jimmuller 

Nice reports! (I didn't ride today. My sweetie and I did walk the Battle Road trail from the Visitors Center to Meriam's Corner and back. Got rained on pretty hard for one spell. I'll probably get rained on again on my bike commute tomorrow.

NewATBikeComute

Stopped to snap a few shots, but started to rain, so didn't take much time composing.

autonomy

What a gorgeous Saturday it was - jealous of all of you who got to ride. I was running errands and crossed the Minuteman a couple times - both times there were crowds of people crossing, as expected on such a nice day. Gone are the days of having the path all to yourself as you return from work in the dark at 5:30pm...

For those of you who have done the coastal ride to Portland, how is 1A? Constant buzzing traffic or less so? It's one of the routes I want to ride but having to deal with constant traffic would make it less enjoyable - one of the reasons I haven't done a Cape Ann loop yet, don't feel safe riding on those narrow roads - maybe I need to do it early on a Sunday?

P.S. I go away for a week and the forum updates its layout!

rholland1951

Spent the morning finishing up a rebuild of a friend's old Gary Fisher mtb, which taught me a few things I didn't know about trigger shifters. After declaring victory, I put the Surly Trucker DeLuxe wearing 53mm Compass Rat Trap Pass Extralights (the "Monster Trucker" to its friends) back on the road for the season, and took it for a quick spin up the Minuteman to Lexington Center and back.


Summer conditions prevailed, and there were several squadrons of runners out, presumably school groups. Some of the boys had removed their shirts in the heat, creating a sort of high-albedo effect from all that pale skin; some of the girls followed suit, and the group I saw were all wearing the same sports bras, presumably part of the uniform; practical and equitable. The group of runners I actually photographed was supervised, and all kept their shirts on.


As a cyclist on a Sequoia was making a fast descent in the inbound lane, in the vicinity of Brattle Street, Arlington, a little grey animal--which I thought at the time was a small dog, another bystander thought was a racoon, and which I now believe to be a young possum--threw itself under the bike's front wheel. The possum caught it in the neck (literally), the fork turned 45 degrees, and the rider went down hard. This was tough to see, and to hear. Those nearby rendered assistance, and the cyclist was back on his feet in a few minutes taking stock of road rash and his bicycle, preparing to resume his ride. The possum had very efficiently become invisible, probably just as well for it, since one of those rendering assistance was a young husky.


It's the time of year when young animals do zany things, and Darwin has his say. Stay alert, folks.

rod

jimmuller 

That includes **** sapiens of any age. Especially those carry cell phones.

And what have we come to that a legitimate scientific genus name has to be purged from the public vocabulary? Is the censoring software incapable of comprehending context?

rumrunn6

fwiw, last cpl of days been seeing lots of bunnies almost everywhere. coyotes must be happy

rholland1951

Means that BF is too cheap or too dull to get beyond REGEX and dirty-word lists and train up an RNN to do their bowdlerization with a little more nuance (since the libraries are free at this point, cheap isn't much of an excuse). They'd rather screw up the image import interface... Really, I suspect they've forgotten they have the bowdlerization turned on, and to the extent they do remember, figure it satisfies a punch-list requirement. My favorite is when the substring of a long URL gets censored and replaced with ****. That's a recurring failure mode, in my experience.

rod

rholland1951

Of course, if they DID train up an RNN to do their censorship, it might have interesting results, depending on their training corpora. For example, CARBON FIBER might become ****** *****...

rod

rholland1951

Rolled out the Minuteman to Lexington Center on the LHT in the late afternoon, dodging the thunder storms that never quite arrived. No time for pictures, or much of anything other than cutting along through the warm and humid air. Exchanged greetings with Jim Muller at the Mill Street crossing, he headed E, I headed W. Got caught up in one of my favorite hobbies: saddle adjustment. At one point, I got off the bike to fiddle with the saddle height, threw my leg over the top tube to resume forward motion, and got asked "Are you OK?" by some slick individual who was riding by just at that moment. I assured him that I was, which seemed to disappoint him. I refrained from telling him to watch out for possums, no point in further confusing the boy. After a vigorous ride, home in time for dinner.

rod

jimmuller 

Indeed. The observant observer (not that you weren't) would have noticed that I even came to a complete stop and put one foot down for a fraction of a second.just like I'm s'posed to there.

I've seen lots of bikes these last few days, some ridden by idiots. This afternoon I was about to pass two pedestrians on the MM when I happened to catch the briefest glimpse of another kitted-out rider winning the Tour as he came up behind at a high rate of speed. I bailed on passing the pedestrians until he'd passed then called out to him that he should call out when passing like that. He ignored me. But a 1/4 mile later I came up on him as he had dismounted to lift his bike over a guardrail. I stopped and asked if it was he who'd just passed me as I was passing two pedestrians. He didn't know, said "I guess so, I dunno'. I might have." In other words, he hadn't noticed his surroundings. I pointed out how fortunately I'd caught him in my mirror and if I'd hadn't we'd both be back there lying on the pavement so maybe next time he should call out. He seemed thoroughly puzzled by the concept, as if he'd never thought of that before. Yeesh.

Ghazmh

Jim from Boston

Hi @Ghazmh,

As you may recall we met on a ride in April last year. My job keeps me away from riding a lot, but back in 2009 I posted a similar sentiment about riding in the nice weather. In fact, I have referred to the first Sunday in May, to Columbus Day as "Leg Season."Leg Season 2018 starts this Sunday, May 6.

Ghazmh

Hey Jim, I remember that rainy April ride very well. I say bring on leg season.......

rholland1951

Thanks for a lovely and evocative photo. Sometimes we ride into beauty...

rod

rholland1951

Rolled out on the Ebisu All Purpose Bicycle for a ramble in the Mysterious East, which is to say Arlington, Medford, Malden, and Melrose. This refreshed my urban riding skills; the nearest miss involved getting buzzed by The Ride in Malden.

Along the way, a few photos got taken. Here's the Red Menace advancing through Medford:


My Ebisu payed a courtesy call to Medford's Ebisuya, something it's been meaning to do for a while now. Good luck all around.


We progressed from Shinto to Buddhism with a stop at to the stupa at the Kurukulla Center; this has become a mandatory object of pilgrimage for me.


Rolled on to Malden and paid my respects at the Bell Rock Cemetery, Malden's Old Burial Ground and the next otherworldly stop on this ride.


Back in this world and back on the Northern Strand Community Trail, I was passed by a young man who popped a couple of wheelies to celebrate being alive.


Lime Bikes were ubiquitous, in motion and at rest. These were seen in Melrose.


Back on the Northern Strand, the weather was changing.


Rolling home through West Medford, I stopped to admire a train. Silly not to.


rod

rholland1951

Tricked myself out of most of the day for riding, but did take the Rawland Nordavinden out for a spin on the Minuteman Linear Common, sporting beautiful Spring foliage and 10,000 of my dearest friends, many of whom were trying to get the hang of Random Walk. I smiled at everybody, didn't ride like a body part, and made reasonably good time for all that.






The onset of warm weather has led me to start wearing my Summer riding shoes, which in turn has led to an orgy of saddle adjustment on the 4 bikes I've cycled through (no pun intended) this week. As a result, I have slightly sore knees from the error part of the trial-and-error adjustment process, but the four bikes now have properly adjusted saddles; the Ebisu, however, now has a rounded constrictor binder bolt, and I'll have to see to that... the good news is, the saddle is the correct height, for now, and isn't likely to move.

rod

Ghazmh

rholland1951

Yet another quick spin up to Lexington in the late afternoon, on the LHT this time. Cool, gray, breezy weather with just a hint of drizzle kept the throngs at bay, and there was a bit of solitude on offer. I took it.


rod

Ghazmh

Jim from Boston

I avoid wet roads / dirt as much as possible on my pristine carbon fiber Specialized S-Works. I describe my maximal tolerance for the road conditions for my CF as "acceptably damp"; but even then I can feel the fine grit kicked up on the seat tube.

For anything worse than acceptably damp, I have a nice aluminum Specialized Diverge as an over-qualified "beater."

Ghazmh

autonomy

Happy to report that my recovery has been going well enough such that I can climb up on my road bike in the trainer! Woohoo, I've been cycling 20-30 minutes - yes indoors - yet every day and on my own bike! This has led to two discoveries - the cycling is making a significant positive impact on my recovery, both strength and flexibility (I also keep stretching, that's a big factor) and it sounds like my bottom bracket bearings require lubing - if not a complete replacement - there is a sort of rough feeling/grinding nose in the frame when I spin the cranks. Will need to address that soon. Might even renew my Zwift membership.

Wife was lucky enough to get out both days for a ride, said it was beautiful but completely packed on Saturday on the Minuteman, and cold yet empty on Sunday.

rholland1951

Got out of my own way early enough in the day to take the Monster Trucker (Surly Trucker DeLuxe sporting 559x53 Compass Rat Trap Pass Extralight tires) out on a 49-mile ramble through Arlington, Lexington, Bedford, Carlisle, Chelmsford, Westford, Acton, and Concord. The goal of all that pedaling was to explore Phase 2A of the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail, and that happened, but it was a delightful Spring day and very little excuse was needed.




The Phase 2A start beckons just across Rte 225.






Spring's skunk cabbage, amid the Winter's windfall trees...


...and a turtle on a log. Much happier than the squashed turtle I saw on Fiske Street.


Phase 2A had to end somewhere: this is it. By this time next year, Phase 2B will give us a bridge across Rte. 2, something that should be genuinely useful.


Pope Road meets 119 close to the BFRT terminus. Once on that, the return was reduced to a known problem. How long did it take to grow those trees?


Back by way of Pope Road, Strawberry Hill Road, Estabrook Road, the Reformatory Branch Trail, and the Minuteman.


rod

autonomy

Ooh, I didn't know the Acton section was now open. I've been itching to explore it up to Lowell ever since they started construction - my mom lives a stone throw away so a good place to drop off the toddler and explore (or just park at her place and explore with the toddler). This also reminds me that I promised my mom to rehab a bike for her that's just sitting in my basement.

jimmuller 

Woohoo indeed! Recovery good. Keep going!