Yesterday morning turned into an interesting event. As the only day without daycare duties, I decided to do a long-distance ride instead of simply commuting by bike. To get the extra credit, I decided to make it slightly longer than usual, to get to Carlisle in a less-familiar way (not via Minuteman), and to change things up in Carlisle a bit to investigate a couple new roads. Well, I was sort of foiled by technology - first, the alarm on my smartwatch didn't go off, then Osmand navigation failed me several times resulting in multiple stops, detours, and loops. It would give me instructions such as "bear right" or "turn slightly left in 100feet" on completely straight roads and was completely silent at road forks. And a few times it gave me hilarious instructions such as "in 100 feet make a u-turn, then in 100 feet make a u-turn". Could be because I exported the route from Strava this time and not from RideWithGPS.
Initially, my long ride was supposed to be somewhere around 47 miles home to work. I bailed on the back roads and took Monument st into Concord. By the time I got to Haute Coffee for a much needed stucky bun, I was at 30mi. Somehow, my "bailed" route clocked in at 48 miles about half a mile from work, so I added another loop around the neighborhood just to get over the imperial half-century mark.
I have to say, I didn't much enjoy getting to Carlisle because of traffic, but once there the riding was fantastic. It's a really good place for road cycling.
Early morning fog in Arlington Meadow
A quiet break from traffic on Maple St, Carlisle