anx

Happy Easter everyone, I managed a late afternoon ride around the Mystic River and Lakes right before sunset. I really love this time of year, great to see the world coming back to life everywhere you look.

mr_bill

From Friday, Errand Boy:

First stop after the front gear cable snapped at the bottom bracket (LBS not yet open) - art delivery in "The Heights":


Next stop - morning datelet with the artist in "The Heights":


On the way to the next stop - jeunes peleton:


I recently began walking with a limp, but I don't ride with a limp. So go figure. Stopping at Beth Israel to find out WTF is happening (on a scale of 1-10 for limp causations - a 2, what = Insertional Achilles Tendinitis):


On the flip side, the jeunes peleton again:


Uh:


oh:


Last stops of the day (no pics):

• Drug store for mass quantities of ibuprofen (huge bottle that will last only two weeks)
• The LBS for gear cable (because if I do it myself I can do something lazy like just replacing the inner gear cable. Which in this case lazy is probably smart.)
• Fish monger for shellfish

-mr. bill

Ghazmh

I snuck out for a great 47 mile ride Sunday mid morning with my Roubaix before anyone had a chance to ask where is dad going? I followed it by another 25 this morning on my Boone cross bike. It's 38mm tires easily maneuvered around and occasionally through pot holes and road side detritusI am finally able to turn the headlights off before getting home. It feels so nice.

jimmuller 

@mr_bill, from whence come those pics? Would "the Heights" be Arlington?

I rode to work this morning, had a fun romp through snowflakes. Fortunately I saw only a few hundred of 'm, not thousands and thousands.

mr_bill

Pictures are all in Arlington/Lexington. The mill building is on Mass Ave, formerly "Mirak Industrial Park," now "Mirak Innovation Park" because novation > dustrial?

-mr. bill

rholland1951

Rode the LHT into the sun on the Minuteman up to Lexington, yet another late afternoon 10-miler to keep the moving parts moving. By then, there was no trace of the morning's snow, with temperatures in the low 40s keeping things on the cool side of the cool-cold dichotomy. Pretty ride, if a bit dazzling outbound.


Along the way, I stopped to try to make a phone call. As I was sitting on the rail, another rider pulled up and asked, "Are you ok?" I assured him I was, perhaps a little brusquely, since he replied, " Well, you didn't LOOK ok! Have a nice day," and pedaled off in a huff. While I'm all for the culture of mutual aid among cyclists, I've had any number of these experiences over the years; they seem to occur with high probability any time the bicycle is not moving, while I'm doing things like talking on the phone or eating a sandwich. In these situations, the bike is intact and so am I, though perhaps a little sweaty at times. I wonder what stories these folks are telling themselves...


rod

jimmuller 

Thanks. I am always confounded by how people can post pics of stuff I don't recognize and then it turns out that I've seen it often enough but never actually seen it.

Yesterday I rode to work through the snow. That was fun. The ride home was nice, as was the ride in this morning. Not looking forward to the ride home through rain this evening. But I rode the Raleigh with fenders, and stuffed my rain pants ans shoe covers into its largish handlebar bag. Oh boy, rain and 40 degrees, my favorite!

rumrunn6

I think cycling is good for that

Ghazmh

I may be getting my groove back. I repeated yesterday's (often repeated) 25 mile loop. Despite being miserablely cold it felt springy. The birds were chirping, the sight of ice and snow were gone and the sun rose enough mid ride to snuff the headlamps before getting home.

drewguy

Nice - Sandy Beach!

Grew up right across the water in the center of the photo (well, maybe a bit left of center).

anx

I've had this happen to me too a few times, i didnt know how to take it, same situation clearly the bike was fine, maybe i looked like i was having a heart attack?

anx

Sorry to hear that, as I get older I too have a number of pains/annoyances I try to ignore before relenting and visiting the Docs. I used to be able to ride through them, hoping the fitter i get this season the better things get. As @rumrunn6 says hopefully biking helps with the Tendinitis


Nice, hope it brought back some memories. I didn't manage to get out and ride today, but i did manage a journey to my local bike shop and ordered a new ride for offroading, been craving a full suspension bike to hopefully help with some of my bike and neck pains i get sometimes when riding off roads.

drewguy

Not hugely old ones - my mom still lives there and I have a very similar picture from a couple of winters ago when we were walking dogs over there.

anx

It is the season now for me to start riding off road again, managed to get out for an hour or so, nice slow loop of the Middlesex Fells Reserversation. What with all the wind the trails were a mess of branches and downed trees so I stuck mostly to the fireroads but even then there was some issues. My offroad legs felt out of practice but not too bad as I've been using my onroad legs all through the winter



Nice thing about the cold weather, still not a lot of people out there yet, that will soon change.

jimmuller 

Yeah, not many people out today. Too wiiiiiiindyyyyy.... Today's commute to work was cold, the ride home was brutal.

anx

My group ride got cancelled this morning due to the weather, but by noon it had turned for the better so I decided to hit the Minuteman bike path on my own, ended up at Great Meadows after being intrigued by some of the photos posted on here. Really nice area that i never really knew about, lots of wildlife making noises in the marshes, wasn't sure if it was bird or amphibian, it was a welcome a little break away from street riding and Arlington center and rt16 traffic. 20 mile loop for me when all said and done on my Trek Hybrid.

Utility Work in Arlington Center


Arlington girls soccer practice, still pretty darn cold out there at this point!


Usual leftovers from nasty looking accidents at Mal's


Entrance to Great Meadows


Raised walkway throughs the marshes of Great Meadows

rumrunn6

did you ride or walk on that? one wrong move, & ...!

anx

I hear you! I did mostly ride (slowly but not too slow seemed to be the trick) but only after reading the rules posted on the board by the entrance first. I didn't see any signs forbidding cycling so went for it. Ended up pushing the bike only 2 times to pass dogs and their owners so neither them nor I ended up in the soft stuff, ha. I'd recommend a slow ride around or a walk there, felt really peaceful.

rumrunn6

where is that exactly? I'm used to the parking area w a fee over by the walk up lookout platform & restrooms down Monsen Rd off 62 in Concord

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.4750.../data=!3m1!1e3

anx

2 Different Great Meadows, the one I visited is Arlington's Great Meadows. Now I need to check out Concords as well !

https://www.foagm.org/AGM_MAP%202012-05-09.pdf

anx

I didn't think I was going to make it out today what with babysitting duties, and other household chores, but I somehow managed to squeeze in a quick ~10 mile loop around the Mystic Lakes. Lot of dog walkers, and few other cyclists out there. Earlier in the day there was sail boats out on the lakes but by 4pm the place was empty

jimmuller 

Great Meadows has seven different areas, which I think they call Units. HQ is in Sudbury. The Concord Unit is really neat to walk around, with some limitations. The causeway between two marshes is 0.8 miles. At the far end where it hits the Concord R you can turn left (south) for a ways, but the Sanctuary officially ends. The path continues but eventually hits a private road with signs saying so, with as my sweetie and I like to joke to ourselves, machine gun turrets and concrete bunkers saying "Keep Out!". The road dumps out onto Monument Rd at the North Bridge. We don't go that far but apparently some people do.

If you go right (north) at the end of the causeway it hits the Old Reformatory Rail Trail and you can loop back to the parking lot. There is also a nice woods trail. If you walk the whole thing, doubling back on each section and back across the causeway it will be over 4 miles.

Lots of wildlife. Over the last few weeks we've seen green winged teals, norther shovelers, red-breasted woodpeckers, wood ducks, swans, mallards, muskrats, swamp sparrows, hooded and common mergansers, Coopers' hawk, etc.

We've never walked the Arlington section but it does seem interesting.

rumrunn6

I've seen a mink

rholland1951

By way of unnecessary clarification, we're talking two different administrative entities here: Arlington's Great Meadow, and Great Meadow National Wildlife Refuge.

Arlington's Great Meadow is a plot of wetland, located entirely in Lexington, adjacent to the Minuteman Bikeway, that belongs to the Town of Arlington and serves as the watershed for the old Arlington Reservoir. This is the place that anx rode, and permits bicycle riding by the fearless, skilled, or lucky.

Great Meadows NWR belongs to the US Fish and Wildife Service, with sections in Concord and Sudbury, among other towns. Great Meadows NWR is off-limits for bicycles, for the most part (anyone who's ever startled a Great Blue Heron with canti squeal will understand why), but parts can be ridden along/through on the Reformatory Branch Trail (Concord) and Water Row (Sudbury). This is what rumrunn6 and jimmuller described.

rod

rumrunn6

good to mention. Also, the Concord lot has a $4 auto parking fee & a bike rack. so you can drive or ride there & then walk out to the river or around the sanctuary loop. snakes & snapping turtles too! I've seen some monsters!