Right on, ride on

I haven’t been logging my activities much lately, but that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been much to write about. Here’s an account of my doings for this summer so far.

There was the Bikes Not Bombs ride in June, delayed to its rain date. I struggled a bit on this 65+ miler, not having trained enough and starting too aggressively, but I rallied and pulled off a clean finish.

I have been making trips out to Concord on my fixed gear bike, usually stopping by the overlook at Hanscom on the return trip. I spotted some wild turkeys on the Minuteman one of the times I went out.

More recently I attended the unveiling of the new bike sharing program in Boston, the Hubway. I got a little sunburned on the inaugural ride where I joined other volunteers in populating the stations with the first fleet of bikes, and later that day used the system to get from my office in Allston to Government Center where I had left my bike, managing the trip in roughly half an hour, obeying traffic rules (it was slow going as the bikes aren’t built for speed).

I am currently on vacation visiting my folks in northern NY, and my sister is here as well on break from her job teaching English in South Korea. No bike means no rides, and that’s a shame because the area has a lot to offer for scenery.

There’s still tons to do, summer isn’t over yet!

Happy (belated) Birthday, America!

Last year I hiked some of the Presidential Mountains in New Hampshire in recognition of our Declaration of Independence . This year I joined a group for camping and hiking in the Adirondacks, and later visited my parents for a couple of days to catch the fireworks at Boldt Castle in the 1000 Islands.

When I first heard of the plans for the camping trip began I was overjoyed. I grew up in the northern foothills of the Adirondack mountains in upstate New York. This is a familiar area to me and one that I missed many opportunities while growing up and living around.

It is impossible to grow up where I did without some degree of camping; however, my family tended to stop outdoor activities there and not participate in many of the other mountain-based experiences: hiking, rafting, skiing/snowboarding, snowmobiling, hunting, or cycling.

My experiences growing up with biking there ended when I was able to start driving a car. The nearest real grocery store was 10+ miles away, as was the nearest movie theater and bowling alley. The farthest I rode a bike back then was less than 10 miles in a single trip, and it might have been to get to the baseball field for practice during those questing couple of years where I tried every sport my school had to offer. (I stuck with soccer throughout high school, but even so I have never really been much into sports.) I only biked around town – in hindsight I see that I missed an opportunity to get ridiculously strong at hill climbing.
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At last. At long last. The training, the preparation, the nervous anticipation; it was all for something.

On May 16th I set out at 9:30AM to ride 100 miles. Six weeks prior to that day I began my training in earnest, building on a physical foundation that the last two+ years of riding my bike around Boston had sculpted.

I followed a plan I found which recommended performing long rides on weekends, increasing the distance each week until two weeks out. Since I did plenty of riding around during the mild winter we had this year I was able to start part of the way into the program.

First was a (roughly) 30-miler. The following weekend I went on a ride of opportunity: in the middle of the night I did a modified 50-mile route the Marathon was set to take several hours later. The next weekend I punched in 57 miles going around the Nagog Pond in Acton. Next up was a Metric Century achieving 68 mile ride that I stitched together from two smaller routes. Having done more than 65% of the total distance I planned the next ride to be a shorter 50 miles to Walden Pond and the DeCordova Sculpture Park, which is a much recommended way to ready oneself for…

a Century Ride:
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This weekend’s ride started on Saturday morning. I began it a bit later in the morning while I waited for some rain to pass and, as designed, the ride was shorter than last week’s. After the rain moved on it became a very nice day, and perhaps a bit too nice as I opted not to put on any sunscreen and now have somewhat reddened shoulders and arms to remind me to apply it in the future.

I chose a Minuteman Bikeway extension ride that went from the Bedford end and hit Walden Pond and the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park. I haven’t been to either location and have been wanting to visit each for the last few years. Added bonus: Hanscom Airforce Base – the first airport I’ve ridden to.
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