Right on, ride on

Ceci n'est pas une vélo

Community Solar System Ride: a bust! :-(

Posted by @teeheehee on 3rd September 2008

Two weekends ago Sunday I attempted a ~60 mile ride: go to and take roughings of all of the Museum of Science’s Community Solar System planet kiosks (including Pluto the Plutoid.)

I should have known something was up when the MoS updated  their website and no longer offered for download the “passport,” nor made available the pages detailing the Community Solar System project at all.

But that didn’t deter me! I downloaded that passport file weeks ago, and I had worked diligently on finding somewhat feasible biking routes (more on that in a bit.) I forged ahead – the ride would not be thwarted just because the new website doesn’t have the Community Solar System project listed anymore!

Well, here is what I started with: Pluto, at the platform of the Riverside T Stop, Green D Line.

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Posted in ride, wtf | 2 Comments »

Back in the saddle, Community Solar System

Posted by @teeheehee on 17th July 2008

So, I went on an early-summer trip to Italy for a couple of weeks. That happened a while ago now and I haven’t written anything since before leaving.

It’s taken me a while to get back into the various rhythms, and, well, the weather’s been more or less quite good so I’ve been riding a good deal! Riding > writing.

I’m working on a ride for personal enjoyment, it will be my longest single ride to date. In the Boston area is a scaled down model of the solar system (including Pluto as a planet,) called the Community Solar System. It’s centered around the Sun at the Museum of Science and spans out to as far as Newton. The distances for all of the kiosks with the planets is scaled so that walking speed is the equivalent of light speed when factored up. It’s a really neat idea, and I like it.

So far I’ve come up with a general map, starting from Pluto and working my way back into the city. There are a few more inner-system planets I’ll hit before some outer-system ones, just to keep the ride to something more sensible.

If the ride goes well for me I’ll do it again and invite others to join, but as there are some questionable navigation legs and since I’m not very familiar with the area very much, and since I’ve never lead a ride before, I hesitate to include anyone else in my crazy schemes as of yet.

So, hopefully the weather will be excellent this weekend, because since I’ve started working on this ride I’ve lost sleep thinking about it. I can’t say why I like the idea so much, I’m just a geek I guess.

[edit] Looks like fortune was not in my favor. Saturday was in the 90’s and today is sketchy. On top of that I’ve become inflicted with a summer cold (of all things!) so I’ve been more out of commission than usual.

Posted in rant, ride | 2 Comments »