Well it was advice I guess

I went for a nice ride around town. I felt like I rode my ass off but it was only six and a half miles. No route. No cadence. No agenda. Just a ride-about. It was nice to get out and about and I got an errand done so I feel very U.C. right now.

I also checked out the "bike path" that our city is dumping a bunch of money into. Once again, this fracked up city is dumping good money after bad as far as I can tell. See, what they have done is make a path that starts at the Hobo camp under the bridge by the river and goes straight to...you guessed it... the liquor store! Pure genius! Of course, being in the scketchyest part of town and running through trash strewn riverside wild-land that has ALL been a traditional hiding spot for the cities drug addicts and homeless population, not a single family is ever likely to go here. The path actually doesn't even run along the river but 20 yards away from it on the other side of the trees and brush where the homeless dudes roam, ipso-facto: NO VIEW! Perfect. Thank goodness The Mayor green-lighted this gem!

Commuter Bike!

Stopped on an errand on the way home today and found this old timer tied to a cable. Bad lighting I'm afraid, but I hope that you get the idea.

They Laughed at my Little Girl!

We were out in the local State Forest last week end trying to link together some trails into an epic loop. That turned out to be a sketchy proposition at best. What did I say the other day? Something like "piles of horse crap are NOT trail maintenance". Well, they can't repair bridges either. Whatever I guess. It must have been a pretty good ride since I broke my chain. In TWO places! Well, after doing the walk of shame to the car, I loaded it up and brought her Home. Not my home but HER "home": the shop where I bought it. 

Oh, sure, they fixed her right up, but they laughed at her! It seams that Cinderella was not supposed to have a ball gown after all.  It seems that the 16 year old shop rat, as well as the owner, felt it odd that my 15 year old Sorrento was equipped with a Shimano XT rear derailure. "It's what I had laying around" was apparently not the right answer. "must be nice. I wish that I had XT just laying around". Considering that I was in a pretty swanky bike shop in a pretty swanky tow, I wasn't expecting to be viewed as a snob based solely on my collection of spare bike parts! Now I am thinking about getting the whole XT Gruppo for the DB. What a stir that would cause!

Now, this is interesting

So, an Aussie Mountainbiker has won Le Toure De France. Wow.

Pre-ride

In the "old days" I rode dual sport bikes in the Georgetown-Rowley State Forest. Then they banned them. I have been back to the forest infrequently since then. Doing map recon though, it seems that there are trails that lead all the way through the GRSF and into Willowdale State Forest and into the Ipswitch Wildlife Sanctuary. I have wanted to try this out as a hike, but that never happened. So, I got the bright idea that I would try it as a ride. I went out to pre-ride some of it today and I was appalled. The forest has received almost no trail maintenance at all, unless you count countless pile of horse crap as maintenance! The trails that were there, for the most part, are gone. The main road is overgrown and no longer a road. It's a trail, The trails that were there before are mostly gone and grown over or swamped out. It's a shame really. With all that you hear about how ATVs and dirt bike destroy the land, it turns out that the only things keeping the land open for the other users were the ATVs and dirt bikes!

Bedford Billerica Trail

We hit this up on the way home from The Wiggles today. Nice ride, 6 miles round trip and we strayed very little. Couple of nice MTB trails off tot he side. My wife was quite proud of her "mountain biking" until we hit a patch of sand! She made it through OK with a little coaching but the "i'm going to fall any second" sounds that she was making were priceless! She thinks that riding the (for the most part) crushed gravel trail was harder than riding on a paved bike path. I think that she is right!

820 Hegemony to end?

I was cruising the local CL looking for...bike stuff I guess, when I came across an ad for a FREE Diamondback MTB complete WITH a baby seat! Heck, the Baby seat alone was worth the price so I high-tailed it over there to check things out. What I found was a blue, Diamond Back Ascent EX from about 1993. It needs a seat and a seat post and a new front tube but other than that, it is complete and in remarkably good shape for a bike that old. Most importantly: it fits me real nice like. The seat is to be mounted on my wife's bike. But the Ascent is to be MINE! I'm not sure what I am going to DO with this bike as I do not have time enough to ride the bikes that I already have but I fear that the 820, and it's crummy suspension fork might be being muscled out by the older and rigidly-forked Diamondback. If I can not figure out two separate roles for these two bikes the 820 might go up on the block to finance biking accessories. Like Dirt Drops and fenders and a nice rack and stuff..

The Politics of passing

Not in a group ride or a race or any thing like that. Just out riding. Which is what I was doing this morning. Yesterday was a banner day for me as far as cycling goes this season. Double sessions yesterday. First low-stress high rep (me on the 1500 over 12 mile) the second High-stress, low rep (me and the BB and all the racks and stuff on the 820 over 3 miles). So, this morning, I was a little wobbly as I set out once again on the road bike. Even though my speed was down, so was my time. I was riding a little more consistently than yesterday. As I started out I saw two guys riding the opposite way down a main street. Regular looking guys on road bikes that I didn't get a close look at. It was good to see. "Regular" guys ride more during Tour Season I think. I know I have been riding more although that has much less to do with guys on TV that time available for me to ride. Riding without the baby on the back is a rare treat indeed these days, so I was glad to take advantage of it yesterday and today, even if my legs disagreed.

As I said, I was riding more consistently than yesterday today when up ahead of my I saw it: another cyclist! I bounced for joy in my spandex shorts! Then the realities set in. I was going faster than this fellow. By a lot. That meant that I was either going to have to slow way down and fall in behind him in a creepy I-don't-know-you-at-all sort of "pace line" or go around him. Then I realized that he was a lot huskier of a fellow than I am, and I'm a fat boy. THEN I realized that he was riding a MTB. Great. Now what? It's like getting in a fight with a five year old. If you win, big deal. You beat up a five year old. This was all followed by a final realization. We were going up a hill.

Now, I am not in any kind of  "shape" to speak of, unless you are counting "round" as a shape. But this guy? C'mon. He was at least one and a half of me. Didn't matter one whit. Up the hill he went. And up the next one. Now that all that pesky "flat ground" was behind us he dropped me like a bad habit. And that brings up the other losing consequence of fighting with a fiver year old: you might lose!

They are NOT the same miles.

Miles on the 820 are slower, harder and longer than they are on the 1500. I love my 820 but I LOVE my 1500. I got to ride both today! What could be better? 12+3. Saw more bunnies in Salisbury. We love that trail!.

I want to do a Tweed Ride

Yes I do.
But I own neither Tweed or 3-speed bicycle.
And I don't know where to find one (ride that is).
I am also shy.
These things make me various shades of sad.

OMG This kid weighs a Friggen TON!

OK, more like 25 pounds + bike seat but... wow! Dragging his little but up and down hills for 6 and a half miles is a LOT harder than whizzing him up and down the bike path for 6 miles! We did it though AND  we got to watch cows make whoopie.

My First Interview!

We have several Motorcycle Commuters here at work and even a guy who rides a 50cc scooter, but yesterday I came across our first bicycle commuter! This is his bike:

 

And the interview:

BITS: Hi Dave, that's a really nice bike! Did you ride to work today?
Dave: Yes! That is why I was so sweaty.
BITS: Do you Commute by bicycle often?
Dave: No, I was running late and couldn't find my keys. I don't live very far away, and it's mostly down hill from my house so it's not even really exercise.
BITS: Yes, but won't you get at least some exercise going home? You will have to go up the hill you coasted down to get here.
Dave: Oh, I have that covered. I had some one drop off my car. It's in the parking lot.Besides, these tires aren't for the street. They have big cleats on them for hitting the trails in Maine.
BITS: Oh. I see.


TA-DA!
\Well, there you have it. I have officially launched my Journalism career by interviewing the suckiest bicycle commuter in the whole universe. What do you think?

What a Nice Bike Trail!

I have taken to taking my family on rides on the Eastern Marsh Trail, and other trails in Salisbury MA lately. Honestly, the other trails are just filler. The real action is on the EMT, at least for my wife and little guy. Every time we go out there we see dozens of birds and other critters. Yesterday we saw otters, gophers, and bunnies who just sat there at the side of the trail and let the boy look at them and squeal in delight before hopping calmly away. We saw a hawk swoop down and make this kill. It was pretty cool. As he sat there waiting for the little critter to stop struggling, two blue jays who must have had a nest close by, sat in a tree over him, loosing their minds and dive-bombing him. Neither my wife nor I had ever seen any thing like this live and in person before. It was quite a sight.

Of course, there are the people that you see too. As we began out ride we cam across three girls, about 14 years old or so. On was sitting on the path and the other two were standing over her. It looked like she took a tumble or something. We slowed to make sure that she was all right and she said that she was fine. It was then that we noticed that they had a box of sidewalk chalk. When we got back to the area where they were sitting we noticed that they had just peddled off. What they left behind was this beautiful mural. I was very excited that I was there to get pictures of it before the forces of rubber and rain washed it all away.





 
And just because it's a bike blog...

Thinking about taking this in a new direction.

This started out as me talking about me for me but that's not really advancing the cause of the Tween Spaces. There are things going on and people riding around that are interesting. I want to talk to them, get their stories. I want to let people know about what's going on in these parts. There is a guy who rides a department store cruiser every day all year. It looks like he hasn't lost a pound. I want to talk to him. There is a high-end bike products company in town. I want to talk to them. There is amazingly talented and interesting mechanic in town, I want to talk to him (officially). There was a 50-something year old guy on the bike path with his commando-commuter MTB on the bike path and that made no sense to me. I want to know why. More importantly, I want others to know about these things, these places and these people. Now, how do I do this? I'm shy. I'm untrained. Any thoughts? Any advice?

Velo Frustrato Revisito!

Wow. And I thought that I was frustrated then! Lets sum up my Biking so far this year.

First, I put the DB up on the stand to swap out the toasted back-d and put on some spikey tires. Done and done and stopped. I never got tot he phase where I installed the new chain. It just sat there until two days ago when I need the stand for something else. So I took it off an propped it up in the corner of the basement, spikey tires, no chain and all.  And that is where I stand on that, no pun intended.

Heck, I have done so amazingly little riding this year that I haven't even bothered with this blog! I have lumped in my riding posts in my general Outdoorsy blog that you can see here. It's a funny thing though, after just one really nice ride with the kids, I kind of "have the bug" again. I really like riding. My list of resolutions has dwindled to just one: ride more.