jimmuller 

sbp, it's very kind of you to say that and I thank you. But 'twarn't nuthun' special. Sitting in one's office facing the possibility of 16 miles at rush hour on a stricken bike and with no easy T route makes one's innovation juices run high.

I do believe that Zip Ties should be added to WD40 and Duck Tape to complete the quark triumvirate of universal fix-it components.

sherbornpeddler

Another luxury ride; this time a nice 14 miler from the Fruit Center Market in Hingham on Winter Street to the Hull Life Saving Station Museum. A little provisioning at the market then we rode the sidewalk along Summer St/Geo.Washington Blvd to Nantucket past the carousel. The small size of the community and summer traffic seems to keep speeds slow and drivers alert. Sidewalks, side roads, sections of wide roads, bike lanes and plenty of crosswalks make for safe biking. Perfect beach weather meant we had the museum to ourselves and our tour guide was expert, an excellent communicator and will become a museum curator no doubt. The museum collection is fantastic and illustrates the shipwrecks and heroism of those Massachusetts Humane Society volunteers who set the standard for what later became known as the United States Coast Guard.

mr_bill

SoWa First Fridays
Harrison Ave
Amsterdam, er, Boston



-mr. bill

rholland1951

Took the Nordavinden for a 21-mile spin on the Minuteman this evening, after a busy day. The cooling evening was a pleasant change from the recent heat; I tried not to think about Autumn.












rod

sherbornpeddler

Rode trip to Rhode Island between Wickford and Narragansett on Rt 1-A. It was a 24 mile out and back ride along moderately busy beach traffic. Most of the road has a wide bike lane and except for a few nasty soft sand spots, it feels pretty safe in single file. Wickford is quaint and has plenty of parking and right on the bay so it is a good launching point. Long moderate hills with moderate traffic south through North Kingstown, past Rt. 138 and the Jamestown Bridge to Narragansett. No sidewalk or bike lane on the Jamestown Bridge. We rode past the Gilbert Stuart museum and a lily pad garden in Saunderstown I want to investigate next time. Likewise, when we arrived in Narragansett we didn't stop at the former Coast Guard station, now fancy restaurant house but did stop for very good sandwiches at the Picnic Basket sandwich shop on the corner of Kingston and Boon roads. 24 miles total on a beautiful day.

Ghazmh

Your photos and descriptions of the Minute Man have inspired me to start riding and enjoying it again��.

rholland1951

I'm glad. I live close to it, and often find my only time to ride is in the late afternoon/early evening, so the Minuteman gets more of my miles than it otherwise would, a car-free route at rush hour, when I don't have time for a longer ride. Riding the same familiar route so often calls attention to the things that change (light, weather, foliage, people), hour-to-hour, day-to-day and season-to-season. The Minuteman's been good to me.

rod

jimmuller 

Nice reports, guys. mr_bill, I wish I knew how to get through the city to try some of the stuff you post. Rodh, we rode the MM early in the day for part of our run yesterday and it was busy!

We did 71.0 miles on the tandem yesterday. We left the house at 8:30. Couldn't ask for better weather, temperature in the mid 70's all day, blue sky, low humidity. First stop, unplanned of course, was at about 20 miles. We passed Hutchins Organic Farm and my sweetie asked if we could stop. Of course she bought about 20lbs of veggies that we had to carry for the rest of the day.

Some years ago I posted a pic of this interesting sign in Carlisle. (My avatar is an excerpt from that pic.)



The barn underwent renovations for over a year and the sign disappeared, but eventually came back.



Yesterday we had the good fortune to ride past that barn as the property owners were showing the barn to some friends. We stopped and I thanked them for putting the sign back up and we chatted for a while. They showed us the barn's interior and told us a bit about it. IIRC it was built in 1769. I said when we saw the contractor's sign out front I'd hoped that the guy had a sense of history. They said oh yeah. All the American contractors they'd contacted were afraid to touch it because it was over 200 years old. The contractor who did the work was from Germany, and for him the age was no problem, that he'd worked on buildings that were 1000 years old!

They had always intended to put the sign back up anyway. In fact, it was a traditional assignment for the 3rd graders in the Carlisle grade school to research that sign. A different side of the barn also carries this great sign of days gone by.



Yes, there were chickens in the barn, but only in the newer addition.

Then we meandered over to the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail and north to Chelmsford.





Just opposite that Bartlett sign on the way back we spotted what we think was a young great blue heron.





The ride back was pleasant and uneventful. The view from Fern's wraparound porch.



A rest stop in Lexington.



To paraphrase a Klingon saying, it was a good day to ride.

rholland1951

Managed to fit a 20-mile ride in before dinner by not dawdling; the Rawland conduces to not dawdling, of course. In Bedford, Elm Brook was lit by the low sun, glowing through the greenery.


The ride tonight consisted of long sprints punctuated by episodes of congestion, of which the most amusing involved a hen turkey and two of her juvenile offspring.


Unphotographed but intriguing were the half-dozen kids assembled near the Arlington skating rink who appeared to be encased in transparent plastic balls. Whatever it is they were up to, they hadn't quite started doing it yet. I should have stopped to take their picture, but it was more of a go kind of ride...

rod

jimmuller 

Lot of that stuff going around. On our ride last Saturday a cyclist coming towards us called out "Turkey in the road" in time for me to avoid a collision. They, for there were a mom and two children, waddled off into the bushes before we could get any picture.

Then yesterday on my ride home from work I startled an adult turkey in Woburn. He/she/it panicked almost so I stopped and waited as cars came whizzing by further startling him/her/it. He/she/it eventually made it safely over a small stone wall and into the bushes.

mr_bill

Bubble soccer!

-mr. bill

rholland1951

The very thing!

rod

rholland1951

Took the LHT out for 15 muggy, drizzly, drippy, puddle-splashy miles this evening.

One mysterious doorway...


... and another...






In Arlington Center, on the return, a woman honked at me because I was insufficiently deferential to her internally-combusting majesty; I sang her praises, loudly, with such eloquence as I could muster.

rod

mr_bill

Right Whale & Roseate Terns Plates by any chance?

-mr. bill

rholland1951

Fraid I didn't notice, but the behavioral signature sounds like a match...

rod

rholland1951

10 miles on the Minuteman this lovely, clear evening, keeping a quick and easy pace on the Rawland, lots of company out there, but most of it moving in good order.


From time to time my auditory system plays a psychoacoustic prank on me, locating external sounds somewhere in my bike, a sort of bicycle ventriloquism. Tonight it was the raspy cry of a blue jay that sounded like it was coming from my bottom bracket; "Better lube that," I thought.

rod

sherbornpeddler

another week catching up on summer rides outside Metro Boston. We visited Gloucester in the first part of the week and enjoyed the majesty of confused seas from an offshore storm and beautiful sunset. Today I joined some business friends for a little business and more bike riding on the East Bay Trail from E. Providence to Bristol. It was crowded before noon and seemed to calm down in the early afternoon.

rholland1951

Ten miles this evening on the Minuteman, just enough later by clock and calendar to provide solar dazzle at the start, a vivid sunset on the ride out, and nightfall before I reached home. Summer for the time being, and the more prized for it.






rod

Jim from Boston

Well said, @rod. Busy as I am all year, during the nice weather I make extra effort to get out and ride well beyond my commute to increase my fitness level. I try to adhere to a mileage-based training schedule facilitated by the increased daylight and beckoning temperatures. Spiritually though, I get out to just savor the weather, and not be so disappointed by missing it so much when it ends.

I think of my Summer rides like "canning" the produce of summer to enjoy (in memory) during the Winter. The more I ride, the more I have to enjoy.

Jim from Boston

I celebrate the nice weather part of the year as a self-proclaimed "Leg Season," when short pants are the usual dress. It starts on the first Sunday in May with the Annual Walk for Hunger, and ends on Columbus Day with the Annual Tufts 10 K Road Race, both attracting thousands of participants.

bigredkevbot

I'll be taking a spin out for 35-70 miles (depending on weather and conditions) this Sunday along the Minuteman starting from Cambridge/Somerville! It's always a warm up and cool-down ride.

-Red

sherbornpeddler

Ok finally I got in a ride that covered the serious miles. Sherborn to Essex Ship Building Museum. It was a bits and pieces trip with a few assists.....
120 total miles ........of which only 35 were on the bike. A morning commuter took my bike and me to Black Falcon Ave where I started my trip with a 2 mile ride to the Boston Harbor Cruises Salem ferry. I met my biking comrade at Long Wharf and took the 55 minute ferry to Salem. There are some welcome paths and bike lanes in Salem and Beverly. We biked 11 miles on Rt. 22North up to Essex and spent a couple of hours at the excellent museum. Like the Coast Guard Museum in Hull, it is richly informative, has hands on exhibits and it takes you back to the times of wooden ships and clever craftsmen. We ate at the restaurant next door, looked out over the salt marsh and winding river then biked 5 flat miles to the Ipswich MBTA train station. We stopped to read a couple of Tricentennial Markers efore we boarded and flew south to North Station in air conditioned comfort and great service. The conductor was welcoming and helpful with our bikes and we witnessed her alert a napping passenger so he wouldn't miss his stop. Seems like everyone was in a fine, Friday in summer mood. We biked 5 miles out of North Station, (walked our bikes over the locks) rode under the Zakim and along Memorial Drive to Alston and got a pre-arranged lift to Newton. I rode the remaining 11 miles in light Friday afternoon traffic.

jimmuller 

Just another commute but on the "blue streak" for fun, tubular tires and 2x5 gearing, capable of winning the TdF in 1973.

A short stop for a photo op:

rholland1951

After 165 frisky miles, the Rawland turned up lame: a loose, bent spoke on the rear wheel; this was nothing I noticed while riding, but found it by chance while putting air in the tire before this evening's ride... Oh well, that bike goes to see Uncle Tyler, and the Trucker DeLuxe got a 21-mile spin on the Minuteman, Depot Park and back.




I got to pedal a lot and people-watch a lot, noting the lady who passed me up-hill on her electric-assist bike, the very large man also zipping up-hill without pedaling on his e-bike (what did Jan Heine say about e-bikes? "the democratization of speed"), the honest roadie who labored to pass me and gave me an anthropologically-interesting display of the advertising for some French company on the seat of his pants, reminiscent of William Burroughs' Purple-assed Baboon, and the small child who managed to terrify several adult cyclists by riding erratically while its parent looked on indulgently.

For completeness, voila les dandons du jour!


rod

sherbornpeddler

Rode a mid day make-it-up-as-we-go loop south out of Sherborn then in Millis west on nicely paved Causeway St then south on Holliston St through two of the five villages that are Medway, across the Charles River on and up Lincoln and east on Daniels/Short/Miller and east on Pleasant then north to norfolk Center on Union through the round-abouts and noodled north to Millis via Orchard and across the Charles on nicely paved Forest and back to Sherborn on Nason Hill. The traffic wasn't heavy but it was there enough to keep us single file. I rode the recumbent and wore a bright safety yellow shirt.