Northeast - sommerville, ma - anything good riding?

i end up here a couple of times a year and i usually bring my bike. i ride around and can never seem to find great roads to ride on. everything is lights\traffic\rows of parked cars\etc. where do the semi-serious roadies go?

Where's that?

northern area of boston.

Starting in Somerville, ride west. Once you get past Belmont it gets pretty, once you get past Concord it gets beautiful.

I've had good luck simply touring with the Rubel bikemaps. You can always make your own routes cause they list backroads with beta on traffic densities and shoulder width...

http://www.bikemaps.com/

Jay

^^ This man speaks the truth. The "Eastern Mass" one is my road bible.

Starting in Somerville, ride west. Once you get past Belmont it gets pretty, once you get past Concord it gets beautiful.

okay, i think i ended up going in that direction. i just started off randomly following a bike path near davis square,went across a bridge, and ended up on concord ave. it had a nice bike lane and went through a pretty good area. i ended up climbing some of the residential hills around there but headed back as i didn't want to get lost.

so, basically keep going west?

so, basically keep going west?

Yeah, pretty much.....drive at least an hour and a half west (2 hours preferably), and you'll come across some great riding :D

When are you gonna be out here?

We should do a wheelsworks ride starting at the somerville wheelworks, or the belmont wheelworks...

I'd be up for that - I live in Brookline.

One thing that is great about the Rubel maps is they list ice cream shops on the map!!!

They are not error free, I found a lot of errors on the Berkshires map when I was using it, however, I emailed them all to Rubel and they were very accomodating and eventually sent me a new updated map, so record all the errors that you find and send them to them. The errors were mostly minor except for 1 or two oversights that I had to stop and route find a bit.

Jay

Go to Arlington Center via Mass Ave. Get on the Minuteman Rail Trail. It goes to Concord/Bedford without the hastle of city biking. I bought my bike with me to my Tufts Reunion this spring, and this is what I did. It was too bad that the rail trail was not there when I was living in Somerville.

When are you gonna be out here?

We should do a wheelsworks ride starting at the somerville wheelworks, or the belmont wheelworks...

sounds good. probably won't be up there until next year though.

Try to visit Indy Fab while you're there. Those folks may know some good rides.

I do a charity ride that goes thru Concord and the ride route is very nice, maps here:

http://www.braintumorsociety.org/site/PageServer?pagename=50mileroutemap

The Charles River Wheelmen have a listing of cue sheets and maps:

http://www.crw.org/CueSheets/index.htm

sounds good. probably won't be up there until next year though.

well...THEN we shall do it next year!

sounds good. probably won't be up there until next year though.
that's close to my area, if some of you hook up let me know!

so your pretty darn south NH i take it

so your pretty darn south NH i take it
yep, right by the mass border.:)

Looking for suggestions on where to ride in Massachusetts? I recommend Howard Stone's books on Short Bike Rides in Eastern Mass. He also has authored other books with rides in other parts of Mass as well.

Nothing doing on the Wheelworks ride yet? I live in Concord and would love to join.

Emily