drewguy

Are you sure those aren't utility markings? If they're for a ride, it's possibly for a one-day charity ride of some sort. I've seen organizers indicate a route, using multiple colors for the short/medium/long route, but usually they actually have arrows and such.

autonomy

These show up in numbers in the western suburbs, lots of them on Monument St in Concord, which is hugely popular, have a high correlation with the Strava heat map, show up shortly before and at intersections, and sometimes - as in the picture - point in different directions. So I'm thinking they're route markers. I haven't tried searching Google or anything, figured someone in here might know.

drewguy

Aha . . . I think I found your answer:

Charles River Wheelers:

https://www.crw.org/content/annual-a...emorial-ride-0
https://www.crw.org/content/east-european-ride-2
https://www.crw.org/content/lexington-revolutions

Ghazmh

autonomy

Aha, excellent find! I knew someone would know (not sure why I didn't just search). Those are good roads to ride indeed.

Had a pretty fun ride yesterday morning, went out to ride some trails in the Assabet River NWR but while scouting the map noticed that the Assabet River Rail Trail wasn't well-mapped on Openstreetmap. Ended up biking from Acton all the way to Marlborough and back (plus a loop in Assabet River NWR) for a much longer than anticipated 36 miler. A very diverse ride and I made a solid contribution to the map in the end: https://cycling.waymarkedtrails.org/....4244!-71.4463 or https://www.openstreetmap.org/relati....4043/-71.5118

The trail in Acton is very new, they didn't even finish the Maple St. parking lot yet. It has a large break in the middle and a portion of it is on dirt. The fact that it's accessible by commuter rail is pretty cool (and vice versa, though Acton's density probably won't result in as much cyclist-to-T usage as it does at Alewife)..

rumrunn6

agree, not a prayer, BUT it is growing. I drive by the trail & the train station every day on my way to work & have seen a steady increase in # of riders this year especially. we'll see who the die-hards are come winter ;-) there's been a few the past cpl years. & that station has bike lockers

rumrunn6

just a quick note, if you are ever there again or for others interested, the NWR has an open year round visitors center with shop & restrooms. plus a nice museum. it can be a welcome sanctuary on rides that either get you lost (my experience) or just out longer than you expected. especially on questionable weather days, too hot, too cold, too much snow etc. too much snow? nah, never!

autonomy

Ha, I was actually circling there trying to find a source of water as I was running low. But they were closed! Not sure why. I'll try to find some time to post a more detailed trip later in the other thread.

autonomy

Wow, that is really cool, I didn't know MBTA provided a service like that. I wonder what their take-up rate is. Honestly, and this is not coming from a bike person, while I appreciate the sense of freedom that ownership of a car allows, I have grown to really dislike all the maintenance, expenses, and stress of driving in the city that comes with it. So it's great to see alternative transportation receive more support.

rumrunn6

REALLY? on a weekday? what time? I honestly don't know the hours, it's just always open when I'm zipping by or in need of a restroom ...

rholland1951

On Monday, started a 3-day credit-card tour with my grown daughter. The first day's ride took us from her digs in Wenham up to a b&b in Rye, New Hampshire, 42 miles. This proceeded from Wenham to Newburyport in an arc that extended familiar trails and roads while evading the green-head-fly-infested marshes of coastal Essex County (we had been warned). My daughter was riding her Cross Check, I was on my 700C LHT; both were rear-loaded, with panniers and trunk bags.






In Newburyport, we had a look at the Clipper City Rail Trail, then rode downstream along the Merrimack for a bit, before doubling back and crossing the bridge to Salisbury.




In Salisbury we picked up the Old Eastern Marsh Trail, which managed to be lovely, green, but devoid of green-heads; we were apparently just a bit too far North for them this week; this is not a complaint.


We followed Old Eastern Marsh Trail to the end, at Mudnock Road, then picked up 1A East to the mid-20th-Century-beach-kitsch charms of Salisbury Beach, which I regret I didn't photograph, but can take comfort that Mr. Google did. From there we proceeded North on 1A into Seabrook Beach, New Hampshire, and crossed the Hampton Harbor Inlet into the seemingly newly refurbished charms of Hampton Beach.


Riding 1A in Hampton Beach was a little like riding in a Shriner's parade, with lots of motorcycles, but the Summer vibe was relaxed. We stopped for a food and water break, and chatted with some folks we shared a bench with.


We remounted and started pedaling up 1A, and soon enough the frenetic, demotic SUMMER gave way to something in a cooler, posher, more natural register.


Leaving the coast on 111, we soon reached our b&b, and were welcomed with cookies and dogs.


rod

Continued.

rumrunn6

lovely! love her tattoo!

rholland1951

For the second day of the tour, we left the panniers off the bikes and just rode with the trunk bags, 33 miles of peregrinations around Rye, New Castle, Portsmouth, and Kittery. After a great breakfast and a really informative chat with our hostess about local and family history and architectural idioms over the previous 200 years, we set out from our home base at the b&b in Rye, and rode back to the coast and 1A, following that North past Rye's snug harbor, admiring its complement of cormorants.


We rode trails in a state historical park in Rye, on the site of an estate that was converted to a Coast Artillery battery during WWII. As the stack of centuries would have it, it was also the scene of the first English habitation in New Hampshire, in the 17th Century.






Back on the road, past splendid estuarine scenes.


We stopped at another state park, in New Castle, to relax on the beach and take an extremely cold dip. Refreshing.


This park is a hotbed of pleine air painters, a fact commemorated by a droll bit of public art.


We showered off and got back on the bikes, cooler but hungrier, and set off in search of a lobster roll. We didn't find any in the charming village of New Castle, but did find one at a place my daughter knew in Portsmouth. Yum! After that, it was back on the bikes and over the Piscataqua River on the Memorial Bridge and into Kittery, where I bought a tail light to replace one that had committed seppuku. So we get minimum token bragging rights for having ridden to Maine...


After that, back across the river to the Strawberry Banke Museum, a village-sized historical preservation and reinactment area. Too much to tell about that, and this photo of my daughter in an ethnobotanical herb garden will have to represent the whole (along with this poster from a WWII-era General Store).


The Strawberry Banke exhibits closed at 5, but by chance a concert by Liz & Dan Faiella started up immediately after; my daughter knew these folks, and thought highly of their music, so we sat down and enjoyed an accidental pleasure.


It had been a hot day, and towards the end of the set the sky was darkening ominously, and the pocket devil showed energetic doings coming our way on the weather radar. We discreetly left the concert and hopped on our bikes, sprinting back to Rye before the thunder storm that declined to follow us. We only got lost once during this exercise...

rod

Continued.

rumrunn6

really nice

rholland1951

Frustration is hitting <Restore Auto-Saved Content> instead of <Post Quick Reply>... bye bye, 2 hours of editing...



rod

rholland1951

Day 3 of the tour went down like this: after a hearty breakfast supplied by our wonderful and knowledgeable hostess, along with good chat, we set out on a route that went purposely West through North Hampton and Exeter, South through Exeter, Kensington, Seabrook, and Amesbury, that went awry when we followed the North bank of the Merrimack West, instead of East, that was redeemed when we realized we could cross at the Rocks Village Bridge between Haverhill and West Newbury, that became briefly vexed when we found that a low-lying segment of River Road in Merrimac had been permanently closed due to the ravages of climate change, that winded us when we climbed Skunk Road to get to Middle Road to get to the still functioning segment of River Road, that elated us when we saw the Rocks Village Bridge, that amused us when we read the schedule of tolls for livestock (Hogs, 5¢) last collected in 1868, that pleased us with how nice the little bridge was to cross, that gratified us that the remaining stages of the ride were relatively straight-forward (one detour around a Wildlife Management Area notwithstanding), that tickled us when it seemed to make sense to use the Grand Wenham Canal as a bypass for a steep hill right at the end of the journey, and that left us genuinely touched at how ecstatically joyful my daughter's dog was to see her. Rye, New Hampshire to Wenham, Massachusetts: 46 miles, some planned, some not so much, much of it flat-out beautiful. The total distance for the 3-day tour came to 121 miles.

That was fun. I expect we'll do some more of it.




















rod

rumrunn6

what a great thing to do with your daughter!

rholland1951

Agreed. We were well-matched in terms of ride stamina, and on this tour she was a rich source of local information for the NH Seacoast area, having done graduate work at UNH and taught in a North Hampton school in the not-too-distant past. Besides, she's good people.

rod

rumrunn6

I think my son is moving back home at the end of August (temporarily) so I might be able to grab him for a ride or two

rholland1951

Sounds like a fine idea!

rod

jimmuller 

@rholland1951, nice trip, nice report!

Ghazmh

rholland1951

Thursday was a rest day. Friday, I got on the Trucker DeLuxe and rode East.




Saturday afternoon, I took the Nordavinden out the Minuteman, grinning at all the happy people at the Aeronaut Beer Garden as I passed, and grinning at the happy people on the Minuteman as I (mostly) passed them, too.

Say, just for the sake of argument, you had a bike shop on the Minuteman; you repaired people's bikes, sometimes you sold them bikes for them to ride and you to repair later, and sometimes you rented bikes to (mostly) visitors. Now, purely for the sake of argument, say somebody left a dockless bikeshare object in front of your business premises, disrepectful and disruptive. Might your Allen key be tempted to have a harmless, fully-reversable little practical joke?


Just sayin'.

rod

Ghazmh

Ghazmh