sherbornpeddler

I managed my first century in over a year. Pretty slow and "gradual" Sherborn, Dover, down to Diamond Hill in RI. Spectacular weather for riding. Pretty dramatic change to cooler evenings and morning.

The grapes are out! I can smell them riding by and now I see a few coloring the road.

GeezerPete

That's great, man! I'll be riding my first - the CRW Fall Century, hence the long ride last weekend. Let you know how it goes.

jimmuller 

FIFY. Good luck on your first century! Enjoy!

sherbornpeddler

64 miles (round trip) today up to Carlisle, beautiful weather!
Tomorrow I'll be volunteering at tomorrow morning's Boston's Bike Friday event for commuters at City Hall Plaza. These have been good fun with free food and vendor booths for gear, service, rides and all things bicycling.https://www.bikefridays.org/

welshTerrier2

I've been lurking in this forum for awhile now and I must say some of you folks are positively literary. Reading about your rides is the next best thing to being there. I love the photos too.

For roughly the last ten years, I did absolutely zero biking. Before that, I used to ride 100+ miles a week. It's great to be back.

On Wednesday, a day with temps in the 70's and dew points in the 40's, I rode from Ashland down to Natick to hook up with a couple of friends. They were riding up to Walden Pond. The ride through Sherborn in the early morning chill (almost my first long-sleeve ride of the year) helped snap me out of my daily morning fog. When I arrived in Natick, my friends were ready to go so off we went.

The ride took us through Natick center, up route 27 and then onto route 126. I rarely ride these roads because they are fairly heavily trafficked. Most of the riding I do is a littler further to the west. For those who know the area, I usually go up towards Concord on Dutton Rd (near the Wayside Inn) to Marlborough Rd or I take Peakham Rd. (also near the Wayside Inn) to Concord Rd to Sudbury Rd.

We spent about an hour sitting on the beach at Walden Pond eating bananas. It was the first day back to school for school-aged kids; the beach was filled with moms and every kid under the age of four in eastern Massachusetts. It was noisy as hell but nothing was going to interfere with all that blue sky and my biking and bananas buzz. Thoreau was definitely on to something at that pond.

The ride back to my friend's house in Natick was uneventful. After a "let's do this again real soon", I was off on my own. Since I began riding again this year, I had done all my rides solo. My friends ride a little slower than I do and I really learned that sometimes slower is better... much better. I was so fresh after riding with them that I decided to tack on my Dover - Medfield - Millis et al loop.

When I finally rolled the bike into my garage, I was stunned to see that I'd done an unintentional metric century. I went into my house for a well-deserved two hour nap.

I'm going to be doing an ALS charity ride on September 9. I'm debating between the 50 miler and the 70. The 70 tacks on some hilly sections in Bolton so I'm not sure which way to go.

Anyway, just wanted to say "hi" to all my Western burbs compadres.

jimmuller 

WT2, welcome to the Metro Boston thread! An unintentional metric 100? Next thing you know you'll "accidentally" do an English 100. A nice surprise reward.

It's good that your friends ride slower than you. I'm usually in the position where people (with a few exceptions) ride faster than I do!

sherbornpeddler

WT2, I second Jim's welcome and am also impressed with your enthusiasm. Sounds like your ALS ride will be enjoyable. Thanks for adding to the adventures here and we look forward to hearing about your ALS ride.

I agree with you about Rt 126 and although it never seems too much, week days I prefer a less direct eastern route Oak/Rice/Old Conn Path/Plain or western version zig zagging west over to Pelham Island/River/Water Row to Sherman's Bridge or Concord Rd.

Unlike you I was much less ambitious but that is a great thing about biking; rides are easily adjusted for an enjoyable outdoor occasion. Today, after a fun time at Bike Boston's last Bike Friday of the season, my wife and I rode the Esplanade and lunched in the North End.

welshTerrier2

Thanks Jim and SP. Your welcomes are much appreciated.

SP, Pelham Island is one of my favorites. I'm less sure about the Oak St. / Route 9 intersection though. I just read in the paper that a major redesign is planned that will eliminate the jug handle turns there. That should help a bit.

Does Bike Boston provide organized group rides? How was the turnout? Did you ride to Boston or drive or take the train? I haven't ridden in downtown Boston in years. I've heard the city has become very "bicycle friendly".

I've been training for the ALS ride (nice to have a goal) since I heard about it about a month ago. I called them up to find out details about the routes and they really didn't have them available yet. I offered to build all the maps with MapMyRide (from the previous year's cue sheets) which they knew nothing about. Charity rides are always hungry for volunteers with new ideas. They have four rides: 10, 25, 50 and 70. I built all the maps but they really hated the auto-generated cue sheets that MapMyRide produced. Sooooo, after a few copy and pastes, I've manually created something a little cleaner. MMR can get very verbose at times. They also have a tendency to mix NE, SW, etc with left, right and straight.

The ride should be great. They have some really nice routes picked out. The bad news, if we can believe such things this far in advance, is that the forecast for next weekend doesn't look too good right now. Think good thoughts.

jimmuller 

Well, I got out on the Masi for an hour or so today, just home to Lexington and back. (I was, ahem, supposed to be working, but exercise is a required activity, ain't it?) The steep section of Concord Rd isn't so bad on the Masi.

sherbornpeddler

I agree crossing Rt 9 in Natick and Framingham is poor. Oak upgrades should help and let's lobby for upgrades at Framingham Center, Rts 126 and 27 as well.

I do avoid Oak crossing Rt. 9. Going North I go into Wellesley and go north on Weston Rd (aka Wellesley Rd in Weston) under Rt. 9 then, Bogle to Winter by Rivers School and take Highland over the Pike and heading south on Rice Rd to Oak, cross over the Pike and turn east on Winter back to Weston Rd.

"Boston Bikes" is a City organization that does sponsor certain events including Bike Fridays organized caravans to celebrate and promote commuting by bike. https://www.cityofboston.gov/bikes/bikeevents/. Last Friday was the last of the season. They organize rides Bike Week in May and 3 other Fridays during the summer. Rides start in 9 locations around Metro Boston and end at City Hall for free food, giveaways and stories.

The dudes out of JP are very cool, a woman who commutes year round updated me on bike parking at Wonderland and several told me how much better it is riding from Somerville over the Salt and Pepper bridge.

Best line of the day when reflecting on how biking in Boston is getting better every year was, "now I notice roads that DON"T have bike lanes!"


Boston Bikes next big event has pro racing around City Hall on Saturday September 22 and on Sunday September 23 Hub on Wheels bike touring around Boston on closed streets and traffic details, rest stops and cheering volunteers all along the route supporting the ride. This is the best city ride I've ever done. There are lots of distance options up to 50 miles and everyone starts at City hall and parades out to Storrow Drive then weaves through all the neighborhoods, paths and scenery I hadn't known about or appreciated. Very cool.

BTW, The best description of the pro racing is (with a little SBP romanticizing) it is Boston's modern day version of the Palio in Siena https://www.ilpalio.org/video_ultimo.htm .

Ciao!

jimmuller 

We did about 48 miles on the tandem today, Bedford, Concord, Westford, Chelmsford, Carlisle, etc. Tried some new roads in western Chelmsford. Great weather, quiet roads. Everybody must be out of town, on Cape Cod or someplace.

A few downer-type items:

Heart Pond was close to swimming, with a sign that it had high a e. coli level. Bummer.

They've paved parts of Rt 62 coming out of Bedford. New pavement is always nice, but they gave it those silly raised (angled up) asphalt curbs. Unfortunately that takes away 18 inches of rideable shoulder. So Rt 62 is effectively narrower there. It strikes me as a bad decision by some unenlightened engineer. How would one complain about that sort of thing, possibly get it re-done?

At the end of the day we were heading east from Bedford on the MM for some gratuitous mileage into Lexington when we saw a collection of dudes, perhaps college age, riding multiple-abreast heading toward us. One guy was riding straight at us in our lane, but with his head turned left watching something. When he got maybe 30 yards away I yell and he pulled over. Somebody in the group said "How you doing?" or something inane. Had he seen us before that? It sure didn't look like it. Idiots. Shortly thereafter Sharon decided we should turn around.

Still, it was a good day.

sherbornpeddler

As for the inane riders, I chock it all up to bicyclist evolution and maturing cultural changes....and "inanity".

As for bicycle unfriendly paving decisions, a note to the Bedford's Public Works department, town administrator and/or Planning Board might help but I bet all has been done according to a highway standard. Those rumble strips are a judgement call with plus and minus value. They add safety for drivers to remind them to stay on the paved part when texting, checking their appearance in the mirror or reaching for something in the back seat. [TABLE="width: 373"]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #C7E6F9, align: left"]Contact:[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #ECECED, align: left"]Richard A. Warrington
Director of Public Works
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #C7E6F9, align: left"]Address:[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #ECECED, align: left"]Department of Public Works

314 The Great Road
Bedford, MA 01730[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #C7E6F9, align: left"]Phone:[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #ECECED, align: left"](781) 275-7605[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #C7E6F9, align: left"]Fax:[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #ECECED, align: left"](781) 275-9010[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

MassBike (David Watson can be reached at david@massbike.org) seems to be an effective lobbyist for state and federal standards (like street drains) and Boston Bikes for Boston in particular.

sherbornpeddler

Angled up curbs. I understand at least some curbing is done to control run off to storm drains designed to mitigate erosion and road runoff from contaminating rivers. Sounds like difficult tradeoffs. A brighter future?
https://www.google.com/imgres?q=car+a...:15,s:52,i:294

jimmuller 

Thanks, sbp. I'll look into it.

In the meantime we did 71.2 miles on the tandem today. Some on the NRRT, some in the roads in Nashua, Dunstable, Pepperell. That's our longest tandem day yet. We took pics but I haven't looked at them yet.

sherbornpeddler

Wow! You kids are like a locomotive! Looking forward to your photos. How'd you pick your route?

jimmuller 

Thanks. We were out to log some mileage today. I'd proposed the NRRT because it was different. Plus, the Rubel bikemap showed a few roads in Dusntable and our GPS (a DeLorme PN-60 with maps and color display) let me see where we were and where the roads went. I wanted to follow a road over to Hollis but we got sidetracked onto 111, which was actually nice until the rt3 intersection came in view. So we turned back, cut over to the trailhead on 111A, stopping at Zacharias Pizzeria first. Then we did a loop in Dusntable starting from the MA trailhead. That loop was so nice we did it twice, then rode rt113 into Pepperell before turning around. Sharon wanted to do the whole NRRT again so when we got back to Ayer we ate a bit then headed north again. It was a long day, about as tiring as the ride we did with you but most of it was flatter. However Dusntable has a few hills too.

The pavement was pretty nice, a few root heaves here and there, most of them marked. Not many road crossings and generally with very good sight lines. Be advised that the MA DCR website is slightly inaccurate. IIRC it says the NRRT is 11 miles. It felt longer and measured about 12.3 from Ayer to the MA trailhead. The end at rt111 in NH is about 12.75 miles, and it actually goes another half mile or so through some housing areas before fizzling out. All in all it was a nice experience.









We should have taken a few more pics from the Dusntable roads, especially the cornfield where the stalks seemed 12ft tall. But we zoomed by that spot after a fast downhill so stopping was out of the question!


Finally, taking a break on the long, final return.

jimmuller 

Another 26.2 today, just a "recovery ride" through Bedford, Concord, Sudbury, Lincoln. (My quads are tired.)

Waldon Pond was "closed" today. I wonder why?

We had this visitor:

mtalinm

took my boys (11 & 14) on their first metric century last Saturday. Cape Cod Rail Trail to keep it safe: https://connect.garmin.com/activity/217678819

only a few miles it sank in that the younger one was outgrowing his 24" bike, so we hoisted the seat up and raised the handlebars so his knees were not bouncing up and down so much. the unfixable problem however was that the bike has a high gear of 14x32, which was the same as my third-lowest gear (!). the little guy kept spinning his heart out to keep up with us, though. at 40 miles he pulled over and almost quit, but somehow summoned the energy to ride 17 more miles back to the head of the trail.

we had started late, so by that time it was dark outside and the 11-year old was "done" after 57 miles. but the 14-year-old was determined to finish the full 62.14. it was dark by then (8pm) and I told him he couldn't do the trail anymore (though we had lights). so he did 25 laps around the parking lot to finish off the last 5 miles while I hung out with the little guy.

what a day! the older one is already talking about a century (and he would have no problem - would have finished in 4 hours if not for his younger brother needing to stop so often). but I'm even more impressed with the 11-year old, who I bet would have also finished in 4 hours on a better bike.

so where are safe places to do a century in and around Mass? we can always do two loops on the Cape Cod Rail Trail, though that's a bit boring...

jimmuller 

mtalinm, nice going for the three of you! Where to a safe century? That's a tough question. The CCRT can be dangerous enough with all the road crossings. You can add distance by running the Old Colony RT which starts at the bike rotary and goes east toward Chatham. But you'd still have to do the CCRT twice.

Some time this weekend or last we hit 2000 miles on the tandem. It's been quite a trip. Well, literally a series of trips, so to speak. Anyway, I was doing some drivetrain maintenance and noticed some roughness in the stoker's BB. That's the one that takes all the load, you know. Found this:



That, boys and girls, is why we do maintenance every so often.

mtalinm

I'll take marked road crossings on a separated path any day (at least when riding w/ my kids). we did the Chatham loop to boost it to 60, so yes we were thinking of 2x CCRT but wondering if there might be a longer path elsewhere. haven't seen one so far

sherbornpeddler

Those planning and mapping wizards at MAPC https://trailmap.mapc.org/ indicate you are on the right track.

If you were mountain biking there are several unimproved longer trails/paths and by the time your youngest is driving and Muller's tandem BB gets it's 5th regreasing there will be plenty of longer trails. Let's meet in Lowell and ride to Winchendon...soon.

If you can't wait how about traveling to Minnesota and ride the 112 mile , currently the longest paved trail?

rholland1951

In Italy on vacation and off the grid for two weeks, visiting friends in the Veneto and Lazio. While it wasn't an explicitly bike-focused trip, got a little riding in while staying at Lido di Jesolo, near Venice. This is flat country, intercut with canals and rivers and bordering both the Adriatic Sea and the Venetian Lagoon. It's a beach resort area in an informal register, and is the Land of the Beach Bike.


Folks of all shapes and sizes, generally strikingly tanned and in a more or less striking state of undress, hop on anything with two wheels, loading the bikes fore and aft with heaps of beach paraphernalia or additional riders, and pedal at a stately pace to and from the beach, restaurants, bars, what have you. There were some images to be had that would have gotten Fellini going, but I didn't manage to capture any of the weirder ones, so this will have to serve.


Our hostess had a collection of beach bikes that were each busted in a different way, but I went to work on two of the most promising and got them rideable; neither truly fit me, but both beat walking.


I got a few rides in, probably no more than about 25 miles in all. For the most part, the roads ran alongside canals...

... and fields, some of them pretty heat-stressed from a two-month-long drought. The fields that had good irrigation thrived, the rest died.


A slightly longer ride to Torre di Fine took me across a couple of interesting bridges. One, into the town of Cortellazzo, was decorated with flower boxes.


Another, a private toll bridge over the river, had a good view of one of the numerous large dip nets that are permanently suspended over the river and operated from the riverbank with electric winches.


After that, the ride paralleled a canal used for slow cruising in motorboats, piloted by serious-looking men, and typically graced by a woman sunbathing on the prow, whether pleased or bored, I couldn't say.


The likely-looking Lady Marilyn night-club is now sadly abandoned.


On the return from Torre di Fine, I realized that there was a sort of two-way bike/pedestrian lane on one side of the road. The symbols indicating this looked a little too much like accident reconstruction silhouettes for comfort.


rod

rholland1951

Our hostess took us to see the roadside Shrine to Fausto Coppi at Ponte di Pave.


Other cycling heroes of the Veneto are also honored.


Later, I witnessed a demonstration of a technique for smoking while riding.


While there are some obvious problems with this, it occurs to me it might be an effective tool in the fight against Winter Moths on the Minuteman this November, nicotine being an effective insecticide.

rod

bikinggrrrl

Awesome shots, Rod. I'm feeling a little envious.

rholland1951

It was fun while it lasted....

rod