rholland1951

Rode to Lexington Center this evening, starting in the dim remnants of sunset. Met quite a few unlit cyclists on the outbound leg, presume that they started in daylight and got caught by the night, but any fool can theorize. Also met a couple of riders using red blinkers as be-seen headlights; as Spock said to Kirk, "Captain, is that wise?"

rod

AbundantChoice

Not a long ride by any means, but rode from JP up along the SW Corridor to the South End to do a bit of shopping, then had lunch at that "ampitheater" thing behind the police station on the ride back.

I actually really like the SW Corridor during the day on non-weekends. I can handle the walkers who walk on the bike side, I just wish the mega-strollers would stay on the walk side!

sherbornpeddler

AC,
That is a nice path and bravo for bike errands. I'm not familiar with your lunch stop?
I am familiar with SUV strollers on paths. Still, any parent choosing non-motorized kid motion outdoors is OK with me even if weaving like a hurricane....
Speaking of choosing I had to choose between sensibly cleaning the gutters or going for a bike ride.
Speaking of weaving I had to slow down during my bike ride (tomorrow, I'll do the gutters tomorrow) to let Muller's turkeys cross a road all the way down in Westwood. I just got back before blinkers.

jimmuller 

We managed another 20.6 miles on the tandem today, just the MM Bedford to Alewife and back. We started to go up the newly opened Alewife Brook Greenway trail but after 50 yards or so of bridge it became sand. No pavement (just yet - perhaps someday soon?).

When we did the NRRT yesterday there was a tractor-like vehicle running the trail towing a sweeper, blowing the leaves off the trail. Nice!

I also discovered a 1in long stress crack running down the center of the tandem's rear rim. No more riding until I replace that rim! Something to do during the storm.

jimmuller 

I'll provide some more fixin's:

Don't spoil your appetite!

sherbornpeddler

You kids definitely have the tour-with-lunch style refined! My tribe usually opt for the forage-on-route version.

gabedad

Hi

New to this group. I ride out of Chelmsford.

Rode to Nashoba valley vineyard yesterday. First time there. Nice 50 mile ride roundtrip.

sherbornpeddler

Gabedad,
Welcome! Sounds like a great ride. Did you go through Acton and Stow, Bruce Freeman trail and/or up through Littleton and Harvard?

gabedad

Just down 27 all the way to 117.

telkanuru

Operation Hurricane Commute = Success. Pro tip: try to go in the same direction as the wind.

rholland1951

Yow! Congratulations on your heroic exploit!

rod

jimmuller 

Yeah. Wait until tomorrow before you try to go home, and you'll have a tailwind that way too!

Be safe.

jimmuller 

I just spent an hour on the bike, but it was on a trainer in my livingroom. Outside the wind is howling and the rain is falling. An open window a few from my face let me feel the wind in my hair. The scenery changed entertainingly because thanks to a hi-def TV right in front of the bike I could watch Star Trek Next Generation via Netflix. Plus, I got to ride my Raleigh Gran Sport, a bike which as been feeling neglected lately.

thehum

Went out riding around Cambridge/Boston yesterday, and it was very, very windy:

I rode to the water with two other friends, where there were lots of folks with cars. We met two other cyclists there and ended up riding with them more before grabbing dinner.

jimmuller 

Because of the hurricane I've been riding a bike on a trainer for the last three days, an hour a day. But I think the cyclo-computer is broken because it says I haven't gone anywhere. Same with my GPS. Am I doing something wrong? Maybe they need new batteries?

telkanuru

I'd say this counts as off-peak now. The MM was a pile of leaves today, but rideable. No branches, and the Lexington area was already cleared by the grumpy man with the industrial leafblower.

sherbornpeddler

thehum,
Very impressive video!
Nice ride and music choice. I recognized most places but didn't catch the restaurant. It looked good.
How'd you ride backwards?

sherbornpeddler

Jim, you need to get out. Its not the batteries.
or take the wheel chocks off the trainer
or at least turn the bike around and ride the bike backwards so the front wheel with the cyclo-computer pickup spins. You'll have to turn the GPS around too.
Get out. the weather is fine now. Get out now!

I did get out today. The roads are narrower with leaves and kindling; a precursor for when they are narrowed by snow. Nice to get out.

sherbornpeddler

Tel,
That is a nice photo.
We ride along and enjoy the sensation of speed and swooping around and about. Taking time to stop and ponder a view or a moment is pretty cool. It is easy to fly by and for a moment think it might be noteworthy. It is cool to stop. Thanks!

telkanuru

I'd take credit for patience, but I was actually shepherding a new-to-biking friend along at 9mph, so I stopped for a bit and let her go ahead to get a bit of sprint in

rholland1951

As the Great Accident would have it, I flew to San Diego for a conference last Saturday, returning today, completely missing Sandy (I suppose I could have claimed refugee status). The conference hotel was in the Mission Beach neighborhood, a penninsula wedged between Mission Bay and a surfer beach on the Pacific Ocean. The area is served by a dense mesh of bike trails, multi-purpose trails, and bike lanes (all the green stuff in this screenshot of a Google Maps session - they don't let you link the Bicycle view, it seems).


I had a couple of hours free before sunset after arriving on that first Saturday, and rented a genuinely skanky beach bike ("cruiser") from the hotel's bike'n'surfboard concessionaire. This machine had a number of vices that would be tiresome to enumerate, but the most memorable one was that it squeaked rhythmically when it was ridden, and gave me the sensation of riding through an open-air performance of a Phillip Glass composition. Single-speed, pedal brakes, painted olive drab with the occasional WWII Army white star: fun to be nine years old again.


Nevertheless, I took off around Mission Bay, circling the whole thing on the paved multi-use path (with a couple of roads and a bridge thrown in), returning by sunset (and closing time for the somewhat cranky concessionaire), an 11-mile ride.


This was a good introduction to the place, which is an interesting mix of prosperity, poverty, and surfer-hipster-bohemian living in the moment, all of it happening, in part, on beach bikes. Encountered a few guys I wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley, and a few homeless people with their bikes set up as if for loaded touring. There were birds aplenty, pelicans, herons, egrets, gulls, terns, osprey, hawks, ducks, geese, coots, rails, plus this one, which never did quite become airborne:


The high point (literally) was a bridge that carries West Mission Bay Drive across the channel at the mouth of Mission Bay. Doing this climb on a single-speed had me standing on the pedals.


After this initial outing, I found a better beach bike--aluminum frame, very fat, low-pressure tires--which I rented for the week, at a good price, from a more likable business down the street.


After that, the conference began in earnest, and I fell into a comfortable rhythm of riding at sunrise on the Bay side...




... and sunset on the Ocean side, as far North as La Jolla.




After the last workshop on Thursday, combined a trip around the Bay, including an excursion onto Fiesta Island Park (a roadie spot it seems, dozens passed me), with a ride at sunset up the Ocean path. That ride amounted to 16 miles. This morning, took one more dawn ride, then returned the bike and flew home.

Overall, got about 50 miles in this week, in the margins of the conference sessions and attendant schmoozing. The whole beach bike experience was enjoyable, and taught me more about the Mission Beach/Mission Bay area than I would have learned otherwise, but did reinforce my conviction that I have a high-quality folding bike (or maybe a touring bike with couplers) in my checked-luggage future.

rod

sherbornpeddler

Impressive out of town explorations and beautiful photography. I used to have an Italian touring bike renovated with S&S couplers so it fit in an airline compatible suitcase. I took that rig several places and generally found roads around my business travel destinations were interesting but not up to familiar MetroBoston roads.

Speaking of MetroBoston, on another great riding day, I found the wild turkeys again but in very clever disguises.

jimmuller 

RodH, nice report. I don't know if I'd have the initiative to do that on a business trip. I'm usually too tired. Nice pics!

SBP, what color setting did you use on your camera for those turkeys?

We rode by the Carlisle cranberry bog, so we can start assembling the parts for T-day dinner, yes? We did about 38 miles on the tandem today. A cold November sky with a taste of winter in the air. It just seemed like T-day. The Bruce Freeman was so covered with leaves it was like riding a woods trail. We opted to ride back from Chelmsford on rt27 instead of the BF. Rt27 is not a bad road but not nearly as bucolic as the back roads of Carlisle. There was lot of traffic today, and a fair number of cyclists too.

And the rear wheel I built up this past week (after discovering the rim cracking) held together nicely.

jimmuller 

49.7 miles on the tandem today, Bedford, Carlisle, Concord, Sudbury, Wayland, back to Bedford. Long story, long trip sort of. We went out with a neighbor on his Serotta. His wife was hoping to go to a newly-opened garden center in Wayland, so after our lunch break in Carlisle I suggested we head down to some roads in that direction and eventually we all decided to go by that garden center and meet her. Everybody ended up happy. We did some roads we'd never done before, including rt27 into Sudbury from the north and rt20 from Sudbury into Wayland. The run from Wayland Center to Bedford was via rt126 through Concord, quite a pleasant ride.

rholland1951

Evening ride to Lexington Center on the Minuteman, 10 miles. Dark, clear, quiet, low 40s; good antidote to the San Diego gestalt. After a week on a cruiser, only tried to brake with the pedals once.

rod