West Island

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“West Island is named for one of it’s early owners, a man named West. The island juts out into Buzzard’s Bay, and is connected to Sconticut Neck by a causeway. Most of the island is owned by the state and is kept as a wildlife preserve. The town owns acres of beach-land, the Fairhaven Town Beach. This is one of the nicest beaches on Buzzard’s Bay, with over a mile of beach, and waters warmed by the shallow Buzzard’s Bay. It is also an ideal location to watch the sailboats that revel in the famous Buzzard’s Bay breeze.” Dana Morris.

Rode for a couple of hours around the island hanging out and taking pictures.

Boats

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When you live on the coast, in a fishing village, boats are everywhere and people like me tend to take lots of boat photos on our bike rides.

Taxes, Yoga and Football

New American Dream — American Outlaws Supporter Group

I wanted to ride today but things conspired against me doing a long ride. Putting all the stuff together and entering everything into tax software can be tedious. By the time I sat down to begin entering the figures and descriptions it was after 11 AM. By noon time I had most of the federal stuff done, and my wife had roasted some cauliflower and asparagus for lunch. I got on the bike and rode to Subway. Continue reading “Taxes, Yoga and Football” →

Making Lemonade

Toot Your Horn Today’s Daily Post Assignment

Most of us are excellent at being self-deprecating, and are not so good at the opposite. Tell us your favorite thing about yourself.

There was so much failed video during today’s ride I almost scraped the whole daily post. However….. Howwww Ever….. I’m pretty good at winging it when things fail and I decided to make lemonade. Hope you like it. You can get an idea of the cold when I walk into the Destination Soup restaurant and the lens fogs up.

LOTS OF FAILED VIDEO CLIPS from John Sullivan on Vimeo.

I’m Calling the EPA

Today’s daily post suggestion.

Karma Chameleon Reincarnation: do you believe in it?

Do you believe in heaven and hell? Gods? Aliens? Ghost? How about crop circles? Reincarnation is in the same category as all those other things. I know none of those exist, so my answer is no, I don’t believe in reincarnation or any of those other things. But they can be fun pranks to play on people.

2-DSC00004 — Coffee, Bagel and the paper.

It was such a nice morning,29 and sunny, that I had my coffee and a bagel on the outside deck of Flower Girls Baking Company after my daily gym session. Today is also a nice day to go for a long enough ride to put on my Garmin. Stay tuned. Continue reading “I’m Calling the EPA” →

Winter Has Settled In

Live to Eat
Lots of physical activity, especially bike riding, keep me from turning into a blown up tic from eating too much.

When I ride the MUP (Multi Use Path) there is one spot that always gives me a ever changing view of itself. There is so much activity on the salt marsh if we pay attention. As I rode by on my newly studded tires the ducks called to me. They were really warning each other that I was around, but I take it as a compliment. Ducks in Saltmarsh 002

The path was quite a mixed terrain ride today. Icy tire tracks, deep-ish snow, blacktop and mush. Today was my first day on studded tires, and frankly it kind of knocked the stuffing out of me a few times. I had to buy the tires separately which gives me 200+ studs on the front and 75 studs on the rear tire. When I hit some of the deeper snow, (about three or four inches) the back tire would slip and slide making me tense up and struggle to keep upright. I was able to force myself to keep pedaling through the more natural thing of taking my foot off the pedal anticipating a fall. The sliding made it very difficult to hold any kind of a line in the tire tracks which seemed more like the side to side down hill skiing than bike riding. Continue reading “Winter Has Settled In” →

2015 Coffeeneuring Challenge Celebration Ride

The 2015 Coffeeneuring Challenge is in the books. Thanks to Mary at Chaising Mailboxes for organizing the challenge for the fifth year. Thank you also to all the new friends we have made because of our love of coffee and bike riding. See yas around.

ONE LAST COFFEE RIDE from John Sullivan on Vimeo.

Save The Bay Bike Ride

Bike for clean water at Buzzards Bay Watershed Ride on Oct. 4

10 towns from Westport to Woods Hole are on the Watershed Ride route.

I got to do the whole 75 miles with a caveat. I was the SAG mechanic, and did it in my car. It was the easiest 75 mile bike ride I have done since last year. Fun too.

All the photos are on Flickr HERE. Feel free to use any or all of them for your website.

SAVE THE BAY BIKE RIDE from John Sullivan on Vimeo.

Coffeeneuring the Cape Cod Canal. Both Sides End to End and Crossing Both Bridges

First a word about Coffeeneuring. CLICK HERE to learn all about it. Then give some though to participating.

Today’s coffee stop was at Dunkin Doughnuts in the town of Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts. This was after a 25 mile ride of the Cape Cod Canal with a few friends. Since DD is not a place for really good coffee, I had to settle for a regular old coffee from a pot. Not my favorite but this was only a practice run. At least I didn’t get it from a clown.

As always, click any photo for big. Click again for bigger Click your back button to return to the story

Four of us took advantage of a really nice day to ride the Cape Cod Canal, doing both sides and crossing both bridges. (The Bourne and Sagamore bridges). The access points for walking and biking across the bridges are pretty well hidden and there is no signage to get you there. Someone, like me, for instance has to show you how to get to the sidewalk access. Once there it is highly recommended that you walk your bike over the bridge. At 135 feet above the canal, walking takes most of the stress out of crossing this span on your bike. It’s also much easier to take photos like this one.

The cape side of the canal from the top of the Sagamore bridge.

We did end to end on the canal side but decided not to ride to Scussett Beach on the mainland side knocking a couple of miles off the ride. Once back on the mainland side we were like cows smelling the barn and our pace noticeable picked up as we raced back to the starting point. My three companions left me in the town of Buzzards Bay where I decide to do a practice run of the upcoming “Coffeeneuring” challenge.

The head of the canal on the cape side across from Mass Maritime Academy

The head of the canal in Sandwich on the cape side

Sue and Geoff after crossing the Sagamore Bridge

Living the Retired Life.

As always, click any photo for big. Click Again for bigger
I drove my car yesterday for the first time in a couple of weeks. I ride my bike pretty much every day with no destination planed. It wasn’t that long ago I would plan a 30 mile loop, kit up and go out and be very conscious of my average speed, trying to keep it at 15 MPH or higher. I’m very happy with 10 MPH now, but because of making so many stops for whatever reason, it’s impossible to measure that.

Today again was a ride into the city, (New Beddford, MA) just because. Time was at a premium because of a late start and an appointment, forcing me to cut the ride short by a couple of hours. I did manage to keep my average speed down using the “taking pictures” method. He are some of the things that got my attention.