Ed.

Still working my bike-friendly Northborough route, and not wanting to let such an opportunity pass without the good C&V folks knowing of the opportunity, I present to you, White Cliffs.



It's for sale, tho I didn't find the real estate listing.

Here's all you want to know regarding its history: History of White Cliffs

I've not been inside, but I bet there's room for a lot of bicycles!

To be clear, I have no interest in this piece of Americana.

JJScaliger

I rode 40 miles today on the moto gr. Weather was perfect, 80 and sunny.



A familiar route with an old church, thankfully getting a major repair, in Foster RI.






Hit by a pickup on halloween night 2014. Pushed 2 ft off its stone foundation and with major structural damage, it was condemned by the town building inspector. This one room church was still active for a small congregation that meets once a month here.






This church was originally a Quaker meeting house built in 1795. When the Quakers disbanded it was later (1850) sold to a farmer who used it as a barn to store hay until he sold it to a group that later formed this baptist church in 1889.

The repairs cost more than the property is worth, but I'm certainly happy this old building is being fixed!

Vonruden

Yesterday's early morning ride...a quick 20 with a nice September chill.

Sir_Name 

That's one great looking bike.

otg 

Great pictures again all! I got my trusty old Super Sport out today in some spectacular weather. I definitely do not have the skills to get such nice pictures, but I'll humbly submit these offerings.

ButchA

Woo-hoo... A new personal record - even dating back to when I was a teenager riding bicycles back in the 70's!!!

36.75 miles in 2 hrs and 23 min. Avg speed: 15.4 mph

Stopping along Bienvenue Rd in Rockville, VA to stretch, drink a water bottle, etc...



Stopping at the famous mansion along Manakin Rd in Manakin-Sabot, VA. Wow, imagine living there!

jimmuller 

Dang, you guys are hard to keep up with! Nice pics, nice rides. JJS, nice history report too!

After yesterday's near-metric on the tandem we did another near-metric today. We met a friend in N Andover who led us on a wild ride north to the left bank of the Merrimac River, then down along the river until we crossed over into Newburyport. I was a great 61.5 miles, except for the half-dozen hill segments with max slopes over 10%, one even hitting 12%! I had to walk the bike up that one. I told him if we had too many more of those I wasn't going to make 50 miles (which is what I thought we going to do). The return was refreshingly flat by comparison!

Lunch stop in Newburyport:



A short break in Ipswich:



We rode by an ice cream stand with a big sign that read "Judge Berman, free ice cream for life".

JJScaliger

Nice pics otg. Hell Hollow?

otg 

Yes JJ, Hell Hollow. Good eye! I used to kind of avoid that road, full of potholes and very narrow. It has been re-paved and is in excellent condition. I'm going to ride it more often now, it's only about 7 miles from home. For the folks that aren't from nearby, here's a bit of local history about that area.
The Day - A Time Of Tales And Hauntings In Hell Hollow - News from southeastern Connecticut

JJScaliger

So cool, thanks otg! That was all new to me! I've ridden that road a dozen times without having a background narrative. That's how a lot of rural New England has become; old farmlands reclaimed by forest.

Ed.

OK, for today's 'history' lesson (I'm trying to keep up), I bring you The Lyman School.





This was a 'Reform School', closed circa 1970. Today, besides the abandoned buildings, there is a State Court, Mass Wildlife's headquarters (new and quite the place), as well as various 'social service' providers. There are still active DYS (Dept of Youth Services) holding facilities in the vicinity. The Lyman School was the first of its type in the US.

History: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyman_School_for_Boys

The school is located on the edge of not-bicycle-friendly Westborough, just shy of bicycle-friendly Northborough.

jimmuller 

I tried to reconstruct in TopoNA some of the route we rode yesterday. (This doesn't count the stretch from our host's house to the rive - I couldn't figure that out but the hills were of the lesser variety, more like 6-7%.) I'm not sure we rode this first one but I know we were along the river pretty close that whole section. The key item is the bottom line of the box in the profile window, in case it isn't obvious.









I have no idea what those "road designers" were thinking (or perhaps, drinking). Never let it be said that New England is flat. Even near the coast. Our host who has been training hard all summer on his a new Cannondale with only 2 spokes per wheel and filled with helium said he never notices them...

Now back to your regularly schedule beautiful pictures.

curbtender

Looks like "Whoop-dee-do's"

Vonruden

70 miles along the Jersey shore, followed by some family fun.










Metedeconk River

gaucho777 

^Great pics as usual Vonruden.

Went out for just over 40 miles and 3000 ft. of climbing in the east bay hills. Started south and then up a neat little climb called Butters which leads to the top of the east bay ridge. It's a narrow tree-covered road without much traffic . The shade was welcome, as it's fairly hot day in the SF Bay Area.



A

A view from the top (that's SF off in the far distance).



These next two shots are of Pinehurst Road, a fun technical descent which dumps into a grove of Redwood trees beside a gurgling stream.





Then through Moraga and up Wildcat Canyon, a popular cycling road which connects Berkeley to Contrac Costa county to the east. It's about a 2.5 mile climb that's only challenging the first mile, and then rewards you with some nice views. Here's a look down onto San Pablo Resevoir and Mt. Dialo in the distance.





And a last shot at the top, aka Inspiration Point.

scozim 

Great photos Gaucho! Everyone is upping the quality lately and I've just got the same boring valley riding. Hoping to head east to my parents in a month to ride the roads over there.



Even if the rides are a little boring, the valley scenery is still beautiful:



One of the east west highways has been closed for months. Decided to take it and avoid traffic. Unfortunately, that also meant a couple of "hike a bike" sections:

Vonruden

Thanks Gaucho. I'm always a little jealous of those Northern California, Oregon, and WA pics. Keep em coming.

rickrob 

Took out my 88 RB-3 and rode the Milford Bike trail again, from the walking bridge at Lake Louisa out to Hopkinton. It was another great day for a ride-- A little warm, but it cooled right off once you entered the woods. Rode around town a bit as well, and covered about 16 miles.

rhm

Labor Day, and what a day, too!

I needed to try out this MTB-drop bar conversion I finished last week, so....

The whole point of this bike was to make a bike that will roll over the sand roads of New Jersey's Pinelands, fondly known as "The Pine Barrens."

Here's the interesting part of the route:


The sand roads start at approx. mile 37.

Some of them are pretty nice. There's a little gravel mixed into the mix, it's all packed down pretty hard, and you can pretty well fly:


But without warning it turns soft. You can keep riding, but it's kinda like going up a very steep hill. Very steep.


And sometimes, it's so bad you just can't keep riding. Speed drops to 6 mph, and it's a lot more work than walking. Time to walk!
I turned around and took this photo of what I had just transversed:


From that very same spot, looking forward:

If you look very close, right where that sand road disappears into the horizon, you can see a little stretch of double yellow line. Without warning, the sand road becomes a paved road, yippee! Speed jumps from 9 mph to 17mph, and what a relief it is!

But the worst of it was several miles of deeply washboarded roads, where you can ride at 8-9 mph but the pounding is merciless. Even with tires well over 2".

I passed an old village, now preserved, called Whitesbog:


Ponds:


Streams:


And a stone monument to Emilio Carranza, the Mexican aviator who crashed at this spot in 1928. He was 22.


Total, 112.78 miles. About 20 miles of that was on sand, but it felt like a lot more! Time elapsed, just over 12 hours, about 8 of which were spent riding.

Kobe 

Yesterday I did about a third(42 miles) of what rhm did through Hickory Valley and thankfully none of that Jersey sand to contend with.

A beautiful sunrise about a half hour in to my ride.


As I was taking the above picture I noticed these 2 guys looking back at me.

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I passed through so many corn fields I had to get at least one shot.

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gaucho777 

Great photos and a heck of a ride. Sand really is a chore to ride through. 112 miles on those thick tires, with that amount of trails and sand...I'm impressed with your endurance!

smontanaro 

I don't normally write about individual rides, but yesterday's was unusual.

Vonruden

@rhm - looks like a fun route, I may need to explore some of those trails on the Krampus. Thanks for sharing!!

Lamplight

Haven't been able to post in a while, but I'm off this week and got to go for a spin today. I rode to Galbraith Mountain to explore logging roads. This mountain is a playground for mountain bikers, so I knew there would be many trails that would be off limits to me on my road bike, but I've heard there are plenty of gravel and dirt roads which are my favorite. It started off fine, with a nice gravel road exactly as I expected:



I reached a clear-cut and wasn't sure which way to go. One route went downhill, but I wanted to reach a higher elevation first, so I chose the other. It was a pleasant dirt road through the forest, but eventually it became an all-out mountain bike trail, so I turned around. I came back to the clear-cut and met two women who were trail running, and they told me how to get to the other side of the mountain.



Unfortunately I either misunderstood their directions, took a wrong turn, or their directions weren't exactly good, because I ended up descending a VERY technical singletrack which was considerably more gnarly than my bike was designed for! Still, the bike handled it surprisingly well, even though the experience was rather hair-raising. I finally reached the powerlines, which was a landmark I was looking for, and I knew once I found that I could get to the other side.



The problem was, what is labeled "Powerline Road" on my map is actually another crazy singletrack, just as technical as the other one but with much larger descents and climbs. I actually had to walk this in a few spots, and I nearly went over the bars in another, but I made it out and me and my bike seem to be fine, although I'm definitely tired.

jcoll003

Is that poison ivy all over the ground/wall?