jimmuller 

I didn't see that post, don't hang out there all that much, too busy to hang out anywhere most days. Can't make Sept 12 though. Bummer.

Jim from Boston

I noted that the CCRT ride is just before Columbus Day, and this question arose in my mind, from all the pictures you post in the summertime: Do you and Sharon ever wear bike shorts? Not that it matters, but we are still in Leg Season.

Or is this the way they usually dress on your planet?

jimmuller 

Most of the inhabitants of our planet have six legs and three body segments. They dress in an exoskeleton. Fortunately they are pretty small and generally don't get in our way. Except for the old joke - How can you tell a happy cyclist?

Jim from Boston

So how can you tell a happy cyclist? Do they wave?

jimmuller 

By the bugs in his teeth.

Oh, since this is the Good Ride thread...yes, I did. I rode the Centurion to work and back. Got called into a phone meeting at 4 which didn't end until 5:30. By the time I started for home the sky was dim and gray. Time to start thinking about lights. Tomorrow I will ride the Peugeot. The last time I rode the Peugeot was several months ago in the rain, and then I forgot about it. As I started prep'ing it for tomorrow I realized that was a mistake. It took me an hour to brush all the mud and dust off it.

jimmuller 

Same commute, different bike. Lovely weather even with the slight headwind this morning.

sherbornpeddler

We were in RI today and rode part of the East Bay Bike Path this afternoon. There was a good amount of happy traffic including flocks of little kids and couples of teenagers. We stopped for Dels on the way down and grazed on grapes on the way back. Beautiful weather.

jimmuller 

Today we had spectacular weather in New England, temps starting cool and getting up to maybe 75F, humidity off the charts low, clear blue sky. One cyclist who pulled up beside us as at a stoplight said it was going to snow tomorrow. I told him Don't say that!

We did 62.1 miles on the tandem. Not quite a metric. Had to conserve energy as we are going to be riding with a friend tomorrow.

First stop, Walden Pond:



As usual we stopped at Fern's General Store for lunch. Nary a bicycle in sight when we arrived. Twenty minutes later a zillion bikes showed up, including two other tandems. We had a nice conversation with one of the teams. Then I recognized someone I used to work with 8 or 9 years ago so we spent time discussing those old days. A very pleasant interlude in the middle of a long day on the bike.



Of course on the return we passed by Hutchins Organic Farm so we had to stop, now didn't we?



And of course my sweetie just had to load up the panniers with peppers, zucchini, various greens, even potatoes:



Finally, continuing the sequence of interesting signs in metro northwest:

mr_bill

Theme(?) ride.

Welcome back! But be careful out there.





-mr. bill

jimmuller 

After yesterday's near-metric on the tandem we did another near-metric today. We met a friend in N Andover who led us on a wild ride north to the left bank of the Merrimac River, then down along the river until we crossed over into Newburyport. I was a great 61.5 miles, except for the half-dozen hill segments with max slopes over 10%, one even hitting 12%! I had to walk the bike up that one. I told him if we had too many more of those I wasn't going to make 50 miles (which is what I thought we going to do). The return was refreshingly flat by comparison!

Lunch stop in Newburyport:



A short break in Ipswich:



We rode by an ice cream stand with a big sign that read "Judge Berman, free ice cream for life".

rholland1951

Spent the better part of Labor Day weekend at the Thomas Point Beach bluegrass festival, in Brunswick, Maine.


Took the LHT along. Played hooky on Friday, and rode E through Brunswick, West Bath, and Bath, 26 miles with 2539' of climbing.

Clamming at low tide, Thomas Point Beach (one man's beach is another man's mud flat).


Lots of little curlicues in Maine's fractal coastline, makes for some interesting routes.


An old burying ground, Adams Road, Brunswick.


An airshow was in progress the whole time I was in the area, and various airplanes and their contrails turned up during the ride, sometimes with dramatic effect. Lots of folks were looking up.


The thing about air shows is that they have a tendency to follow you around, loudly, for miles. Every now and then I'd stop to gawk and try to take a picture, like this charmingly anachronistic formation of a P-51 and an F-22 (if the P-51 shoots down the F-22, I want my $273,000,000 dollars back).


Followed back roads in West Bath, lots of hills and some wise old barns, one uniquely decorated (those fenders look like they provide great coverage).






The donkey is skeptical of the intentions of bearded men on bicycles.


To be continued...

rod

mr_bill

Yesterday - Law of conservation of tarmac confirmed.

For every meter of this:



There will be a meter of this:



-mr. bill

Jim from Boston

-mr.bill,

I enjoy your urban photos, but I sure would like to know where they are from.

On another note, I just discovered that on the Settings tab – Suscribed Threads with New Posts, if you put your cursor over the the number of replies for a thread, your number of posts on that thread pops up. There are 4,911 replies to the Metro Boston thread, and I have 313 posts, last 09-03-15. Coincidentally, 313 was my area code growing up, and I even remember my letter prefix (LA for Lakeview7-5375).

mr_bill

Heading into Porter Square, and East Arlington.

-mr. bill

jimmuller 

+1. I'd like to find some of your routes. Sure as heck though I'd get lost or find lots of dead ends.

I clicked that link and all I got was a full-page pop-up telling me to join facebook. I declined.

rholland1951

Continued.

Made my way through the hills and dales of West Bath, passing up a couple of intriguing dead-end route options, including the perhaps-aptly-named Mountain Road and a numbered fire road. Road repairs gave me a little dollop of mixed-terrain riding, as it was.










The Blue Angels put in an appearance, one of the Wonders of the Age. And loud. A Canadian bass player at the festival shared with us the intelligence that in some dialects, "blue angel" refers to a lit fart. That seemed fitting, all things considered.




Meanwhile, the wildflowers glowed in the Late Summer sun...




To be continued...

rholland1951

Continued.

I crossed another town line from West Bath to Bath, and proceeded N on High Street, past water and lovely gardens.


The map says this is Winnegance Creek. Kinda big for a creek; compare and contrast to the Shawsheen River...


The Mainiacs know some things that the M*******s don't. Here's one.




The Kennebec River: not a creek. Made me wonder how cyclists cross it? Bicycle/pedestrian accomodations on the Route 1 bridge (what are the odds)? Hitchhike across in a pickup truck? Ride upstream to where it becomes a little baby river?


Looking upstream on the Kennebec River to the Bath Iron Works, with a massive floating dry dock and a modern, stealthy surface combatant in view.


Monumental sculpture "The Wyoming", a riverside homage to shipbuilding. This is a working river, with a working shipyard and a working town.


The Bath Iron Works: when they say "heavy industry", this is the sort of thing they mean.




Hello, Sailor!


Some of the steepest hills of the ride were encountered on the back streets of Bath, climbing out of the river valley. The return route was much shorter than the outbound route: we don't need no stinkin' fractals when it's dinnertime. I found the Thomas Point Beach encampment to be much the same as when I left it.

rod

Ghazmh

Wow! That looks like one amazing bike ride!!

rholland1951

Always fun to explore.

rod

rholland1951

Took another ride from Thomas Point Beach on Saturday. The festival encampment had its own charms, of course. A little boy asked me if my Take-a-Look mirror was Google Glass; I explained to him about Old Technology, and approaching trucks.


Last year, I had ridden from TPB S down Maine 24 to the end, at Bayley's Island. This time I explored a couple of by-ways in that direction, Prince's Point, in Brunswick, and the village of Cundy's Harbor, in Harpswell, for a total of 23 miles with 2110' of climbing up the hills, and a maximum speed of 35 mph rolling down the hills.

Rolled down Maine 24, making use of the mostly-usable shoulder, and thinking that the whizzing of the passing cars and trucks compared favorably to the shriek and roar of the passing F/A-18s: the air show was still in progress.


Prince's Point, Brunswick: I don't think this was Roger Goodell's mailbox.


Indian's Rest, Harpswell: a story goes with it.


The Blue Angels wake the dead at the Cundy's Harbor cemetary: that could be the frame story of a pretty good zombie flick...


Cundy's Harbor itself is a New England gem. Returned with Ellen the next day for a lobster roll.








Made it back to TPB in time to hear Doyle Lawson.


rod

rholland1951

So, we drove home from Maine on Sunday. On the afternoon of Labor Day itself, I spent more time than I would have anticipated swapping tires on the Surly Trucker DeLuxe, removing the Compass 26" x 1.75" (44mm, more or less) tires that have been on the bike for the 1378 miles since it was built, and replacing them with a new set of Compass Rat Trap Pass Extralights, marked 26" x 2.3" on the casing. These tires only recently became available, and I wasn't entirely sure they'd fit, but I'd been looking forward to them, and this hot, muggy Labor Day afternoon had a bit of the feel of Christmas morning.


First I had to get the old tires off. I had gotten used to bare-handed flat fixing with the Barlow Pass tires on the Alex Adventurer rims of my LHT, but these 26" x 1.75" tires were made of sterner stuff, and I had to resort to tire tools, after spending entirely too much time coming to this realization. Made me wonder whether I ever changed a flat with those tires... maybe not...

Anyhow, then the process of putting the Rat Traps on the Sun Rhyno Lite rims began. Turns out that the Rat Traps are one of several new Compass tires that are sold as "tubeless ready"; in practice, this means that their bead has a somewhat thicker, rectangular cross section: tough stuff. The sidewalls are splendidly supple, but the bead is not wimpy. Nevertheless, I proceeded to try to massage the tires onto the rims, gently but firmly, then a little less gently and a little more firmly, until the moment came when I realized I had gently but firmly peeled the epidermis off the pad of my left index finger. Oops. This led me back to tire tools, including a tire jack I bought by mistake a couple of years ago, and had never used. It came in handy...


Between the jack, and a pair of metal Origin 8 tire levers, I did manage to get the Rat Traps mounted. From time to time in the process, a section of bead would snap into place on the rim with an audible !POP!


I inflated them to 50 PSI to seat them, then deflated and reinflated to 30 PSI front, 35 PSI rear, and put them on the bike. The front went on nicely.


The rear was a little trickier, but ultimately fit as well.


One of the things I was skeptical of was how the Rat Traps would mesh with the Planet Bike Cascadia ATB fenders I run on this bike. The fit was a little snug, but I think the clearance is adequate.


On the 27.5mm Sun Rhyno Lite rims, the initial width of the Rat Traps, at 30 PSI, was 51.52mm. They'll probably spread a little, but I don't anticipate trouble.


By the time all that was done, the sun had set, and I took the newly-shod bike for an evening ride to Lexington Center and back, floating along over pavement rough and smooth, pneumatic suspension to burn. For their size, these tires seem quick.






rod

rholland1951

Took the Trucker DeLuxe with the 52mm Compass Rat Trap Pass Extralight tires out on the Minuteman after work on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. One of these days, I should take them off the pavement, but I ride when I can, and most often these days, that means in the dark. Between the new pair of shoes on this bike, and the Rawland Nordavinden that's really still in the shake-down stage, I am overwhelmed with bicycle novelty. Now to ride 'em.










I'm getting the feel of this bike with the new tires. So far, so good, I think, but the Rat Traps are tall enough to change the overall geometry compared to the low-profile 1.75s that they replaced. Buy new tires, get a new bike...

rod

sherbornpeddler

Your enthusiasm seems perfectly appropriate and normal to the rest of us.

I wonder if seasons influence non-insect, non-exoskeleton minorities? I didn't reach the same level of new bike-ness but I did admire the smoothing effect of switching from a very knobby 50 psi mountain bike tire to a 26 x 1.25, no-tread, 90 PSI tire. We just returned from three days of riding on Martha's Vineyard. I decided my mountain bike had the carrying capacity and gearing for a heavy load of luggage but didn't look forward to miles of knobby tread vibration. I dug out a 10+ year old tire and tube and installed it about 11PM Saturday night before we left Sunday morning. Sunday morning rolling off the ferry didn't feel like a new bike but I did admire the smooth ride.

jimmuller 

I'm not sure I'd know what a new bike feels like. All my bikes are old. But they do feel different from each other. I rode the Centurion to work today.

I kept getting the Patriots radio broadcast in my handlebar.

rholland1951

I woke up this morning with the phrase "Monster Trucker" on my lips, and have applied it to the Surly Trucker DeLuxe equipped with 52mm Compass Rat Trap Pass Extralight tires, or Rat Traps, for short. Compare and contrast the Rat Traps on the Monster Trucker on the left, versus the 38mm Compass Barlow Pass tires on the LHT on the right:


Took the aforementioned Monster Trucker out for 15 miles on the Minuteman this evening, setting a good pace and dodging unlit, half-lit, and double-lit fellow trail users as necessary. Paused briefly to watch the AHS football team tangle with the kids from Franklin; not exactly the Pats versus the Squealers, but the weather was better.


On the way back in the dark, heard a series of concussions that turned out to be the Arlington Town Day fireworks. Got a picture of the fading embers of the grand finale, looking like a distant house fire.


Beat it home before the revelers' traffic complicated things.

rod