Biked to work

[dmaze]

Finally got around to biking to work today. On the one hand, it seems like there should be a good way to do it that doesn't involve McGrath Highway; on the other, that really does feel optimal to minimize the cumulative change in height. I wonder how I get home. And if I'm being too paranoid about bike parking; I took off the front light and brought my helmet inside, since that seemed to be what everyone else was doing. "If I do this a lot, it'll be good for me."

Comments

[76trombones.livejournal.com]

Can you get to Washington St somehow? *thinks* Enh, even if you can, it still is going to involve a big scary intersection, even if not Union Square proper. Hm.

If you don't have a bike map, you can borrow mine sometime. If I see you Saturday, you can borrow it then. (It has those little useful elevation-indicating lines whose names I can't remember at the moment.)

[jadia.livejournal.com]

I usually lock my helmet to the bike, because my helmet has these air gaps or whatever at the top that I can just slide my lock through. Dunno about front lights. Yay, 20 minutes!

Incidentally, my biker friend (who once biked cross country) tells me that biking in all weather isn't so bad when you prepare for it adequately and just do it.

[dmaze]

So from LCS I can readily get to Cambridge Street, and I can essentially get to either Union or Washington and McGrath. In that direction, getting to Medford and Highland promises lots of suck going up McGrath. Getting further east (say, into Charlestown) seems tricky too, though I could conceivably cross the Gilmore Bridge (in traffic) and go across Main Street in Charlestown to Sullivan. That feels out-of-the-way, though, and if I'm putting up with that much traffic I might as well go through Union.

I do in fact have a bike map at home. I was thinking on the way in that a topographic map with contour lines would be useful. :-)

[76trombones.livejournal.com]

I think it's the adequate preparation that is hard... I'd need, for example, a bag that could protect all my crap (including, sometimes, a laptop) from rain. Then I'd need a way to carry that bag on the bike. Or I could carry it on myself, assuming I could do so non-annoyingly. People seem to like messenger bags, but I think the asymmetry would annoy me. But maybe it wouldn't; I should find out, because rain happens sometimes, even though I don't tend to bike in it. (Funny, that.)

[eisenbud.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine created www.trailregistry.com. While mainly intended for hikers, he's an avid biker (and actually lived in Somerville until recently) so I bet if you started GPSing useful bike routes in the Boston area, you could get it to give you nice maps with elevation profiles (and I bet he'd be open to doing contours too, though that code doesn't exist yet.)

[cfox.livejournal.com]

A day-pack size knapsack with a padded hip strap works out well for me; it's stable and comfortable even when loaded with 20lbs of groceries. The weight is carried higher than is considered ideal for biking, but the messenger bags look like an awful idea to me, and I had the added constraint that I want to go on outings for which I'll lock the bike and take the stuff with me, for which bags affixed to the bike look too clumsy.

The only time I've gotten things soggy in it is when I've taken off the bag and placed it on a wet surface; I do keep small things in ziplocks, and add a grocery bag around my laptop if it's actually raining. (My clothing's a different story; I either wear fleece and drip-dry when I get there, or I carry a change of clothing.)

[jadia.livejournal.com]

The only thing about biking in the rain is that a lot of mud can get splattered on your clothes. I think a mud-guard on the rear tire would have helped me a lot, but still.

[frolain.livejournal.com]

Looking at mapquest and keeping in mind that on my scooter I'm slightly more shy of bigger roads like McGrath here's the route I'd probably consider.

shore dr -> mystic -> butler -> temple -> marshall -> pearl -> medford. staying on the ground level of medford all the way to lambert st and then take fulkerson to binney.

If I were more used to the part of McGrath before the overpass I might take it to medford instead of winding through those back roads, but I think the overpass would feel too much like a real highway unless I had company.

[dmaze]

To a first approximation, that's almost exactly what I did; I left Ten Hills going around the other way and took Cardinal Medeiros instead of Fulkerson on the Cambridge end. I wouldn't want to bike along McGrath Highway proper if I had any other choice. But staying along the right side of Medford Street as it stays on the surface was fine if I could avoid the stopped cars.

Didn't get to figure out a way home, though. I was supposed to meet Emily in Somerville, but she got lost on the way, so I aborted having left campus to go to her place instead. Not entirely clear how horrendous going through Union Square actually is.