Today was more than nice enough for the first long-ish ride of the season. Sixteen miles to lunch and 16 miles back. One thing I did realize is that coffee really does a job on my riding. I’m not supposed to drink coffee at all but what the doctor really meant was to cut down I’m sure. After a medium Dunkin Donuts coffee with my egg salad sandwich from Cumberland Farms it took a good 10-15 minutes of struggling to keep up a decent pace. A small size coffee is not a problem but today I had no choice but to order a medium because I had a coupon for a free-bee.

The back roads to Wareham, Ma had very little vehicle traffic. I did cross paths with a some bikers and got the standard snub from the roadies. When I ride with friends, some wear helmets and some don’t. When we pass roadies, (those all decked out in racing gear), us non helmets very seldom get any acknowledgement while those with a helmet get anything from a head not to a baby finger wave. Today I got two sneers from the roadies who didn’t like my stocking cap. I even smiled, waved and said “Hey’ while nodding. Nada from them. We get that a lot so we are used to it. No problem, but I do get a kick out of it.

The road is all mine

No helmet, no wave

Stone sign has been in place since who knows when. There is also a water pump and trough there.

55F is predicted for tomorrow. It’s time to up the mileage and all that other stuff with a longish ride on my favorite weekday route to Wareham, Ma. It’s around 40 miles round trip with a stop at Cumberland Farms convenience store for an egg salad sandwich. Or as they say in New Befit. Sangwitch. If you don’t know New Bedford is the city where the March 28th Bikeway Summit is held on March 27th.

We were given a 55 degree day on Saturday and people came out of the woodwork. Tomorrow is a Tuesday so there probably won’t be anyone under 60 riding bikes till after 3PM when the schools let out. I’m pretty much free so I’ll be riding at lunchtime.

Oh, and me in a speedo? Maybe another time.

When the temperature reaches the mid 40s after a long cold winter, people get out and do stuff. There were walkers, runners, bicyclist and motorcyclist out today. I decided on the old standby route into Rochester and Mattapoisett, which are located on the south coast of Massachusetts. It was very difficult to get going today and I didn’t get into a rhythm until slogging through 7 or 8 miles. After that it was head down and go, go, go. The slow start kept my average speed way down, but speed was not the point of this ride.

I had just made the turn onto a road that begins the loop back to the start of the ride when I noticed a rider on the opposite side pull over. If I was in the city I would have pegged him as one of the poor souls that roam the area around the bus terminal. I almost kept going when I noticed that he was possibly looking for help.
“You OK”, I asked.

“Just pulling over for a rest” he responded.

I wasn’t sure so I rode back the few feet to look him over and make sure everything was copacetic. It only took a few seconds to realize he only wanted to talk. His name is George Brault and he is 83 years old and has been riding bikes, like forever. He wore a child’s purple helmet without straps. Jeans that had both cuffs contained with an elastic band, and a blue and white windbreaker.

The initial conversation was us bantering about our riding. Soon enough I realized George had some great story telling to do. His first comment was about riding to Scusset Beach on the Cape Cod Canal. “That’s 55 miles” he bragged. Then he told about some of the bike trails he has done recently and a tour in Vermont he did with his 55 year old son. He then looked at me and said. “Don’t you wear a helmet?”

“Sometimes” was my reply.

He then asked about my riding and listened intently until I said that I like to tour. That got him to tell me a story about his Army days in 1950 Italy. He had 30 days of leave owed to him and decided to see the country. He bought a bike pretty cheap, packed up some of his Army gear and set out on the Mediterranean Coast. He wanted to ride south to Rome but along the way he met a young girl who was riding home to Florence. She invited him to ride with her and he agreed. He spend much of his leave riding his bike across central Italy and when his time ran out, he gave it to a stranger and bought a train tickey back to his base. It was fascinating listening to George’s stories and when we parted I felt so luck to have met him. As I was riding off I thought of turning back to get a photo of George but decided to let it go this time. It would be nice to run into him again when we are both on our bikes.

Date: March 27 2014
Meet at Cork’s Wine and Tapas bar for a 4:15 start. If necessary there will be another led bike ride leaving Corks at 5:30 for those who cannot make the 4:15 start.

We will be riding on very wide and bike friendly city streets, some bike lane and off road paths which will get us to Fort Rodman/Fort Taber by way of west beach. This 4:15 route offers a tour of Fort Rodman and the batteries that were built to protect the city from and invasion by sea. The early ride will arrive a few minutes before the 5PM social. The return leg will be the shorter East Beach route. This will be after dark on pretty well lit, wide laned roads and a bike path. Bring a light and helmet if you want, but you can easily get by without either, safely. It’s around 3 miles each direction and the route is very flat. Any bike will do including fixed and single speed.

The 5:30 ride will be by the more direct East Beach route and will arrive a few minutes before the 6PM start of the summit.

The route is HERE at Map My Ride
Riding along West Beach

We will enter Fort Rodman on west Rodney French Blvd.

Once inside the fort we will ride along the waterfront that during WWII was protected by a number of batteries overlooking the bay.

Our last sight before the meeting house is Fort Taber which was designed by Robert E Lee. And one of the on sight engineers was Henry Martyn Robert noted author of Roberts Rules of Order.

Last night over dinner at a local bistro the subject of my summer bike tour was broached.  I am doing a 6 day ride in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland with the Rails to Trails organization.  It’s their annual Sojourn, which is sold out by the way.  During that conversation I said “next year will be a much better ride”.

“Where is next years ride?” She asked

“St Augustine, Florida to Austin, Texas”.

“That sounds pretty cool. How long will it take?”

“Really”.  I never expected that, but I’m happy. Most see this as an epic kind of thing, but if your someone who has toured, weather it be a long multi week ride or only a few days, you know that a tour is nothing more than a bunch of daily bike rides.

This ride should take around 30 days to complete. It’s 1200 miles, give or take and it’s on the Adventure Cycling Southern Tier Route. She also asked if I was riding alone.  That, I don’t want to do and I’ll be perusing bike touring sites keeping a lookout for the companions wanted type of postings.  There are five men my age riding the southern tier who started their tour a couple of weeks ago.  They met online through Adventure Cycling and are riding the whole route from St. Augustine, Florida to San Diego, California.  One of the couples that I’m following are posting HERE.  This is the one of most interest because they are also doing Florida to Austin.

This summers tour will be fun but next year will be a blast, and to this guy who has never wanted to do a long tour… this one sounds pretty cool.

 

 

It was a nice day for a short ride but it’s still winter.

It has been a difficult few weeks for bike riding in Southeastern Massachusetts. The multiple snow events have kept the roads and MUPs pretty much too shitty to ride a bike over. I have been relegated to the gym on a stationary bike, something I have avoided for years. I always felt like I wasn’t getting much of a workout, and when I would see others on one of those bikes, I would shake my head and think, what a waste.

While reading Bicycle Magazine last month, an article caught my attention. It was about interval training on a stationary bike when outside riding was too risky. I gave those intervals a try and got some good workouts. In the middle of all that I came to a brilliant conclusion. I could take it upon myself to make sure the stationary bike gave me a good workout. Now when I finish my 50 or 55 minutes I’m soaked through and through and I’m even a little wobbly when I step off the bike.

I did find the magic formula that insures me a high intensity workout. My ipod. I crank up the music and often find myself matching the cadence to the song. Yesterday one of the songs was finishing with a nice long crescendo and it was in the last couple of minutes of my workout. My cadence had spiked to 24MPH and I sustained that for a couple of minutes giving me a nice high intensity sprint to end the ride.

Today settled into a calm, sunny, brisk 29 degree day. I had to run an errand and took out the old commuter bike for the short trip into town. A face mask, stocking cap and sunglasses, a style that gave me the uni-bomber look, made the ride pretty comfortable. I did bring my camera, but after taking one photo early in the ride, I forgot all about it and kind of got into a zone while riding. One of those zones where you don’t remember anything about the ride which brings me to the end of this post

I was in Fall River, MA to get my throat checked out and hung around for the South Coast Bikeway meeting. The main speaker was Steven E. Miller of LivableStreets and he gave a wonderful and inspiring presentation. His slideshow made so much sense and showed how easy and beneficial it is to make our cities and towns livable and so much more enjoyable when we build our transportation infrastructure putting pedestrians and bicycles first while also providing more than adequate space for motor vehicles.

There was a near full house at the Fall River Government Center meeting room on this cold February evening. One guy brought his bike to this mainly bike symposium which is a testament of how far Fall River still has to progress to make her a truly livable city. It’s a work in progress and Fall River is making progress.

I have family in Jacksonville, Fl. and also in Austin Texas. Next year around this time I plan to fly to Jacksonville and from there ride my bike to Austin.

p.s. My throat is in bad shape. Not dangerous, but bad. No alcohol, coffee etc etc etc for two months, minimum. So much for my Dunkin Donuts Perks Card