Took the Monster Trucker (Surly Trucker DeLuxe wearing 52mm Compass Rat Trap Pass Extralights) out for a quick spin to Lexington Center at sunset in the fine weather. I've now reacquainted myself with all my bikes, with the exception of the old GT Karakoram, currently set up as an ice bike. It's even money that that will see some use before Late Winter evolves into Spring (or even after that).
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Qf...w=w359-h637-no

rod

Familiar pleasures: rolled out on the Ebisu for a ride accompanied by the sunset on the way out, the moon on the way back, and squadrons of lanternfish, invisibles, and honking Canada geese in the darkness.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/2b...Q=w359-h637-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Fq...A=w359-h637-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/8c...=w1133-h637-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/zf...A=w359-h637-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/45...g=w359-h637-no

rod

Not even close to shovel ready. There's even questions about whether the whatever they are going to call it Harbor Casino will pay for it. (It's really a bridge from Assembly Square station to the Casino.)

IF they do the mystic river bridge and IF the Northern Strand extension happens and IF the McGrath Boulevard extends to Assembly Square (did you know McGrath Highway dead ends at Assembly Square?) and IF they fix the Southeast Expressway nightmare, then it looks great. Otherwise, it's a bridge to nowhere for bicycles.


Ran out to Assembly Square for a quick errand yesterday, here's what the Southeast Expressway Nightmare looks like:

No kidding, leaving Assembly Square you head to a dead-end road with a bulldozer parked in the road:
https://i.imgur.com/Ae46h6W.jpg

Under the first viaduct:
https://i.imgur.com/4pzImm1.jpg

Main St/Mystic Ave/Bailey Rd/Mystic Ave crossing. I'm not sure if it's Mystic or Bailey here. How can one road change names so many times in such a short distance? Only in Mass:
https://i.imgur.com/mU9Pyka.jpg

Under the Southeast Expressway. Lots of glass:
https://i.imgur.com/s321yvG.jpg

Another viaduct:
https://i.imgur.com/hlSD79A.jpg

At least there is a walk sign. The VW, Lincoln, Chevy *AND* Ford Truck all ran the light:
https://i.imgur.com/45At6rk.jpg

-mr. bill

So, all very well to see the future, but watch out for cross traffic...

Thanks for giving us the facts on the ground.

rod

I rode to and from work again today. Nice ride in, cold ride home. Drivers were antsy this evening. Don't know why. Must be tomorrow's storm. Or something.

Securing 8 gallons of Hood milk is very stressful.


So, I’ve never seen so many people on bikes report potholes (plural). Cambridge now says the Porter Square Potholes are fixed. (Over/under of when the patch fails under the load of the gazillions of gallons of Hood milk on their way out of Star Market?)

-mr. bill

wutz more fun that going to the dentist? driving thru this to get there & back. anybody biking thru this?

https://i.imgur.com/RuQgvDHl.jpg

I can't speak for "anybody", let alone "everybody". Speaking for myself, noop. It was hard enough driving through it.

Nope. After Thursday mornings ride I took my cross bike to the shop for its 90 day tune up. I'll pick it up tomorrow and get the blinkies rigged up for Sunday. 'hope to see you all then!

I did see a young woman riding valiantly through Arlington Center around noon. Brava! ( I was driving, so didn't burnish my own karma.)

Sunday I took my Roubaix out from its winter hibernation. After several weeks and several hundred miles on a 1X cross bike it felt different to be on a proper road bike again. I had to be a bit more mindful of the pot hole laden horrible road conditions on our broke and underfunded road infrastructure. 126 in Sudbury was closed and I was detoured through some nice back roads. I managed 45 miles and was oh so glad to be home when I was. It was another in a long line of cold windy and raw weekend rides.

Our roads do take a beating during the winter, don't they? Sunday morning our band played at a church service in Sudbury and on the way there we encountered the 126 closure. I'd guess it was from downed trees or power/phone cables. Saturday's wind was fierce. Friends on the Cape said they hit 90mph down there.

We've ridden our tandem and I've ridden solo north from Weyland Center a number of times and every time I see that hill just past the river I'm glad there are alternatives. It looks narrow for the traffic speed, which makes the steepness more serious. However the road heading east just below that hill, Water Row I think it is called or Geezen perhaps, is really nice. Some neat historical stuff through there too, and you can ride over to Sherman's Bridge over the Sudbury and into parts of Lincoln.

Can't tell you how often I've used the various First Parishes or First Churches (sometimes societies) in Greater Boston as way-points while out on a bicycle.

-mr. bill

I should have mentioned that I was glad to have been detoured. I should work those roads into my weekend repertoire.

Took the LHT out to Depot Park this afternoon, temperatures dropping from the mid-40s with a variable breeze that was mostly headwind outbound, mostly tailwind inbound, except when it felt like making crosswind mischief, which was perhaps 20% of the time. Mostly subtle signs of the weekend's storm were in evidence, but the DPWs of the respective towns had already cleaned up the big wooden pieces by the time I got there, and a quiet beauty prevailed on the Minuteman for those willing to travel it.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/HF...w=w359-h637-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/QS...=w1133-h637-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/OW...A=w359-h637-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/5Y...=w1133-h637-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/MW...=w1133-h637-no

Contractors were at work on the Minuteman adjacent to the little park at Bow Street, Lexington, installing liners in a main sewer line to keep the sewage out of the wetlands.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/JP...w=w359-h637-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/6v...Q=w359-h637-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/0e...g=w359-h637-no

rod

& next up ....

Guess the Nokians will get some use after all...:D

:thumb: if boss-man sends us home early, I might see you out there. since getting my ice-bike's rear derailleur fixed, it's been dormant

Ugh, I've been hitting the streets about twice a week before work for 25 miles for the past 3 weeks. I am so ready for sunny and 75!

So, it wasn't 75 and sunny, but high 30s and cloudy seemed to be better than what's coming, so I pointed the LHT East and rode through Arlington, Medford, Malden, Revere, Saugus, and Lynn, ~25 miles (didn't have my tracker turned on) on the Bike To The Sea path (a.k.a., Northern Strand Community Trail). This got me, if not to the sea, then at least to Rumney Marsh and the tidal estuary of the Saugus River.

The ride began with a stop in Medford at the stupa on the grounds of the Kurukulla Center. That seemed to have survived the recent storm without damage.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-m...=w1133-h637-no

Soon enough, I was in Malden, on the Northern Strand Community Trail.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/az...Q=w359-h637-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/ig...A=w359-h637-no

Then into Revere, with a surface of coarse gravel and a view of Rumney Marsh. The water was quite high, perhaps the tides, but some of this could be leftovers from the recent storm. The Wheelabrator trash-incinerator-and-power-station can be seen on the horizon.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/rF...=w1133-h637-no

Into Saugus. The trail surface in Saugus is crushed asphalt, as granular as stone dust. It's packed down nicely over the few years I've been riding it. Much of the trail in Saugus runs through wooded areas, and damage to the trees was in evidence from the latest storm, along with prior ones.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/eQ...=w1133-h637-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/u1...Q=w961-h637-no

The Saugus River estuary is the reward for persisting on this trail. You can tell you're not in Middlesex County any more.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Z...=w1133-h637-no

The water was high here, too.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/fE...=w1133-h637-no

Continued into Lynn, crossing Lincoln Ave. and taking the unofficial continuation of the eventual, hoped-for Bike to the Sea trail, single track running alongside railroad tracks on an abandoned causeway, a path between two waters that I never tire of riding.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/KL...=w1133-h637-no

More high water...
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/2M...=w1133-h637-no

There's more to the trail in Lynn, but that was all I had time for today, so once I got to dry land, I turned around and scooted home. Once again, I was pleased by how nicely the 42mm Compass Snoqualmie Pass Extralight tires, pumped to 40/45 PSI, dealt with the pavement (rough and smooth), gravel (coarse and fine), and dirt on this ride.

rod

By way of a cautionary note to the previous report, the Lynn causeway has two small bridges. Volunteers (I think) have created planked surfaces that ease the task of walking a bike across them, and make riding a bike across thinkable for the skilled and steady (or reckless).
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/u5...=w1133-h637-no

HOWEVER... the second bridge's planked surface has developed a tire-sized slot (since last year?), a real snare for the unwary. If you ride this lovely path (and you should), please don't break your neck on that.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/DD...A=w359-h637-no

rod

Wonderful tri-county excursion. Hope they do OK with this storm.

(On my todo list - visiting High Rock Tower.)

-mr. bill

Amen, w.r.t. the storm. Had to look up High Rock Tower, and now it's on my list, too. Thanks! It's not that far from Lynn Common, which is not that far from the turnaround point of yeserday's ride, all doable.

rod

From yesterday's commute home:

http://www.theworld.com/~muller/pics/TreeAtAlewife.jpg

Hallelujah!

rod