A friend and I rode a Cape Ann Loop yesterday:
http://ridewithgps.com/routes/1124942
Apparently, the hottest day of the summer so far! How lucky we were.
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Pictures coming soon)
A visiting friend, who is always very optimistic on what we can accomplish on our rides, wanted to ride near the ocean. Sounded great to me! The Internets, courtesy of North Shore Cyclists, provided us with a great number of routes that originated in Ipswich and circled out toward the ocean. These routes varied in length and provided plenty of 'outs', in the event we tired more quickly than expected:
http://www.nscyc.org/cape-ann-ipswic...tember-15-2013
TL; DR: The route varied between roads that were somewhat busy and some that were devoid of cars. I was surprised to see so much truck traffic but we were given plenty of space, even on shoulder-less roads. I'm not sure I would want to do this route during a very busy time on a weekend, however. You pass through plenty of towns so food/water/bathrooms always seemed within reach. There were sometimes surprise sandy spots on the road which were mostly avoidable. Pavement was mostly great with a few potholed sections.
We started in Ipswich, which provided both free long-term parking and a great little coffee shop so that we could load up on some real food for the trip, in addition to our usual bars and gels. We used the cue sheets provided by the above cycling group and they were pretty spot on as far as mileage goes. Some of the streets did not always have signs so we did have a few moments of confusion - thank goodness for my friend's smart phone. But for the most part, we could figure it out by using the water as a guide.
Heading through Ipswich, we traveled some very nice country roads that had welcomed forest cover. We also spotted a surprising number of farms in the area. We kissed the edge of Essex and headed south to Manchester. Here we started to glimpse the water which made us very excited. By the time we got to Magnolia, we were treated to some terrific ocean views and were getting a great breeze off the water - perhaps giving us too much courage to do our long route.
We then turned north and headed to Gloucester (Glousta', right?
). We took a detour to Stage Fort Park, where we saw a dedication to the first settlers of the area in the 1600s. It was embedded in one of the largest rocks I have ever seen. I guess more of a boulder than a rock at that size. At this point, we decided we would eat some real food and figured we'd find it in Gloucester. We settled on the 'Gloucester House' as it claimed fresh seafood and appeared to have a good view of the water. Despite the reviews that I have read after-the-fact, we both had a good meal and good service. The waitstaff even refilled our water bottles and added gave us plenty of ice as they thought we'd need it. Great!
Now completely full, we decided we would do a loop of Cape Ann and slowly rolled out of town. All of Cape Ann provided plenty of great photo opportunities and small coves where we could rest under a tree and enjoy the view.
Once we rounded the Cape and started moving inland, we started feeling the hot, stagnant afternoon air and started consuming more and more water. We refilled with a gallon jug at a gas station just outside Gloucester and decided we'd gallop the home stretch back into Ipswich. The short stretches of the route that stayed on 133 were dry, hot and painful and we welcomed the slower, curved country roads that provided tree cover. We managed to get back to Ipswitch in one piece and barely managed to miss rush hour traffic on the way back to the west metro.
A++++ route would do again and again. Plenty of opportunities to explore other rural roads and also numerous small parks along the way.