Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
That major road in the first picture usually has fierce traffic, but fortunately has a sidewalk for relatively safe riding. Sidewalks are not much used by pedestrians in the the extended suburbs of the Motor City.
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We arrived back in Boston on Monday, and since I had Tuesday off I did an approximately 50 mile loop from Norwood to Kenmore Square via Concord...
Welcome back home, JimFB.
A question, if you please. What is the legal status of riding on sidewalks in Massachusetts? I've always assumed it was discouraged and perhaps illegal by town ordnance. Arlington has such a sign where the MM comes in from the west (but of course that stops almost no one from riding the sidewalk over to A.Center and then bombing diagonally across to continue into Cambridge). If I can ride a road at all, I do that. I figure if we ever want real accommodation as vehicles then we must ride as if our bikes were real vehicles and show that fact by example. (I stop at most red lights too.)
Your Norwood-Concord route sounds interesting. One day (like real soon, yeah
) I must trace it out on a map. I have never really understood how to go south from metro NW. The MassPike/Rt20/Rt9/Natick/Framingham/Newton/Wellesley complex always seems a formidable barrier.