline being an acceptance of experience and one another. And, of course, that iconic Nutmeg look. Little triangles of flowers lined the caps, bags, and bikes of nearly every rider in attendance. In trying to understand the impetus behind their desire to bring their wares to market, the greater idea shifted into focus.

“Was your desire to bring manufacturing back to this little corner of Connecticut a way of returning what you feel it gave to you? Or is that a fanciful sentiment?” I asked Ronnie as we ground up a gruesome final climb.

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“Yeah! There’s certainly an effort to do so. Manufacturing has a history here—both in Connecticut and in my family. One hundred years ago, Hartford produced more bicycles than any place in the world. My great-grandfather was a manufacturer and produced bicycles in New Haven until I-95 paved over his shop in the late ’50s.  I want to continue to make things here as I feel I can,” he said. 

He says of his great-grandfather, “It’s funny, he drove this old, beat-up truck from 1942 well into his 90s. That thing was a rust bucket by the time I was a kid. But he loved it. My dad still drives it around. I try to imbue that into the things I make. They don’t have to be clean and shiny to be quality.”

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To say the same of the attendees would be to judge the aesthetics of the gathered crowd harshly, but the sentiment shone through. For whatever haphazard, cacophonous display of bike or bike accoutrement lay before us at the Deer Lake campground, so too did a specific kind of person. A kind of individual who traveled halfway across the country just to pedal around the forest with a few friends. A few like-minded individuals who had found their community and stuck to it, everyone sporting that singular, triangular badge that, much like the gathering of this group of eclectic folks in the late autumn of the Northeast, offers a graceful, peaceful homage to the woods of its origin.

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