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Old 08-17-20, 10:07 PM
  #8965  
rholland1951
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Took the Surly out again Monday afternoon, on a 49-mile route through Arlington, Lexington, Bedford, Concord, Lincoln, Sudbury, Wayland, Weston, and Waltham. This was a chimeric route that stitched together Water Row, Pelham Island Road, the Wayland and Weston sections of the MCRT-Wayside, and Winter Street/Old County Road around the Cambridge Reservoir, plus transportation stages coming and going on the Minuteman, Route 62, Route 126, Sherman's Bridge Road, Trapelo Road, Smith Street, Spring Street, Marrett Road, and Mass. Ave. Plenty of hills, climbing and descending, with 3092' of climbing and a top speed of 33 mph on a descent on which I had the nerve not to touch my brake levers.

Concord Lamp & Shade, Walden Street, Concord Center: one of the thematic devices in this odd dystopian movie we've all been recruited as extras for is anxiety about the survival of beloved local institutions (to say nothing of people and entities in many other categories that suddenly seem seem awfully impermanent). I performed a wellness check on the Lamp Lady. She's fine, and I can reset my worry timer.



Route 126, Wayland, I believe: the turkeys have also found work in the movie; the script calls for them to panic, and they seem to have a knack for it.


Sherman's Bridge, ceremonially crossing the Sudbury River into Sudbury.


Water Row, Sudbury: the cattails and the purple loosestrife do the extinction dance.


Water Row, Sudbury: here a bullfrog said, "Howdy!"


Pelham Island Road and Landham Road, Sudbury: one nation, under ribbons.


Pelham Island Road, Wayland: Pelham Island doesn't exist right now. The Sudbury River, Wash Brook, Heard's Pond and associated wetlands would be happy to instantiate it, but the heavens are not releasing the necessary water. This is the Drought sub-plot in our movie. If the rains do come, we'll switch to the Flood sub-plot. If the movie is long enough, we'll have both, and maybe throw in Fire between the drought and the flood.


MCRT-Wayside, Weston: having ridden this (and spilled blood doing so) when it was just a socially-constructed single track path running alongside the rails and crossties, I'm pleased to dance on the graves of the NIMBYs who blocked it for so long. It really provides a nice option for east-west bike travel in the Post Road area, and today's route serves as an example of that.




I left the MCRT at the Church Street exit, and made my way past the Cambridge School of Weston to Winter Street, Waltham, following that on a clockwise winding around the Cambridge Reservoir, continuing that on Old County Road until I crossed the Reservoir on Trapelo Road and then climbed the hill to Waltham, laboring on into Lexington and then down a series of hills into Arlington and home. No pictures of any of that, the Pocket Devil played dead the next time I tried to use it, although I discovered that it didn't actually die until I was standing in my driveway; this considerately gave me a good track, behavior somewhat above the diabolical norm.

rod

Last edited by rholland1951; 08-18-20 at 06:23 PM.
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