This week.

Wednesday July 26, 6 PM

Meet at Moby Dick Brewing across from the New Bedford YMCA for a 9 mile ride around the peninsula. If you prefer to double the miles, meet me at Staples on RT. 6 in Fairhaven for a 5:30 start.

The ride was announced.  Meet at Westport Middle School for a 9 AM bike ride through the quiet country road to Horseneck Beach.  We rode past Wesport Rivers Vineyard, Buzzards Bay Brewing, a pig farm, protected wildlife preserves and Horseneck State Beach.  On the return leg while crossing the bridge over the Westport River someone yelled,  “did anyone see that sign that says no bikes on the bridge?”   “Yup, what about it?”

Horsenck Beach July 23 2017 from John Sullivan on Vimeo.

There will be a Westport ride to Horseneck Beach tomorrow 7/23/17.
Date: Sunday 7/23/17.
Location: Westport Middle School
380 Old County Rd.
Westport, MA
Time:
Arrive: 8:45AM
Departure: 9:00AM promptly
Distance: approx. 21 miles
Rain cancels the ride.
We will ride From Westport Middle School to Horseneck Beach and back.
Bring water, snacks, sunscreen, cameras and anything else you might want or need.
Helmets are highly recommended.

 

Friday Night Music on Pier 3 July 21, 2017 from John Sullivan on Vimeo.

There are only a handful of riders on any given Wednesday night, but we are determined to keep it up until the middle of August at least.

Our next ride is Friday when we meet at Stop and Shop in Fairhaven and ride to Pier Three in New Bedford for the free Friday Night Summer Music Series.  A really good funk band is playing this week.  Beer, wine, ice cream and snacks are sold at the venue.  Or you can bring your own, as I do.

Wednesday night casual.  Meet at the Moby Dick Brewing Co on Union St for the 6 PM start.  Park across the street at Da Y if your so inclined.   It’s a 7 mile casual pace around the peninsula of New Bedford.  We ride over both elevated walkways. On the west side we ride along Clark’s Cove into Ft. Rodman and loop past Fort Taber before joining the bike path along Buzzard’s Bay.    The rides concludes back at the brewery where every one is welcome to stop in for a cold one and maybe a snack.

FRIDAY:

Meet at Stop and Shop in Fairhaven for the 4.5 mile ride to Friday Night Concert on Pier 3 in New Bedford featuring E-Water Band, a 7-piece Funk/Dance/Party band that includes drums, bass guitar, rhythm guitar, saxophone, keyboards and very powerful female and male vocalists that deliver a song like it was their own.

Three days of storms are rolling through the area and one has to keep a diligent eye on the radar to get a decent ride in.  Today’s forecast predicted the storms would roll through around noon.  Things could change, not the storm mind you, but the timing. Today we decided to get an early start and be done long before the early storm prediction.

I met a couple of riders making their loop from Lakeville, MA and another from Mattapoisett.  We were all riding 30ish miles and we met up on the road not unlike the Texas Rangers of the old Western TV show. We just kind of joined up, rode together till the routes took us on our separate ways.

I have to note that this area is a mecca for bike riders who make their way from quite a few towns and cities to ride the quiet country roads.  It’s also very bike friendly as you can see when the dump truck passed us with his driver side wheels straddling the center line.  Because there are so many bikes on the road, the drivers are accustomed to sharing the road.  It took some time, but everyone respects each other, weather you driving, biking, running or moving your tractor.

 

 

Bands of rain showers are predicted for the next couple of days. Thinking the day would be a wash, the though of going for a bike ride never occurred. That is, till the sun shone into my living room, around 4 PM.  That was enough to get me off the couch, change into riding gear, and hitting the road.

There is a standard route that is just under 30 miles that made the cut for today’s ride. Along the way the sun gave way to clouds, cars turned on their headlights and at the turn around point, the farthest from home, cars turned on their wipers.  And you know why I’m sure.  I was expecting to get a soaking, but as I made my way south, the rain began to subside.  It turned out to be one of those spot showers. It’s crazy how that works.  This morning I was at a stop light looking across the intersections and it was pouring rain.  There was nothing falling on my car.  Looking at the road, I could see the path of the oncoming downpour.  I watched mesmerized until the downpour got to me, and my visibility went down to a few yards.

I was  really expecting the same phenomena to happen to me.  However I was riding north to south and the rain was moving east to west.  Soon enough I was back in the sunshine and humidity.  The short shower I rode into was refreshing and a little more wouldn’t have bothered me a bit.

More rain is expected for Wednesday and Thursday.  A ride could happen one or both days.  Nice if it does. No problem if it doesn’t. Thursday night the Revolution play the Red Bulls in the US Open Cup at Harvard University in  Boston.  I may make the trek for the match.

Initially we were going to ride from Fairhaven to Taunton MA, visit Travis Bike and also make a stop at my former office and say howahya to my friends there.  That would have given us nearly 70 miles for the day.  Things conspired to give us a late start and we decided to ride the Tour de Creme 50 miles loop and stay closer to home. No video but I take take some stills.