Bypassing Lokerville

[dmaze]

After planning out something too ambitious launching from the Fitchburg commuter rail, I combined the awesome powers of Google Maps and the Eastern Massachusetts bike map to combine together various scenic-looking bits into a 60ish mile route. (Where's my physical-virtual mashup when I need it?) I found another bad route across the Charles, down to Readville, across to South Street in Needham to Dover, then rode across back roads to Sherborn and Framingham. From there, carefully miss the neighborhood identified by Google as Lokerville, and instead go north along the eastern border of Sudbury, then back via Lincoln and Lexington. This came in at 63.2 miles (a metric century!) (Route map)

I think pretty much the entire corridor a town or two south of the Worcester commuter rail is pretty recommended. We've done a couple of rides down there, both west from Dover and east from Holliston, and it's quite prettily rural. Also recommended: Water Row in eastern Sudbury, which goes by the meadow part of Great Meadows NWR.

Not so recommended: most of Framingham, including the prison district. And whoever in the 17th century decided that putting the town of Lincoln on the side of a big hill was a good idea. Doing an extended climb after 50 miles wasn't so friendly...oh, wait, that's what I want to do in another month and a half.

Random rail observation: where Landham Road in Sudbury crosses the Central Massachusetts line just south of MA-20, the date on the bridge is "1970"; commuter rail service ended in 1971 (claims Wikipedia). It'd still make a nice bike path.