[bike] Minor misdirection and mishaps

[dmaze]

Didn't try to arrange the mob this week; instead decided to go out for 55-60 miles on my own at the speed I usually bike at on my own. Failed to die in heat and my body just giving out in Sudbury; made it back home with 63.87 miles on the bike computer (and a reported average of 14.0 mph!) in about six and a half hours. The route went out to Tewksbury and Billerica, then headed southwest to Carlisle and south to Concord, then wandered around in Sudbury briefly before heading back via Lincoln and Lexington. Route map

I started off on my normal route via Winchester and Washington Street headed north. I think I need to find another way out of Somerville, this one is getting old. My first stop of any sort was a couple of miles north of 128 on West Street. West Street, incidentally, becomes absolutely gorgous north of 129. But this entire segment, for being relatively flat, pretty familiar, and early on for me, went really fast; both I went fast (18+ mph a lot of the way) and the time passed quickly.

I got through Wilmington and Tewksbury fine, but heading towards Billerica became challenging. I took a wrong turn near a little pond, and so got a scenic route but would up back on Whipple Road in Tewksbury heading north when I really wanted to go west into Billerica. I figured this out within a mile or two and headed back. North Billerica could be pretty, if it wasn't all drab houses and abandoned mills, but as it was I wound up finding the six-way intersection of doom and leaving the correct way. I didn't figure out I needed to make an almost immediate turn, though, and so wound up on Treble Cove Road heading towards Route 3.

I stopped and ate another snack, and looked at the map, and figured out where I was. "Winning Road" was on both the map and my GPS, but it turned out to be a driveway heading to a junkyard plus a fire road along the edge of the state forest. Headed onwards, crossed US-3 (less doomful than many freeway interchanges), and headed on a quite-nice-for-plain-on-the-bike-map road towards Carlisle.

In between Carlisle and Concord another bicyclist flagged me down: her chain had failed, did I have a chain tool? rhean hadn't borrowed mine, so I did, and I clumsily got her chain to at least a functional state. She had also been between Brookline and Dover the previous weekend. Apparently in addition to the Climb to the Clouds there was another shorter organized ride this weekend, probably not CRW, which she described as a 36-mile ride from Hanscom.

I parked in Concord, washed my hands, walked around, had lunch, rewatered, and glanced at the stores around Monument Square. (Heavy opposition to a Citibank branch there.) I left Concord via Sudbury Road and crossed Route 2. Around Nine Acre Corner there was a group of four military helicopters flying in formation, which was a little weird. I passed my last potential shortcut and went straight across Route 117 headed away from civilization.

And then it all went downhill. The golf course at the Sudbury/Concord border helpfully didn't block a heavy wind. And all of my energy just vanished. But now (stop) it was only a mile and a half to the next turn, where I'd start to head back (stop). Cross Sherman Bridge (stop) and marvel at the lack of pavement; then turn left on 126 (stop) and take a couple of turns to head towards Lincoln Center (stop).

There's a big hill coming out of Lincoln Center towards Hanscom. But going up it means you get to come down it. And after that, things were mostly better. I went a little slowly on 2A, and took a couple of quick stops getting up Mass. Ave. But then I got up to Lexington Center and back on the bike path...and it wasn't quite all better (there were a lot of "now I've been on a bike for six hours" aches) but I could run at road-bike speed, on a trail that was remarkably uncrowded.

And thus I made it home, having successfully made it 100 km in a day for the first time this year.