| Key: | Yellow = ridden; Orange = took the Red Line T from Alewife to Charles on the return trip, it was getting dark. |
| Bike: | 1972 Peugeot PX-10 |
| Direction: | Figure 8 |
| Miles: | 83.94 |
| Cities, Towns & Neighborhoods: | Boston, Cambridge, Arlington, Lexington, Bedford, Carlisle, Westford, Littleton, Groton, Pepperell, Ayer, Harvard |
| Weather: | Cold, about 50. Threatening rain towards the end, but it held off. |
| Sites: | Minuteman Rail Trail, Nashua River Watershed, Pepperell covered bridge, the new Dunstable-Ayer rail trail [map] |
| Notes: | The ride was basically uneventful, but quite cold. This will be the last ride of the season without some warmer gear. I will definately need to get a helmet liner and I'll have to find something to do about getting padded, full-fingered gloves. The foliage was quite disappointing. I don't know whether the color is just not there, or whether the big windstorm last week downed it all. The rain clouds were threatening so I decided to take commuter rail back from Ayer. But I got to the station at 3:12 and the train left at 3:04 and there woudln't be another one until about 6PM. The ride back wasn't bad at all except that there were a few quite busy highways (119, 110) and it was getting quite cold. I got very, very tired towards the end. Along the Minuteman rail trail, I started to give out, but eventually got a second wind. But I had slowed quite a bit, so by the time I got to Alewife, darkness was threatening. As Alewife to home is the abolute worst part of every ride, I took the red line from Alewife to Charles and rode home from there. The bike performed perfectly, as always. I had no idea the Nashua River was so big. Quite scenic, too, and the new Dunstable to Ayer bike trail is very, very nice, and the people on it are friendly. I only took the Pepperell to Ayer portion. The map I have says that that trail is "unimproved" but it must have been improved since publication, because it's paved the whole length. The covered bridge in Pepperell was a little bit of a let down. Not very scenic, really. Still, it's a covered bridge and those are getting rare. I was taking a picture of the bridge and leaned my bike against it. There was a bag of trash in the road and I didn't want it in the picture, so I went to move it off to the side of the road when a woman in a pick-up truck stopped and as if that was someone's trash. So I said yes and she said she was headed to the dump and just to stick it in the back of her truck. Heh. Where I live, you would have been sworn at for going out in the road and slowing them down. |
| Computer stats: |
Average speed this time was noticeably higher than in the past. Maybe that's because it's cold. |
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