Happy Sunday!

 

Early morning start makes for dramatic lighting

Since Outriders in June my weekend riding has generally been with my friend Jay.  We've been ratcheting up the distances to get him back to doing centuries.  Something we should have been doing in the spring!  Of course the weather was bad in the spring almost every weekend and I had a big thing at work that kept me off the road.  The long distances we've been doing really underlined how unready I was this year for Outriders.  I don't know how the heck I did that ride!  Anyway, after a couple weekends of doing 77 mile rides, we were ready to do 100 or something very close.  The loop we were doing was a variation on our "Marlborough Man" route.  

90 miles/145 km of fun in Eastern MA

We met up at what felt ungodly early on Sunday, 7:30 AM.  In retrospect, given how light traffic was early on and how hot it got, I wished we had left even earlier!  

Quiet Roads were a feature at the start

Of course the light traffic was true until it wasn't.  In Sudbury one guy in an SUV had to try a punishment pass.  He leaned on the horn far too early and didn't pass close enough to actually be frightening.  Amateur.  

Despite Jay and I doing a good job staying on top of food & drink we still had plenty of water, so we bypassed a couple of our usual stops for water.  We were thinking of stopping at a particular fancy gas station in Hudson.  Well, it was actually a few miles down the road and over some climbs in Marlborough.  Jay still had some water, but my bottles were dry.

Holding up the wall in Marlborough. Not my garbage in the background.

We split a gallon of water.  I had a caffeinated GU pack, a gatorade, and a Luna bar.  We mounted up and headed out on the toughest section of the route.  A long climb up to Hopkinton, winding up going past the water tower next to the school.  Of course after all that we were rewarded with an excellent downhill, continuing on 85 heading towards Milford.  We jumped on the Upper Charles Bike Path and continued on.  It had become pretty hot, around 92F/33C.  The shade on the path was quite welcome.  

The previous day Mary asked me if it was boring doing essentially the same route for the third time this summer.  I mentioned this to Jay and his response was just about the same as mine -- no, it's better to do the same route repeatedly.  You learn where the iffy bits are and can ride it faster.  

Zooming down the Upper Charles Rail Trail

After getting to Milford and the end of the bike path, we got on Route 16 and headed towards Natick.  This was a tough stretch, quite exposed to the sun.  Whenever we got caught at red lights it felt HOT.  Still, we put our heads down and rode hard.  We didn't stop to eat so I snagged a GU pack from my pocket.

Somewhere along here a racer zipped passed us, grinned, yelled "HAPPY SUNDAY!", and banged a right turn.  And now we had a new catchphrase.  For the rest of the ride it was periodic yells of "Happy Sunday" at appropriate and inappropriate moments.

As we got closer to Natick center my mind drifted to the bakery there, its air conditioning, and its iced coffee.  Lo, it came to pass.

ICED COFFEE  AIR CONDITIONING

After some danishes, iced coffee, and water refills, we were ready to press on to the finish.  As we got close to the end we realized we would be shy of 90 miles.  That just wasn't going to cut it.  So we rode a little bit of a loop and brought the ride to 90.  

With this ride under our belt we're ready for anything now.  Sadly, I'm going to miss out on the North Shore Cyclists' Blazing Saddles Century next weekend (last year they rectified the post ride picnic issue of 2023).  

Thanks for reading.  Keep the rubber side down.

Inventory That Under the Saddle Bag

Like most recreational cyclists I carry some essentials repair items in an under the saddle bag.  Or at least I thought I did!  I usually have two or three tubes, a patch kit, a multitool, a leatherman, even some anti-chafing creme.  I also thought I had a roll of electrical tape.

You know where this is going, don't you?  I've been riding on a new rear wheel for the past three weeks.  I got a flat on it the first day I rode home with it, but chalked that up to bad luck.  Then yesterday on my commute I flatted in the morning and then again in the evening.  This time roadside in 96F/36C summer heat I pulled the tired entirely off the wheel determined to find the embedded piece of crap that had penetrated my kevlar belted Specialized Armadillos.  And then I saw it.  The rim tape was askew.  This exposed the bare metal holes for the spokes and that's what punctured my tubes.

OK, no problem.  That's why I have electrical tape in my bag.  No, I don't?  Fortunately, I use some old cut up mountain bike tubes as rubber bands.  They don't deteriorate over time.  Anyway, I cut them into strips, put them over the exposed spoke hole, and carefully put a replacement tube into place.  What do you know, that improvised boot got me home (around 13 miles of waiting for the other shoe to drop).  

Let this be a lesson, kids.  Inventory that under the saddle bag.  Do you have everything you think you have?  Is that tire cement dry?  Have some glueless patches just in case (I carry those to help out people w/other tube sizes)?

You never know what's going to be handy on the road.

A little rain, a lot of sun, a bunch of climbing

I work for a software company that still spoils its employees.  I can't help it if I'm lucky.  Part of this is free iced coffee in the office.  Part of it is a trip to the Mount Washington Resort in New Hampshire.  This is a gorgeous old hotel nestled in the White Mountains next to the tallest point in the eastern United States.  I brought my bike and did a short ride. 

A view of the valley with the mountains in the distance form the hotel verandah 

Mountain passes in New Hampshire are called notches -- they look like notches in the mountains after all.  I left the hotel and rode toward Crawford Notch.  There was a stiff enough headwind that I had to put some effort into going downhill!  The weather also got weird.  It started out sunny and hot.  Then it got cloudy and sure enough, it started to rain very lightly.

Before leaving the hotel my manager reminded me to put on sunscreen

I saw these two cyclists stopped earlier - they were putting on their jackets.

I just wanted to dip my toes into the notch.  I did not want to ride too far down into it.

My bike and the scenic vista 

After stopping at the scenic vista for some photos, I turned around and biked back up the notch.  There was a stretch with just about no shoulder that really scared me.  Cars were passing at near highway speeds.  Fortunately, the drivers were courteous and gave me a very reasonable amount of room.

A little lake in the mountains

Then I turned off onto a seasonal road, Clinton Road.  It's not maintained in the winter.  And it didn't look too great in the summer either!  I think it was a very gradual uphill most of the way.

Finally it dumped out on the access road to the cog railroad.  This is a railway that goes up to the top of Mount Washington.  The sign said it was only 1.5 miles (2.4 km) to the cog railroad station.  I thought, what the heck.  So I rode up the road.  And I do mean UP.  Wow, it was a steep incline.  Meanwhile the weather had gone back to being super hot.  My bike computer said it was 94F/35C.  

I heard thunder in the distance.  A passing hiker told me he was glad he wasn't up on the summit.  Anyway, it was a really tough climb, but I made it up to the cog railway.  I can't imagine what it's like to do the Mount Washington Hill Climb ride.  I had one of my coffee pouch things from GU.  Kinda gross tasting, but I really needed the caffeine.

Then I did the six mile ride down the hill to the intersection with 302.  Very fast, very scary.  My legs were jelly anyway.  I rode back to the hotel and met up with my family.  You know, it was only a couple hours out on the bike, but wow it was a lot of fun.

Thanks for reading.  Keep the rubber side down.

July 4th weekend ride in Burlington VT

Why isn't Independence Day always a long weekend?  Can't we add or subtract days to June to make this happen?  

Anyway, for the 4th of July long weekend I went up to Burlington, Vermont.  The morning after arriving I jumped on my bike with the vague agreement that I'd meet up with the rest of my family later that day.

 

The packed gravel causeway. Fairly narrow in places.

We were staying in South Burlington.  I had a recollection that the bike path that goes along Lake Champlain goes to the islands in the lake.  This was a somewhat flawed memory, as it turned out.  Also, I had to bike through the Route 2/Route 89 interchange which turned out to be utterly terrifying. Anyway, I got through it & swore I would not bike through there again (meaning, I'd have to meet up with my family wherever their activity turned out to be and not back at the hotel).

After that and a somewhat more pleasant ride through Burlington, I made it to the bike path. Initially, it was packed with families and such. It made for slow going -- and of course you absolutely have to make a big effort to be careful & courteous around newbie/inexperienced cyclists. Particularly the kids who can be fairly unpredictable. Anyway, the traffic thinned out after a bit and the riding became quite a bit more tranquil. 

Oh, this is where there used to be a bike ferry I thought

Around here I had a funny interaction with another cyclist.  She was taking a selfie while rolling.  I was coming around her to pass & assured her I was not trying to photo bomb her selfie.  Later on, she passed me when I stopped to take a few photos and have a snack.  Later still when I caught up with her again, I asked her how much further the path went.  She told me it was quite a bit shorter than it turned out to be.  Not a big deal, but I thought I was already across "the causeway".  So when I family asked me where's the causeway, I said it was behind where I came from.  It wasn't.

As it turned out the causeway was indeed a narrow causeway that went out into the lake.  And, to my surprise, it dead ended at a bike ferry.  There was an hour wait for the ferry!  I felt fairly ill-used.  If I had done even a minimal amount of research I would have known this bike path dead ends and doesn't go directly to the Lake Champlain Islands.  oops.

Only 89 miles to Montreal and world class poutine.

So, I turned around and started cycling back towards Burlington.  I stopped at North Beach for an iced coffee.  My wife & daughter were off at a farm, so I set that as my destination and rode there.

Relaxing under the shade by North Beach

There's an active railroad line next to parts of the bike path

We have Stonehenge at home

I met up with a couple cyclists who assured me this was actually passable.

Google Maps' bicycle directions kind of sucked. They sent me along a closed section of road which was fortunately rideable, and then along a terrible "stroad" with no shoulder & fast moving traffic.

Finally, it got a bit better with a shoulder, and then it turned off into the kind of rural road that you expect to ride on in Vermont.

Is in my ears and in my eyes

Now this is Vermont cycling!

Finally, I got to the parking lot, found my car, and was just getting everything sorted out when my family finished their thing and came walking over.  I got an ice cream sandwich and was done for the day.  Cycling wise.

2024 Outriders: There's A Lot Going On In There

 Outriders!  Boston to Provincetown in one day.  Officially 125 miles (201 km).  Just. For. Fun.  A ride that's over a century with no fundraising.  Kind of a rarity and real favorite of mine since 1999.

Spoiler Alert: We had a great ride

Due to various conflicts my long ride of the year prior to Outriders topped out around 75 miles (120 km) a month earlier in May.  While I had been consistently cycling, I just hadn't had the chance to do a couple more long rides.  Since my total mileage for the year to date was just over 2200 miles (3540 km) I had complete confidence in my ability to do the ride and have a good time.  

A couple pre ride concerns & hitches occur

I had been training with my friends Richard and Jay for Outriders.  We were really excited to do the ride together.  Richard in particular hadn't missed a beat in training.  Unfortunately, in the week before the event he had a couple injuries flare up and he had to bag out.  He was gutted for sure.  I said we could go out and do Boston to Ptown unsupported later in the summer.  

On top of losing one third of our troika there were some weather concerns.  It looked like it might rain for the first few hours of the ride.  I really really wanted to ride my Trek Emonda racing bike.  If it was going to actively rain, I would have to take my Specialized Diverge since it has fenders and disc brakes.  It's far better in rain.  The Emonda is a sports car to the Diverge's truck.  I love both, but for fun, I really prefer the faster, lighter, better handling Emonda.  In the end I prepped both bikes with all my stuff on the Emonda.  If it was raining, I'd switch the bags and lights over the morning of the ride.

My wife and daughter left for Provincetown on Friday, driving through the heavy rain that was indeed coming down.  Skipping ahead just a bit, when I woke up the forecast had changed and there was no rain, just clouds (and wet roads).  I had my customary pre-ride meal of gnocci with marinara sauce and got to bed very early.  

A couple years ago I started having a lot of trouble falling asleep before big rides.  I made a few changes in my pre ride routine.  Nervous? no, those butterflies were excitement.  Mentally reframing worked -- I mean, how could I possibly be nervous about riding a route I've done dozens of times?  I skipped out on posting funny memes ahead of time (we ride at dawn) and generally tried to ignore the ride except for arranging necessary logistics and tapering for a few days prior to the ride itself.

Too late to be nervous now

Anyway, I got a fairly good night's sleep and was relieved to see the forecast was for mostly cloudy all day.  No rain.  Just some kind of wet roads from the rain that did fall overnight.  I had prepped everything the night before.  Coffee in the coffee maker, fried up some eggs, picked out my clothing, etc.  Anything to limit the amount of thinking I might have to do at 4 AM.  Richard had texted to confirm that he would not be able to ride.  Jay texted to confirm that he was up.  We agreed to meet at 5:30 AM and ride the four miles to the start.

Despite it being pretty warm I still wore a wind vest and carried my knee warmers in my jersey pockets.  You never know if the weather is going to turn.  Heck, I also had a space blanket and hand warmers with me.  Both are very light and can go a long way to preventing hypothermia if it started raining.

In any case, I was out the door on time and met up with Jay.  The roads were wet, but no rain was in the forecast.  We chatted as we spun the four miles to the start at the former Cyclorama downtown.  

There were quite a few people already there when we arrived.  The volunteers got seat up early and were checking people in.  We checked in, got our riders numbers written on our legs, deposited Jay's bag for the truck to Ptown & we were off..

I never finished this blog post, so a year later, here is the stub.

Jay rolling up at 5:30 AM

Your Outrider number is always your number. I'm always 1377 since the first time I did it.

Yeah, we're smiling now

Nice pavement w/ a good bike lane

Very my fast friend Brandon who I know from commuting!

My coworker, Suhas, trying out his bikepacking config. He did the same thing in 2025. Cycling from home, doing close to 150 miles for the day.

Someone at the pit stop commented that he had read my blog posts. Totally inhibited me from writing.

On the hunt for iced coffee, I settled for this

We stopped at two or three stores looking for iced coffee

Second to last pit

At some point Jay commented on my stream of consciousness conversations w/off the wall references by saying "you've got a lot going on in there".

Really nice bathrooms on Oceanview Road

Stopped for a photo op on Oceanview

There's a brief section of gravel. No big deal

Jay took the ferry back that night.  I hung out in Ptown w/my family.