I felt like a bus driver today. This week is the family gathering.  #1 son from Colorado, and #2 son from Atlanta are around.  #2 son rented a house on Cape Cod and #1 son is staying with me.   It’s a 30 mile bike ride to Gray Gables in Bourne, Ma. on quiet back roads.  It’s also necessary to cross the Bourne Bridge spanning the Cape Cod Canal. It’s  very highly recommended that you walk your bike across because of the chance of high winds. No argument from me. The photo opportunities were too good to pass up on the bridge.

The ride took me through two really eclectic summer resort towns.  Onset and Buzzards bay. Beaches, old inns, nautical shops and two rotaries. (round abouts)  If you have never ridden your bike around busy rotaries, I can tell you that it’s quite and experience. The second was  a very busy place with vehicles jockeying for advantages.  Luckily the traffic was so heavy that it was at a near standstill.  With that I was easily able to weave my way to my turn off without any incidents.  The last time I rode this section, we had cars passing us at high speeds on both sides of us.  Some continued in their lane, others cut in front of us forcing a few hard braking incidences.  It was a free for all and when all was said and done, both of us on bikes kind of liked riding like that.

Tomorrow we will make a decision of riding on Martha’s Vineyard with a gang or just four of us riding to Elephant Rock Beach.  The rock is kind of unassuming at high tide but low tide one can easily see where the rock got it’s name.

It was a relatively quiet ride through the towns but the heat and humidity forced me to make quite a few stops for water. Needless to say, the supply I carried went quickly.  On the bright side, the frequent stops were also pretty good photo ops.

 

 

 

 

We planned an early ride to beat the impending heat.  However, the phrase of the day was “it’s f*&%ing hot. It was a 30 mile ride along the East Bay towns of East Providence, Barrington, Warren and Bristol, R.I.  We ended by taking a ride up the Washington Bridge that takes I 195 across the East Bay in Providence.

It was a slow-ish ride on a MUP and the heat and humidity were relentless.  With that, the helmets were doffed and we worked on our bald spot tans.  Weekday mornings on the Multi Use Paths are pretty much dedicated to seniors or retirees on bikes.  We ran into dozens of them as we moseyed along and a funny thing began to happen.  Riders stopped acknowledging us.  Nick noticed it and I said, bear with me while I call someone in Austin. On that call, I mentioned that no one will say hello to us and we are getting dirty looks.  Brandon in Austin said,  “you must be riding without a helmet”.  Yup, if you ride at 10 MPH on the bike path in R.I. your going to die and go to wherever it is bad people go these days. We do have an answer to that though.

We had our hearts set on a great little ice cream place in East Providence and passed up a couple of spots that were appealing.  The dam place was closed when we arrived at 11:30.  What kind of ice cream place is closed when it’s 98 degrees and humid. We did stumble on to a joint in Westport.  I asked Nic if he wanted ice cream or a burger.  “Cheeburger and a frappe”, he replied.  “Make that two of each” I told the young girl at the window.  Little did I know that I would be in the Pulp Fiction movie.  They didn’t have five dollar shakes, here they were six.  Two burgers and two shakes came to twenty eight bucks.  To add salt, they charged and additional 5% if you use a credit card.  I have to say that both the burger and shake was really good.

There are no group rides planned for next week by amidnightrider.com.  It’s family time.

 

 

Fifty five mile bike ride from Vineyard Haven to Aquinnah (Gay Head) on Martha’s Vineyard.

2016 July Bike Ride on Martha’s Vineyard from John Sullivan on Vimeo.

We will board the 8:15 ferry out of Wood’s Hole.  $25.00 round trip for you and your bike. This will be an intermediate ride on a mix of multi use paths and roads.

There are two routes planned and the riders will choose.  A 44 mile ride to Gay Head or a 30 mile roundabout route to Chappaquiddick that takes us through part of the state forest and the back side of the airport. You can download the gpx file into your Garmin from the mapmyride links highlighted.

CLICK HERE for the ride I did last September.

CLICK HERE for the photos

 

 

The weather was kind of iffy for a bike ride. Cloudy, cool and it looked like a threat of rain. Trust the weathermen, they are professionals is my thought.. Weather Underground, my choice for the weather, predicted all of the above but the rain. The day topped off at a 19% chance of showers which was good enough for me. Continue reading “Not Quite A Century” →