rholland1951

Took the Seven out for a quick spin late Thursday afternoon, pleased that the Sun continued to shine. It was a jolly ride. Lots of company on the Minuteman, but nothing too much.


rod

rholland1951

Late Friday afternoon, I had a quick spin, lickety-split, up the Mystic Valley Parkway and along the Eastern shore of the Mystic Lakes. A series of quiet scenes prevailed there, a few canoes or something similar, a few people fishing, and a fair number of people on road bikes. I was rolling on the Nobilette, which fit right in.


I have a fixed idea that the folks I see fishing are fishing for the table, and dinner is at stake. I'm not quite sure why I believe that.


It was a pleasure to ride the Nobilette, as always, but airing up the 28mm tires seemed to point towards a fault in my floor pump. Something to investigate.

rod

Trocadile

Don't know if this has been mentioned in this thread yet, but Waltham has opened up a couple miles worth of the MCRT that connects to the Weston section. This picture is of the easternmost part currently open (Middlesex Rd. is across from the Petco parking lot off Main St.). Between the Waltham and Weston paved parts there's still some civilized single track with a couple old railroad bridges, but nothing the minivelo can't handle. Anyway, a big improvement over other ways of getting through Waltham to the west.

rholland1951

I returned from California Friday, decided Saturday's forecast looked likely, and took the Sam Hillborne for a ride East.


This was yet another iteration of the hills-and-traffic drill through well-known roads in East Arlington, West Medford, Malden, Melrose, and Stoneham, with an option on a few other conurbations should the spirit dictate. The hills are always with us, but the traffic varies a good deal. Today things were a bit more congested than usual, and featured chartered shuttle buses substituting for Orange Line trains while the MBTA did some needed maintenance. The shuttle buses were a striking shade of yellow. Here's one:


While I started encountering a light drizzle in Medford, early in the day, I didn't run into an honest rain shower until near the end of the day. This is not a complaint. Even that was relatively gentle in the scheme of things, and the Sam Hillborne and its Barlow Pass Extralight all-road tires and Paul cantilever brakes handled the mild change of conditions with aplomb..


Good to be back on the bike after a week away.

rod

rholland1951

Took another ride out to Depot Park and back with my son John, he on his Soma Pescadero, I on my 1982 Specialized Sequoia.


Both bikes are set up with STI machines (a.k.a. brifters), and support riding along two abreast and chatting. Which was exactly what we did.


Good ride, good talk. And we stopped at Battle Road Bikes and scheduled some work to be done.


rod

rholland1951

One of those days when the time gets squeezed up from the bottom like toothpaste from a tube. Days like that, I most often take a little ride, all I have time for, and most often, it's up along the Eastern shore of the Mystic Lakes. That's what I did today, taking the Seven Evergreen out for a brisk, quick spin, turning around at the mouth of the Aberjona River, thinking to see the demotic and institutional response to the First Warm Day. And at Shannon Beach, that's more or less what was on offer.


On these rides, I've got a fixed pattern: Shannon Beach first, then down at the Dam to look at the more relaxed scene (usually) at the Tufts Bacow Sailing Pavillion. Today, uh-uh. Somebody's been taking Lemming Pills.


Usually, with congestion at that level, somebody has had the wit to hire cops on a traffic-directing detail. Not this time. No telling what happened, there and then, but if anybody knows, I'd be interested in hearing about it.

Good ride, nonetheless. Some sort of Arboreal Cruft got into my eyes, stung a bit and kept me blinking. But the Seven kept reminding me that I really should ride it more often , preferably on a longer-distance ride than these little Pee-Wee Derbies.


Tomorrow's another, etc.

rod

rholland1951

The previous two 20-mile sprints with John had convinced me that I needed to replace the legacy saddle on 1982 Specialized Sequoia, so I asked the Battle Road Bikes folks to sell me a Brooks C17 Cambrium. I've been running these on several bikes for the last couple of years, and regard them as a Good Place To Sit. The day after the installation of the C17 on the Sequoia, I spun out to Depot Park and back on a warm afternoon to see if that solved the fundamental problem.


Yup, that did it. I enjoyed a cool, brisk ride through the greenery, greeting the occasional extra-terrestrial as I rolled along.


Be of good cheer, for we are watched over by Science.




rod

rholland1951

Saturday, I took the Seven Evergreen and rode East.


The ride was the thing, almost completely to the exclusion of photography or any other instrumentation. But the Fells Escarpment hills were real (though paved), and the Seven sailed up and down them, when it wasn't busy dodging in and out of traffic, and sometimes when it was. Splendid Spring weather, it was, it was! 44mm Snoqualmie Pass Extralight tires, TPU tubes, and a titanium frame, close enough to flight that I'm surprised the FAA didn't comment on it.

Good ride today, if a little under-documented. I had fun.

rod

rholland1951

I put the Ocean Air Cycles Rambler back in the rotation because I was tired of not riding it, and went haring off on the Minuteman towards the end of the day, racing with the clouds and riding between the raindrops.


It was a pleasure to ride this bike again, perhaps for the first time this season. Aside from the hilarity that ensues from the low-trail geometry, it's set up for friction shifting (Suntour Power Ratchets), and I found myself transferring shift management lessons from my recent sojourn in Brifterland to the nearly-random-access domain of friction shifting. Way too much fun.

The bike got a compliment from another cyclist towards the end of the ride, in Arlington Center.

None of the rain was enough to do more than gently cool the rider, weather of the right sort.

rod

rholland1951

Friday, I hopped on the Seven Evergreen SL to take the air on a spin out the Minuteman to Depot Park.
​​​​​​

I stopped in at Battle Road Bikes, as well. That shop has become something of a "third place" for me.


The rest was pedaling. Good day for it.

rod

rholland1951

So, today was the best riding weather since the last time. Sunny, breezy, warm, people out in droves. What to do with such weather but take a bike and ride somewhere on it?


I took the Nobilette, aired up the tires, and rode to Depot Park.


Two or three strands of back story here. I've been using a Pedro Domestique floor pump in the garage for the last several years, and have lately become suspicious of its pressure gauge, which seems to have the secret ambition to pump 28mm tires up to 100 psi or more, which certainly wasn't my intention. A look on the Internet suggests that others have encountered this behavior as well, so I asked Pete at Battle Road Bikes to recommend a replacement, and am now testing out a Lezyne floor pump. I pumped the 28mm Chinook Pass Extralights on the Nobilette up to the RH Tire Pressure Calculater "Soft" value of 74 psi, and they felt right: a little yielding, not like the rocks that Pedro gave me for the same value. I chose Depot Park as a destination simply because I've been out there several times lately, and it feels like known terrain for such an experiment. I rolled out, and was delighted with the road feel I was getting from properly-inflated tires. Pedro flunks, Lezyne passes, experiment complete.


"Are you alright?", the too-frequently-annoying question put to any cyclist who stops pedaling for any reason, is apparently not just for humans anymore. One of the Taylor Lane horses has been getting it during nap-time. The sign says it best.

rod

EVlove

Thanks Rod for keeping the thread going, and for finding new and unexpected observations on mostly familiar rides. A skill I lack, and appreciate in others.

rholland1951

You're very welcome. Sometimes the retiree is the only one not on vacation...

rod

rholland1951

Rode 28 miles today through Arlington, Lexington, Bedford, Concord, and Lincoln, a route that once was a commonplace, but approached again for the first time in over a year, it seemed long and a little tiring. The Minuteman, the Reformatory Branch, and various paved roads got me from one place to another, the Seven Evergreen SL did the getting. Here it sits adjacent to one of the vernal pools behind Lexington Center.


The Reformatory Branch was interesting, after the better part of a year away. It wasn't muddy, although sections were, though dry, severely rutted. This required attention to ride safely. But did encounter Bambi, and Bambi's girlfriend. Fortunately, no territorial grumpiness confused us.


In addition to four-legged trail users, the Reformatory Branch had its share of the two-legged variety, sometimes two-wheeled, well-behaved for the most part.


After leaving the Reformatory Branch and dodging traffic in downtown Concord, the next portion of the ride runs along Virginia Road. Early on, a large wetland is watered by Elm Brook, the same Elm Brook that runs under the Minuteman in Bedford. This is a low point that is followed by a series of climbs.


I parked at the end of the Hanscom runway on Virginia Road for a few minutes, reminiscing about the times my father would take me to the Charlotte airport to watch the planes come and go. I still get excited by that.


After the runway, the long, steep climb to the top of the biggest hill on the ride awaits. I was delighted to find that between some wisely-chosen gears and the light load of the Titanium frame, the climb was a bit less onerous than usual.

The Old Virginia Road forested entrance (or trailhead, if you will), is at the top of the Virginia Road climb, in Lincoln, if I've for my facts right. Cool and green, and something I should use from time to time. Today I just climbed to it on the bike, then went whizzing down the hill on the paved road. I became a little confused, however, by the curvilinear forms the construction is taking at the bottom of the hill. It seems clear enough, at the moment, but who knows what it will morph into? No pictures of that.


Lincoln Street, Lexington, and Lexington Road, Lincoln, run along the top of the Cambridge Reservoir. This is a good place to see how the drought is going, if there's a drought, or to admire the fully-charged reservoir, if you've got one of those. We're more on the fully-charged reservoir end of the spectrum just at the moment, but that can change with surprising speed, and a ride to the reservoir always feels like intelligence gathering. No mud flats today!


After the reservoir, a series of rolling hills await, followed by a bit of the Minuteman, the remaining ride seeming strangely foreshortened.

One of the consequences of discovering that the old pump's pressure gauge was on the fritz was that I needed to bleed and repressurize all the tires that were liable to have been filled by the bad pump. That went double for the Seven, whose tires should have been pumped up to 37 PSI, but were apparently up above 60 PSI, instead. On a rocky trail, that meant that it would hop from stone to stone like a kangaroo. I fixed that before rolling out of the house, and the difference was gratifying. I'll continue working my way through the various bikes and their overinflated tires.

rod