jimmuller 

anti-s, that sounds delightful. It was indeed a great day for a bike ride.

We rode the tandem for 66.01 miles, the last .01 because I looped around the end of the block to make sure we went over 66. (Does it still count?)

We left the house at 8:30 and rode south on Main St, rt117. First stop, Verrill Farm



The Tattooed Chickens sign in Carlisle has been restored!





Finally, lunch at Heart Pond, Chelmsford.

DBrim

Had a pretty good day:


Up the Minuteman (starting in Arlington), then connecting to the Reformatory Branch Trail:


Into Concord, then connecting with Mass Ave and back to the Minuteman and home. 31+ miles is my longest ride this year.

Two things of note during the ride:
Pretty sure I crossed paths with Jim (and his wife) on the Minuteman, just outside of 95. They were headed inbound, I was headed outbound. Didn't get a chance to say hi, as I was (mostly) focused on dodging some wildlife on the trail (a turkey, of the avian sort).
Also came upon a nasty scene at Depot Park. A woman had just been hit while riding on Railroad Ave. She was walking around, but had some scrapes and what appeared to be a separated shoulder. I found the nearest hospital on my phone and a local good Samaritan offered to drive her there. Unfortunately, it was a hit and run and no witnesses got the plates. At least it seemed that her injuries will heal, but it's a good reminder to be careful out there.

rholland1951

Sounds like a beautiful ride!

rod

jimmuller 

You certainly must have passed us. About that very spot Sharon said there was a turkey walking right beside the trail. Of course I didn't see it because I was focused on some bumps.

Hate to hear about that accident. There are idiots and bad drivers everywhere. Some fall into both categories. With luck the police will track the guy down. Car damage is easy enough to trace.

rholland1951

DBrim, sorry to hear about the hit-and-run on Railroad Ave. Sounds like you did the right thing by the victim.

Question: how were conditions on Reformatory Branch trail yesterday? I'm specifically wondering how muddy.

rod

DBrim

Occasional patches but all avoidable

ZIPP2001

Was able to get out for the first time in a week. I did part of the bike and run portion of the Massachusetts State Triathlon course. Also detoured on a bike path that we have, only about 3 miles long, but they are working on a new section.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1Lu8eUVAKg

rholland1951

Spent some time yesterday swapping the front and rear tires on the Long Haul Trucker. These are 38mm Compass Bicycles Barlow Pass Extralights, supple, light, cushy, and a lot of laughs, but not immortal. At 1730 miles, the file tread of the rear tire was noticeably more worn than that of the front tire, so I took the fact that I needed to fix a (relatively rare) flat as a pretext to do the swap.


Today, went for a 4th of July ride with my grown son John, basically the North Bridge loop with Reformatory Branch outbound and Monument Road inbound, with a couple of excursions in Bedford thrown in, 39 miles in all.


The first excursion was Old Causeway Road, one of John's childhood haunts; at the time, Harvard's Concord Field Station (paradoxically, in Bedford) had a couple of adult emus on the premises, and the staff was indulgent of the kids who came to gawk at their outlandish birds. If the emus are still there, they were out of sight, as indeed were the staff, none of whom were in evidence. We continued on to University Lane and the remains of Nike Missile Site B-85, a bit of Cold War history that at one time could have provided quite a fireworks show under the right circumstances. Sic transit...


The second excursion was out the Narrow Gauge Rail Trail to Fawn Lake, with its history as a health spa with healing waters; aside from its value as another of John's childhood haunts, it gave us the opportunity to perform a tire-pressure-tweaking experiment I had proposed to John, dropping the pressure on his 32mm cross tires to 50/60 PSI from the 75/75 he had been running. He declared the experiment a success, with a cushier ride and no loss of speed. After that, we rolled home on the Minuteman. It was a good ride, and a good way to catch up.


rod

jimmuller 

Today's ride was a rare solo ride, 51.5 miles on the Masi on a circuitous route from Waltham to Chelmsford.



Extra credit goes to any of you who know where this monument is:

rholland1951

Errr... River Road, Carlisle? Unless it's on the wrong side of that pesky line...

rod

jimmuller 

Good guess, or good memory. It's actually just on the Concord side, so that would be Monument Rd.

rholland1951

Oh, memory, that's a habitual route. But I lose track of the Concord-Carlisle border.

rod

rholland1951

Found myself in Hudson today; found the LHT there too, and took the opportunity to ride an 18-mile loop, climbing into the Bolton hills, and then descending briskly through Berlin, returning to Hudson along the Assabet River. Beautiful weather, light traffic, and interesting vistas, some familiar, some filling in voids in my mental map.

Hudson is a small city, formerly driven by water power from the Assabet River and a center of shoemaking, with layers of subsequent history visible.




Climbing South Bolton Road out of Hudson, into Bolton, reminded me in places of the hills above Santa Cruz (different trees, of course). I stopped at the Old South Burying Ground, and spent some time looking at the old slate tombstones, including the one for Miss Lucy.


Kept climbing to Wattaquadock Hill Road--"Hill" is the operative word, and here the climb really began. This hill pasture is at the intersection of Wattaquadock and Old Bay Road, which looks to be a good ride into Lancaster, something for another day.


On a previous ride, I had seen, and been enchanted by, this pasture at the intersection of Wattaquadock Hill Road and West Berlin Road. Today, I went charging down West Berlin Road, the beginning of a long descent.


Somebody on West Berlin Road is serious about building cairns, evoking the Neolithic. Here's the best of the several I saw.


The descent continued, and picked up speed, on Peach Hill Road, whizzing past working farms.


Welcome to Berlin.


This house, dating from 1777, was showing the colors for the 4th. Down South Street I went, connecting to River Road West at a rotary.


River Road West runs parallel to the Assabet River, but mostly not in sight of it. Crossing into Hudson, it becomes River Road East. These are both pleasant rides. I ultimately picked up the Assabet River Rail Trail, which has a fine converted trestle over the river.


Nice ride, hills and beauty, a short ride in a part of the state I can normally only see as part of a long ride. Good day.

rod

rholland1951

10 miles on the Minuteman this Summer evening before sunset, the air like bathwater.




rod

rholland1951

10 miles on the Minuteman this cool, gray evening.




rod

rholland1951

15 miles on the Minuteman this evening. A jolly mob of mostly families with small children were enjoying a performance by the 215th Army Band, out of Fall River, on the lawn at the Lexington Visitor's Center. Pretty good! and the kids loved it.


Kept a good pace, and finished up with the sunset in my mirror.


rod

jimmuller 

Rod, was that you who passed by us on the MM this afternoon?

We did another metric today, 63.4 miles on the tandem. We stopped early for a coffee break at the Carlisle Farmers' Market.



Of course we stopped for lunch at Heart Pond.



We are going to try to make it by the CuriousVelo swap meet tomorrow if we can time our ride right.

rholland1951

Hi, Jim! Yup that was me, exchanged greetings with Sharon on the Minuteman as we whizzed past each other, you inbound, me outbound. I had the definite impression that you were focused on your driving, not a bad thing to be doing on a Saturday afternoon on the bike trail when the fine weather seems to have brought out more than the usual number of slightly erratic 3-foot tall children on tiny bikes, along with some somewhat more erratic adults on skates. Maybe I'll see you at the swap meet.

That happened early in the course of a 47-mile ride through Arlington, Lexington, Bedford, Concord, Lincoln, Sudbury, Wayland, Weston, and Waltham. The goal was to ride Water Row and Pelham Island Road while everything was green and sweet, and to enjoy as much shade as possible along the way. Took the Minuteman and the Reformatory Branch Trail to get to Concord Center via Monument Street, then picked up Walden Street.


Somebody has decorated a shipping container on Railroad Ave., Bedford, with several God's Eyes. Wonder what's in the container?


I violated my wait-three-days-after-the-last-rain-before-riding-the-Reformatory-Branch rule and did just fine: what mud there is was easily dodged. Lots of folks were out on that today, too.


While waiting for a light at the intersection of Walden Street and Route 2, I did a little day-dreaming about a hypothetical and probably impractical for multiple reasons bicycle path in the Route 2 corridor, clear to Williamstown. While I was having pie in the sky served up, a rider headed in the other direction on Route 126 pulled a hot dog maneuver and rode to the left of the line of autos waiting for the light, in the (empty) on-coming lane, then darted across Route 2 before the light changed. A State Police car whipped out of the line and gave pursuit, thereby laying to rest the old saw about never a cop around when you need one. Our lane got the green light somewhere in this bit of excitement, and when I looked back, it appeared that the statie was in the process of administering a little remedial Drivers Ed.


Continued S on Route 126, past Walden Pond, through Lincoln and into Wayland, crossing the Sudbury River on Sherman's Bridge Road. This brought me to Water Row, Sudbury, my first destination.




Rode the length of Water Row, nearly riding off it when I became engrossed in reading an historical marker I hadn't noticed before. Picked up River Road, Wayland, and took that S to Route 20, then jogged across to pick up Landham Road, which took me to Pelham Island Road, my second destination, named for Pelham Island, that part of Wayland that becomes an island when the Sudbury floods.




Noted as I rode past that the old frame house with the retrofitted (and presumably solar-thermal) glass curtain wall has more recently received a photovoltaic array on the roof. Somebody with a working brain must live there.


The ride's destinations reached, I realized I needed to get home, pronto, in order to meet a social obligation. Rather than riding E on Route 20 (practical, as previously demonstrated), I went N on Route 126; in terms of traffic, this turned out not to be an improvement just then, and I nearly got nailed by a BMW SUV driver who was doing the matronly ZOMG-I-can't-cross-the-centerline!!! thing just when I was swerving left to avoid a roadkill squirrel. There were a few inches to spare, fortunately, and the irony in almost becoming roadkill myself wasn't lost on me. I headed E on Waltham Street, Wayland, and gave a customary nod to the Toaster House. At the Lincoln line, this becomes Old Sudbury Road, a relatively short road that has hidden charms, including varied architecture, working farms, and the mysterious Rocking Horse Pasture!


After that, took 117 E to Conant Road, Weston, climbing Conant and Old Conant Road back into Lincoln, riding the little stretch of single track that connects Old Conant Road with Old County Road, following that past the Cambridge Reservoir, then cranking up the hill into Waltham on Trapelo Road, noting with surprise the climb seemed less of a big hairy deal than usual; I'm guessing my climbing technique has improved over the last few weeks: thank you, Vermont! Kept cranking up Smith Street, Waltham, and Spring Street, Lexington, zipped down Marrett Road and Mass. Ave. to the Maple Street rotary, caught the Minuteman, and made it home in time to be not too terribly late for dinner.

rod

mr_bill

The sea called, so Old Ironsides in drydock:



-mr. bill

jimmuller 

It was a good day for riding, though warm. We took the tandem out for only 42.7 miles today. On the way out we stopped at the CuriousVelo bike swap and I picked up a few goodies:



Zefal pump and a French headset.

Like RodH we saw some idiocy today. No, Rod wasn't the idiocy, he just saw some. We saw a guy in a BMW blow through the intersection of Barrett's Mill Rd and Lowell Rd in Concord at about 40mph, apparently not noticing that it was 4-way stop and he had both a stop sign and a red blinking light. Later as we were zipping along about 20mph east bound on rt225 with cars approaching from behind a cyclist came zipping out of a side street and cut me off. I saw him coming and braked enough to fall in behind him. Then he braked in front of me. I called out "Go! Go! Go!" and then "Passing on your left" and went around. He said something like "Sorry to get you all in a tizzy" at which point I informed him that a tandem couldn't slow quite so easily. Only then did he realize what he'd done and apologized. Yeesh.

Still, it was a nice day!

mr_bill

i think I can guess which beemer too. It's not the he doesn't know there's a four way stop or double yellow lines. He just doesn't give a....

-mr. bill

rholland1951

Evening ride on the Minuteman as the heat of the day abated. The Friends of the Lexington Bikeway have put up sequential signs with safety messages, inspired by the Burma Shave signs that decorated the highways of mid-20th Century America, preserving (more or less) the poetics (if not the humor) of the originals. Good stuff.


rod

jimmuller 

We noticed those signs on Sunday. Great idea. Let's hope the walkers and skaters read them too.

I just rode my commute today. Cool, pleasant, light traffic. The Gazelle is a quick-handling, go-fast machine.

mr_bill

Excellent ride today in that anytime the rubber stays on the road it's a VERY good day.

Reviewing the film, I think I learned something. Here's to hoping I make new mistakes, old mistakes are dull and boring.


-mr. bill

jimmuller 

So, Mr B, what was the mistake? Something that make the bike jump near the end? You hit a big rock?

I did my usual commute, a rather nice day for riding, heavier traffic than I've seen lately but pleasantly cool weather. On the way in this morning I came upon two 30-something guys dressed in full bike regalia and speaking with strong British accents, one at least looking very fit, off to the side of the MM with a bike upside down. As I always do I slowed and asked if they had everything they needed. One guy said not really. They were trying to fix a flat and having trouble with a CO2 canister. Ah, I had a frame pump, silly Luddite that I am. I offered and they accepted, seemed surprised when I said I could get 90psi. We had a pleasant conversation, they were heading to Billerica to work, me off to Woburn. They thanked me and I took off. Half a mile later the fit one, apparently having left his friend behind to reassemble his bike, passed me by a good 50% faster than I was going. I thought I was trucking along pretty good! He thanked me again as he passed.

I really hate being passed by guys 50% my age going 50% faster than I'm going! That happens more often than I'd like!

It was a good day.