Clasky Common Park, County Street, New Bedford, MA
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I scream. You scream. let’s all BIKE FOR ICE CREAM!
Join us for a social #partypace ride around New Bedford, the first Friday of every month! It’s free, open to the public, and everyone’s invited. Bring your friends and meet some new ones! All bikes are welcome (skateboards, roller skates, and scooters, too!)
Ride details, including route maps, theme description, and even a Spotify playlist will be posted here and the Bike New Bedford newsletter (link in bio) a week before each ride. Weather conditions may result in postponement or cancellation.
Bike New Bedford Social Cycle rides are all about fostering a more inclusive, safe, and vibrant biking community throughout our city!
For a few years, I used Vimeo as my video sharing. The price became to steep for this amateur video guy. Consequently, I merged to YouTube. When my Vimeo subscription expired, my videos were blocked. I’m in the process of moving them. I just finished my 2019 Erie Canal bike tour with #3 son Brandon.
The crazyguyonabike web site has been a wonderful resource for touring bicyclists. It has lots of pretty dated but still cool things on it’s site. The link below will take anyone interested to my crazyguy pages for the Erie Canal 2019 tour. Enjoy.
Terry the biker and I met at the designated meeting spot of the group ride. A 3:30 meet for a 4 PM start. Approaching the start, a rider crossed the road in front of me and I was tempted to ask if he was here for the event. The organizer made it clear that helmets were mandatory to ride with his group. This guy was helmet-less so I passed on querying him.
It was approaching the start time and still no one around. Terry called the organizer and he assured us that we were at the correct place, Buttonwood Park warming house. We both left at 4:30 figuring we got something wrong. Terry rode north, I rode east.
My route took me to the end location of the ride where I met a fellow Starchaser who said the ride was in progress. He also said that Terry and I were close, but at the wrong start location. It was at the park, but at the zoo entrance and not the warming house, a mere 500 feet away.
I did get some video of geese and a turtle as a consolation.
Cruising along nice and easy on quiet roads I did a check behind me for oncoming traffic before making a left turn. That’s when I spotted the roadie merging onto the same road I’m leaving. After crossing over, I notice he was taking the same route and was now standing and pushing hard. A chaser? Or maybe just riding hard.
I was once one of those who couldn’t stand being in second place until I realized how childish it is to do that. I got to the point that when caught myself starting to chase, I would pull over and let the other biker ride out of reach. I have been chased down many times and in most circumstances, the chaser used everything he had to overtake me and once in front would coast a bit. That was my cue to catch up and ride a few feet behind matching the speed of the now spent rider. Watching their reaction to not being able to put space between us was fun.
Today’s chase was different. I was on my “Giant Ease E” electric assist bike. The side road had a moderate incline, with a decent downhill that I used to my advantage. My bike has three levels of assist. Easy, Normal and Hyper-speed (as I call it).
I crested the hill with a decent lead at the beginning of this challenge, and immediately went to hyper-speed to put a lot of distance by the time he got to the apex. The next right was onto the Phoenix Bike Trail in Mattapoisett, MA. This was two miles from my exit to home. Leaving the setting on hyper-speed, I pushed to get a wider gap. A quick glance had me thinking that he was after me. Head down, standing on the pedals and pushing for victory, the hammerhead in his superhero costume, (matching kit, helmet, shoes and bike), was losing ground. That was my cue to ease up. . He was pushing hard and was less than a hundred yards behind and closing fast when I left the path for the short ride to my house.
I stopped after I took the turn off and looked down the path. The guy stopped pedaling and was bent over is handlebar breathing heavy. The confirmation was that he was indeed a chaser and he almost caught me. Almost.
Paramount productions has been filming the movie “Findestkind“, in my hometown of Fairhaven, MA for about a month. I did manage to get some video on the first day of shooting before I left for my Europe holiday.
Yesterday, on my bike ride around town, I came across the activity beginning. The film crew and all that go along with making a blockbuster movie began showing up in big numbers. Soon truck after truck of equipment arrived. All of this activity was directed by the Teamsters local 25 out of Boston. They moved everything into place seamlessly. These guys were competent, professional and also very friendly to the locals watching the goings on. Unions always make things better for everyone involved and Local 25 represented unions magnificently. Kudos to them.
SouthCoast Bikeway and Buzzards Bay Coalition teamed up for this annual ride. Starting at Ft. Phoenix in Fairhaven, this was an out and back to Ft Rodman/Ft Taber located on the southern tip of the New Bedford, Ma peninsula.
After a two day stay in Amsterdam, Sue and I traveled to Belgium. We spent a few hours in Brussels before moving on to Bruges. Bruges has two bests for me. It’s the most interesting place we visited and the movie “In Bruges” is at the top of my most enjoyed cinemas.
A Midnight Rider 