Roll Up, Roll Up for the Magical Humidity Tour

 "Hey guys, you up for a short ride this weekend? Around 50 miles?"  Sort of a humblebrag, but also a measure of how much riding Jay and Richard have been doing this year that anything under 60 miles really isn't a major ride.  Unless it has a mountain pass, I guess, but whatever.  That was the plan.  Some kind of weekend ride.  As we got closer to the weekend the forecast looked a bit worse for the afternoons -- thunderstorms both days.  We shifted to a morning ride, hoping to beat any rain.  Then Richard noticed that there was an official Harbor to the Bay (H2B) training ride scheduled.  The ride to & from the start of which would come up to about 50 miles. As a bonus the ride was organized by my friend, Tina.

I've kind of felt bad that I haven't run any organized training rides for the H2B this year.  Part of that has been due to the bigger miles we've been doing all summer long.  Anyway, we decided to do the H2B training ride.

Jay, Richard, and I met up in Washington Square to ride to the start/finish at Cold Spring Park in Newton.  It was cloudy and HUMID.  Really gross.  I took my Diverge in case of rain.  It has full fenders, disc brakes, and I could throw some rain gear into the trunk bag.

There were A LOT of runners out.  We wondered if they were trying get their workout in before it got hotter and/or started raining.  Suddenly I realized there was something sticky on the back of my left leg. It was really gross and distracting.  At the time I thought it was chewing gum kicked up off the road, but in retrospect I think it was something that was on the bench I was sitting on while waiting for Jay and Richard.  This doesn't make it any less disgusting.  After trying and failing to wipe whatever it was off while riding, I pulled over.  Amusingly, I did this right by my friend Jesse's house.  He was walking out to go to shul and said hello.  Jesse used to pass me every day on my bike commute in his minivan.  He'd wave hello, we'd talk at red lights, and eventually, we rode together while he biked his daughter to daycare.

We were also passed by this recumbent duo while stopped

After getting sufficiently cleaned up, we resumed our ride to Cold Spring Park.  We had a ton of buffer time, but I forgot to ask the guys if they wanted to stop for coffee or something along the way.

We were the first people to arrive at the start/finish.  After a bit people started showing up, including a largish group that started from the boathouse in JP.  One of the riders included my friend Ji, who I had first met while I was doing a solo ride to Ptown on zero sleep last year.  He's super fast and I knew I'd pretty much only be able to say hello at the start.

After some pre-ride instructions from Warren and Tina & a go round introducing ourselves we broke up into smaller groups.  A woman named Pennie joined Jay, Richard, Tina, and me.  The route for the day went out to the Weston/Lincoln/Sudbury area but often on roads that I don't usually take.

I was in the lead and was trying to set a very moderate pace.  As it turned out it was far too fast for Pennie.  We were going up the long steady climb on Newton Road to Weston Center when I heard Jay & Richard shouting for me to stop.  Pennie had been riding well above herself.  Additionally, the sun was kind of burning through the clouds making the sticky humidity feel even heavier.  We'd been riding for maybe 30 minutes at this point.  Even tougher, Pennie was wearing a reflective vest and a cotton t-shirt.  

Cotton is really bad for exercising.  It's heavy, it doesn't really breath, and it doesn't dry quickly.  Pennie also about three liters of water in two bottles in her pannier as well as a heavy bike lock.  In some ways this was good news as it offered a few ways we could make things easier for her.  She doffed the vest and t-shirt (it's OK, folks, she had a jog bra), so that helped the cooling situation very quickly.  I took one of her water bottles and we distributed parts of the U-lock between Richard and me.  This meant she'd ditched quite a bit of dead weight and would cool down once we started moving again.

These are just very typical mistakes people make when transitioning from short city rides to long distance endurance rides.  I remember riding out to Cape Cod with my wife back in the late 90's while wearing a very heavy cotton top and super overloaded panniers.  I did my first century rides wearing sneakers.  

We all learn not to do long rides in cotton t-shirts. Note the U-lock on the handlebar and heavy backpack too! Ouch!

Everyone starts in sneakers. From my first 100 mile bike ride. 

Anyway, after Pennie had a chance to drink, eat something, and catch her breath, we re-mounted and continued on.  Wow, the cooling effect of getting moving again felt great.  We had stopped just shy of the top of the climb, so we also got to do a bit of freewheeling.

Gotta dig those stone walls. Olde New Englande, baby!

Jay and Tina chatting behind me

Riding through some really lovely side roads we approached the first official stop of the day at the scultpure garden at the DeCordova Museum.  It turned out they had bathrooms and a water fountain (a bubbler as we call it in eastern Mass).  I downed a whole bottle of water on this break.  I also ate a Clif bar.  The cloud cover kinda varied through the morning.  I was just grateful it wasn't raining at all.  Though it did get a touch misty after we left the museum.  Tina joined another group as an effort to mix up the groups socially at this point.

Pennie was doing a lot better with the lighter load on the bike.  We took some time to chat while riding.  Learning to back off the effort while going uphill is an important skill for really long distances.  There are times when you want to burn those matches on hard efforts, but generally, you just want to spin it all out.

We stopped by a store in Sudbury and then continued on to Ponyhendge.  We also rode past Sherman's Bridge, a rough wooden bridge which I love to jam over for effect. Somehow we got in front of Ji's group and he and I got to ride together very briefly.

I think one of the rules is you have to take photos of sunflowers if you see them

Got to ride with Ji. A brief treat.

Ponyhenge.  

Tina, Ji, Jason, Pennie, and Jay

The groups had all come together at Ponyhendge.  At least I think it was all the groups.  We split up again letting the faster groups go ahead of us.  We took an off route longish stop at Brothers supermarket in Weston.  It was great to sit down for a bit.  We got a gallon of water, some gatorade, iced coffee, and snacks.  I tend to think it's important to sit down when you're at a stop on long rides.  

Our group at a stop light

After the Brothers stop, we had the always fun plunge down Newton Road.  This was the same long steady climb that caused so much tsuris earlier in the day.  Now it was not only downhill, it was all in the shade.  Zoom!  After that, still more descending after we passed over 128.

The heat and humidity were getting to me, folks.

It was less than ten relatively easy miles back to Cold Spring Park.  At this point it was a new personal record for Pennie with each pedal stroke.  

Pennie at the finish, justifiably proud and happy

After congratulating Pennie, Jay, Richard, and I rode the five miles back to Brookline, with a nice just under 50 mile ride in the books.

As always, thanks for reading.  Keep the rubber side down.

Sloggy Solo Ride to Provincetown

 After the Blazing Saddles century (and the unforgiveable lack of vegetarian food at the post ride spread despite their pre-ride publicity, oh, I'm still salty about that), my next big ride was the following weekend.  It was my annual ride out to Provincetown to meet my family for our vacation.  You'd think the prospect of a 130 mile/209 km ride would be enough to induce me to take it easy during the week and taper a bit.  But, you'd be wrong.  I was already on vacation and I wanted to do at least a short ride every day to at least get my ya-ya's out.

Silhouette from the end of the day at the Provincetown border

My friends Jay and Richard wanted to join me for the ride.  The forecast looked kind of bad, so I told them it would have been a bad idea.  Thus, I was out for a long day on my own.  Possibly with bad weather in the offing.

As it turned out, the forecast was for a 50% of thunderstorms most of the way the whole day.  I don't think a drop of rain fell on me, though the clouds were quite threatening at times and the ground was quite wet in places.  Oh well.

I managed to get a decent night's sleep.  This was much better than last year.  I had experienced a run of cycling events with little to no sleep the night before.  It kind of spooked me, so I've made a few changes.  Most importantly I work to recognize the butterflies I feel before an event as excitement and not nervousness.  I also dropped making certain pre-ride jokes which had become a stupid pre-ride ritual.  We ride at dawn! And the like.

Everything was packed and laid out the night before.  Coffee maker ready to go, breakfast, filled bottles for the bike, etc.  I do have a literal checklist to ensure I don't miss anything.  And I run through it early in the evening the day before.  Well before bedtime.  The whole idea is to prepare completely with minimal stress.

I woke up a couple times during the night. "If it's 4 AM, I'll just get up. Oh, it's 1:30".  I did take advantage of this to get some sips of water.  Nice to start the day not quite so dehydrated from sleeping.  Anyway, I was up with my alarm and not before for once.  After breakfast and getting dressed I was out the door just a bit early.  It was dark out before 6AM.  Having my powerful Magicshine headlight with the extra long life battery was a comfort.  I could run it on low before sunrise and still have lots of burn time if I needed to turn it on because of rain.  I left my PlanetBike secondary light on blink.

The cluttered cockpit of my Diverge. Lights, reflector, bike computer, speaker and top tube snack box.

It was warm and humid enough so my jacket and arm/knee warmers were in my trunk bag, available if it got cold & rainy.  The spin out of Boston was quiet.  The roads were nearly empty.  Taking 203 through Roxbury and Dorchester can be nerve wracking later in the morning.  Before everyone wakes up and without traffic?  It's just a straight shot to Quincy.

Extinction rebellion climate emergency stickers

An empty J-way and adjacent bike path

The ride through all the south shore was uneventful.  I stayed on top of hydration and eating, knowing that the calories you take on board early in a long ride are the ones you're burning later in the day.  I also kept the pace down.  On a long ride you just want to stay in "zone 2" and keep it nice and easy.  Keep me in Clif bars, water, and caffeine and I'm good to ride forever, right?  I have to say I also felt the miles already in my legs and immediately regretted not tapering before the ride.  One day off the bike was nowhere enough.

A photo of my bike from a very quick pit stop in Halifax. Top tube bag, trunk bag, and three, count 'em three water bottles (two with water, one with coffee or hydration beverage)

There were threatening clouds to the west and a hint of blue to the east.

It was nice to take it slowly in many respects.  I stopped and got photos of things that interested me.

Horses!

I bet 500 quatloos on the newcomers. 

I had no idea the route went through Carver.

It's the Bavarian Way, you wouldn't understand.  Or "Have you ever heard the German band? Nein, that is the name of the song!"

Kind of amazingly the three bottles on the bike were enough to see me through to Plymouth.  I took my first long break of the day at a convenience store where I bought water & gatorade.  I brought a cable lock with me, so I didn't have to wheel my bike into stores if I didn't feel like it.

Refills for my bike bottles. Plus some for enjoying right away.

There's a whole lot of rolling terrain from Plymouth the canal.  And several of the fun "Claire Saltonstall bike route to the Cape" signs.  I ran across a smart phone by the side of the road.  What the hell happens around Cape Cod that there are so many of them lying around?  Anyway, this one was totally trashed.  There was no chance of reuniting it with its owner.  I put it on top of my my trunk rack so I could throw it in the first available garbage.

Clare Saltonstall Bikeway to Cape Cod. Is it the four inches to the left of the fog line? Maybe.

Another lost phone by the side of the road. So weird.

I had finished my bike bottle of coffee before arriving in Plymouth and I was thinking about getting more.  So, I kind of fixated on the Dunkin Donuts by the bridge.  And in addition to a coffee I could get ... an egg and cheese sandwich!  And lo it came to pass.  I got to Dunks and there wasn't even much of a line.  Pretty cool.

Saddling back up I was over the bridge and on the Cape. It always feels like that's the start of a whole new ride.  After going through Sandwich and getting onto the Service Road I was greeted with an exciting development.  They're building a bike path next to the Service Road!  It's part of a gradual push to have bike infrastructure going all the way from the canal to Provincetown.  It's going to take quite some time for all this to happen.

Bike path on the left under construction. Definitely not yet rideable.

After the whole lot of up and down along the Service Road I got to Shootflying Hill and then Hyannis.  While traffic was a bit heavy, the drivers were fairly careful.  And then finally, I got to the start of the bike path on the Hyannis/Yarmouth border.  Whew.  Also coming soon -- they will be pushing the start of the bike path further west closer to Shootflying Hill.  It will be nice to cut out some of the miles and certainly the traffic of the dip down into Hyannis.

The first few miles of the bike path cuts through a golf course.  So it's a bit substandard and narrow.  Yarmouth also places these weird gates that force cyclists to dismount to cross roads.  It's super annoying.  And has to be an ADA violation to boot.

Dismount and zig zag. So annoying.

I got to the little park just before the trail head of the actual Cape Cod Rail Trail.  It has a bathroom, so I took a short break.  I was running low on water by this point, but I figured I could ration it out until I got to Orleans.  Now this was a dumb dumb move.  There are at least two stores I could have stopped at to top off on fluids and I really ought to have done so.  There is no reason to ration out water around mile 85 of a 130 mile ride.  If anything I should have been going overboard on hydration.

Seriously taking a break. My shoes were a bit wet.

After eating and drinking a bit I got back on the bike and resumed my ride.  Somewhere along here I was passed by a guy wearing a New England Randoneurs cycling jersey.  There's always someone going further and faster than you on any given day.  I was pretty sure he was that guy for me.

I also ran into a kid and an adult on one of those electric one wheel things.  They rode behind me for a bit and we chatted a little.  It was fun riding with someone -- and I noticed I did pick up my average speed a bit.  It really would have been better to have had my friends with me.  The two one wheel people dropped off at the roundabout just shy of Brewster.  

The two e-unicyclists behind me

I also ran into the guy in the Randoneurs jersey again.  Sure enough he had started in Belmont -- and he had dipped into Woodshole.  He was also riding to Provincetown.  I didn't ask how many miles that was going to shake out to be but it had to be close to 200.  He was riding quite a bit faster than I felt like, so I bid him farewell.

The rail trail wasn't too busy

I was hitting the last of the water in my bottle and closing in on Orleans.  There's a bottle filling station there across from the Hot Chocolate Sparrow.  I stopped and filled all three bottles.  I also mixed up some Skratch Labs hydration drink from powder.  It was really good.  I drank the whole bottle.  I should have made up a second one.  My family texted me -- they were planning on stopping at the Hot Chocolate Sparrow.  Unfortunately, they weren't going to be there for another half hour.  So, I pressed on.  

After all waiting at Lecount Hollow Road was the PB Boulangerie!  I was really focused on getting a kouign amann.  Or at least an almond croissant.  I really tried to enjoy the stretch from Orleans to Wellfleet.  It's got some gorgeous marshes.  And wonderful views.

Still, the PB Boulangerie.  Would there be a queue?  Of course, but how long? 

Yes, I did pick up the pace a bit.  I got to the PB -- and the queue was not down the ramp!  It was about as short as you could hope for.  I parked my bike and counted my blessings.  Maybe there'd even be a kouign amann!  Well, no such luck.  I did grab a cold gatorade to hold against my head while I was waiting.

Somehow the sun had come out and the temperature had climbed to around 80F/27C.  And I was at 110 miles into the day.  I was really feeling it.

I ordered an almond croissant (the last one in the store!) and an iced coffee.

The last almond croissant

I sat down outside and drank the gatorade.  I was not about to spoil the taste of the croissant by mixing it with blue gatorade.  I'm not a barbarian.

A surprise: my family stopped at the PB to see me!  Also, how was my day going?  I didn't get a photo with them.  I was pretty off, I'd have to say.  My wife asked if there was anything I wanted to ditch from the bike.  Why I didn't give her the cable lock, a few Clif bars, and such I don't know.  At the least I could have shed a couple pounds off the bike.  She was kind enough to ask what mile I was at and then repeat really loudly "wow, 110 miles? Of course you aren't feeling fresh!".  Loud enough for the tables next to me to hear.  Nice to have some humblebragging by proxy.

One odd thing that was happening to me was my jersey was chafing my arms.  It was really weird since it was a recent H2B jersey that's one of my high rotation jerseys.  I've worn it on lots of rides and it's the same cut and size as my other H2B jerseys. Fortunately, I had some "butt butt'r" packets with me for just such a contingency.  I think the takeaway is you never know what kind of weird irritation or problem even an old piece of cycling gear will cause on a very long ride, and you need to be ready.

When planning the ride I had thought to take the Outriders route and really enjoy Pamet Marsh.  Well, I was not feeling too fresh, so I decided to take Oceanview Drive to Gross Hill Road to Gull Pond Road and then hit Route 6 & thus the H2B route.  That's the same option I did back in July with a group of friends.

Oceanview Drive is one of the most beautiful sections of road anywhere.

It's a bit of a climb up Oceanview

Not fresh as a daisy.

The view on Oceanview. It's something else.

Then it was onto Route 6.  Which is not one of the most beautiful sections of road.  There's a wide shoulder, but traffic is moving at highway speeds and it's LOUD.  My legs were shot. I didn't feel like I had much left in the tank.  But I soldiered on.

The green arrow marking the route. And the turn off Route 6

Finally I came to the turn to get off of Route 6.  Whew!  Off the busy road and onto a nice quiet rural road.  There were a lot of turkeys hanging around the road.

Lots of turkeys all over the Cape.

Soon enough I hooked back, crossed under Route 6 and got to 6A.  Up the last couple climbs and the tremendous view of Beach Point and Provincetown beyond it.  I spun out the few miles, got my photo at the town line -- and I was done.  Whew!

Just a bit more climbing

A shower, pizza, salad, lots of water, and some salty broth later and I felt a lot better.  Next time: a bit of tapering and try to do it with some friends.

Done! Good thing I put on the sunglasses; there were a ton of bugs in the air!

2023 Blazing Saddles: No Soup For You!

Ever have a fun event end on a bitter note that just colors the whole experience?  Sadly, looks like the 2023 edition of the North Shore Cyclists' Blazing Saddles Century falls into that category for me.  

It's a pity since it was overall an amazing ride.  The weather was just about perfect.  I got to ride with a couple friends who bagged their first ever century rides.  The views were often jaw droppingly beautiful.  The support on the road was very good with well stocked pit stops.  

Big Sky Country. In Massachusetts.

I woke up well ahead of my 5 AM alarm.  This meant I had plenty of time to enjoy the potato, egg, and cheese frittata I had made the night before.  My friends texted me, so I knew everyone was up.  No stress there.  Jay and Richard were up and ready.

I got out on time & finished picking up my friends and their bikes by 6:45.  Traffic was light so we got to the start right on time.  After completing our registration we hit the road.  It was just a bit chilly, but the day promised to warm up nicely.  I decided to leave my jacket, arm warmers, and knee warmers behind in the car.  Fortunately, it worked out.  The weather was pretty much perfect the whole day.  

A whacky guy in a pickup yelled at us "you have to follow the rules of the road!".  Uh, OK.  No idea why he was so upset, but whatever.  The great thing was I think this was the sole hostile interaction with a driver all day.  So, we got that out of the way.

Early AM selfie with Jay in the background

For a while we rode with a woman named Megan who was with the CRW.  We also rode with an Israeli guy named Roy (no, not Ro'i).  I got to practice my Hebrew and he got to try to convince me to do a 5:30 AM weekly ride out of Newton, MA.  LOL.

After a somewhat longish 27 miles we got to the first pit stop.  Among the wide selection of food was peanut butter and nutella sandwiches.  Outstanding.  I also made sure to slug down a full water bottle during our brief break.

A little after this I made a wrong turn, but everyone quickly and loudly corrected me.  The 100 mile route split away from the rest of the routes (80,60,50, and 20).

The route. 

That was the only wrong turn for the day.  The arrowing was just that good.  Also Richard had the route on his Wahoo and Jay was keeping a close eye on the printed cue sheet.

Shortly thereafter we ran across a field with BISON.  

Bison. Kind of Amazing.

I'm not sure if this is a new thing or if I've just zipped past the bison without noticing them in previous years.

Riding so early on a Saturday combined with the rural nature of the roads really meant for a lot of car free miles in the first part of the ride.  It was just gorgeous.

The Merrimack River

Jay hadn't had an effective amount of caffeine yet, so I gave him one of my Forto coffee shots.  Good stuff.

Jay and Richard on one of those very quiet rural roads.

Around mile 50 some guy just popped out of nowhere calling out "we've done 50 miles! We're halfway done!"  And then he kind of disappeared for a bit.  I said to Jay, "where did he come from and where did he go?".  As the guys know, this kind of obsessive out loud tracking of miles and such gets under my skin on a long ride.  Yeah, we're all keeping track, but let's try to look up and enjoy ourselves?  Well, that's my idea anyway.  As it turned out Cotton Eyed Joe's name was Michael.  When I reviewed photos from the start he was in the background, so he must have been just behind us all day.  At the next pit I invited him to ride with us -- and he did for the rest of the ride!  I also saw Megan -- who turned out not to be Megan, but rather Maria!

She looked so much like Megan that both Jay and Richard also thought it was the same woman.  I invited her to ride with us, but she still needed to spend some more time in the pit.  It's nice to ride with a group.  100 miles on your own can make for a very very long day.  I've certainly done that enough.

Richard at pit 2

Jay and me at pit 2. Kind of a mystery why I didn't have watermelon all day.

The stretch between pit 2 and pit 3 is kind of long.  In 2022 it had been a pretty hot day and I had drained both my water bottles.  This year it was cool enough that two bottles was more than enough to have on the frame all day.  There's also the gorgeous stretch out on a peninsula and a marsh that are some of my absolute favorite places to ride.

That's Michael behind Jay. He stuck with us the rest of the ride.

The tidal marsh in the background.

Perfect stretch of road or perfect stretch of road? You decide.

After the section in the marsh heading out to the peninsula traffic gets a bit heavier.  We also passed the "Global War on Terror Memorial Bridge".  Personally, I preferred calling it The "Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism" or GSAVE.  Of course these days charity begins at home.  And inexplicably I didn't get a photo of the bridge's name.  Something for next year I guess.

Three time soap box derby champion Ronnie Beck says poorly guarded construction sites are a gold mine. They may also have clean porta-poties.

Where ever you go, there you are.

Next time get closer to get the photo of the puppy in the backpack

Coming off the peninsula we headed back the way we came into the teeth of a tough headwind.  I actually got down in the drops for a bit here to push hard.  Pretty stupid of me, for several reasons.

Deer hanging out in the pit

In addition to energy bars, pretzels, sandwiches, water, gatorade, pickle juice, etc. the pits also had coffee!  I was psyched.

After mile 70 Jay was in PR territory.  After mile 94 Richard was in PR territory.  Stupidly, I didn't get a photo of Jay setting his new PR, but I did remember to do that for Richard.

Richard riding with Michael bagging his PR passing mile 94.

It may have been mile 94, but we still had a bit of a ways to go.  Nine miles, to be exact.  I turned on some music for the first time all day.  We had sort of quieted down a bit (perhaps due to some stupidity on my part, but whatever).

We did talk a bit about our excitement for the much ballyhooed post ride picnic now with more vegetarian options.  I always liked having a veggie dog or two.

Finally, after a couple turns and an annoying small climb, we got to the finish.

All smiles at the finish. Jay in the background asking about the vegetarian food

At this point I may be smiling, but I'm really angry.

103 miles in the bag.  A gorgeous and fun ride.  Perfect weather.  And now to enjoy... wait.  What?  There's no vegetarian food at all ("uh, you can have a tomato").  They were out of pizza and they didn't have veggie hot dogs.  With something like 45 minutes left they didn't order more.  There was no food for us.  I was livid.  It's probably a good thing I've waited a few days to write this up, because damn the day off I was ticked off.  OK, I'm still not happy about it.  Delivering pizza is one of the things we do extremely well here in the United States.  All they had to do was pick up the phone and get some more pies delivered.  Oh well.  Lesson learned.  Great ride.  Excellent support until the end.  Bring some extra food for the finish in case the North Shore Cyclists decide to screw you over.

North Shore Cyclists Club to vegetarian cyclists