[bike] The scenic Merrimack valley

[dmaze]

nuclearpolymer, narya, and I did a round-trip ride from Davis to ever-so-scenic Lawrence and Lowell on Saturday. This came in at 67.14 miles on my bike, thus accomplishing the "65-70 mile trip" goal. route map

Lawrence was, as expected, kind of a dump, though probably better than Fitchburg. Most of the vacant buildings were condemned, and at least a couple of new buildings were going up (one visibly new building, one contractor sign next to the big red X sign). Route 110 between Lawrence and Lowell was also 10 miles of dump; not actually many good scenic river views, broken beer bottles by the side of the road the whole way. Lowell turned out to be unexpectedly nice, with a fairly large downtown that looked at least somewhat populated.

Outside of the Merrimack corridor, the rest of the trip was pretty nice. The Lowell-to-Woburn route worked out pretty well; the Woburn-to-Lawrence route wasn't bad. We paid a surprise visit to remcat, since we were approximately there.

nuclearpolymer says she's addicted to the bike trip thing now. Quack.

Comments

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

I love that monument! When I saw it I practically crashed swinging off the road in surprise :).

[astra-nomer.livejournal.com]

I'd like hear more details about the part of your route that went past remcat's house, since I'm going to be trying to do some 10-15 mile routes while visiting her.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

The Eastern Massachusetts Bike Map = your best friend.

[astra-nomer.livejournal.com]

Yes, but given that I no longer live in Eastern Massachusetts, owning such a map is of limited use to me.

[dmaze]

Answered in email. The route I sent you is probably a little shorter than that, but okay; actually looking at the bike map finds a couple of longer things.