In the mood for some hills

View 2011-09-03 18:04 in a larger map

Today was moving day for Elena. 7 hours of going up and down the stairs to her fifth floor apartment put me in the mood for some hills. That and the fact that we went to pick up her boyfriend, who lives on Parker Hill Road, and he mentioned that "you can get about half way up before you have to dismount and walk your bike." In all fairness to him, he has a clunky and probably very heavy mountain bike. Since I had already done this particular hill, and since by the time I was ready to go it was already getting pretty late, I decided I'd do a short but hilly ride.

First, I did Parker Hill Road three times, and in between I went up Lawn St. and Esty St., a short but rather nasty hill. Then I rode down Rt. 9 and went up High Street Hill. From there I rode across Rt. 9 on Cypress and wound my way up to Aspinwall Hill. As I wound my way down Winthrop Rd. toward Beacon St., I had to stop as a flock of wild turkeys was meandering across the road. Not something you see everyday, at least not in Brookline. I took a picture with my phone, but when I got home it was gone - not sure what I did wrong.

Finally, as I wound my way North through Brookline, I suddenly made a right turn from Corey Rd. onto Summit Ave, only to find myself staring at a nasty steep hill climbing up the back side of Corey Hill. Now, that was a test of my remaining strength, especially since my front derailleur is misbehaving and I can't get the chain to go down to the lowest ratios. That hill is a bitch, and the road is so pockmarked with potholes and patches as to be a real uncomfortable ride, even at the rather low speeds I was able to attain on the climb.

From there it was mostly downhill. I went north through Brookline into Brighton and Allston, up Harvard Ave. right on Cambridge St. and then hit the bike path along Storrow Drive and on home. All told the ride was shy of 14 miles, but I was more tired at the end of that ride than I had been in a while. Walking down the street to meet some friends for dinner I thought my quads might just cramp up.

Now it's time to go see if I can figure out how to adjust my front derailleur because on Monday morning I want to try the hill up to the Blue Hill Observatory...

Essex to Boston

View 2011-08-13 16:38: Essex to Boston in a larger map

Yesterday afternoon I got a ride up to Essex, got dropped off near my old house, and rode back down to Boston. I was meeting some people for drinks and dinner so I wanted to keep a good pace. In spite of a wrong turn that took me down into East Boston and required me to back-track maybe a mile or so, I was able to get back in a bit over two hours. The majority of the ride was great, the roads were actually in pretty good shape. The only glaring exception was after I had back-tracked out of East Boston and headed west through lower Everett back to Rt.99. This is the same road where I got a flat tire a few weeks ago (the one that required me to grab a cab). The roads there are in horrible condition - I was really wishing I had a mountain bike! I will have to find a different way to head north bypassing this road in the future.

Random Saturday ride

View 2011-08-06: Random loop in a larger map

Today I was meeting a friend at the Moakley Courthouse to talk business over coffee. After the meeting I headed off in a somewhat random direction. I started by heading into Southie, then over to Castle Island for the loop. From there I decided I would try to get to the Franklin Park Zoo, but got a bit sidetracked and ended up on Savin Hill. There is very nice park there with a great view of the Harbor.

From Savin Hill I managed to find my way to the Zoo, and then rode down and through the Arnold Arboretum. I have always liked the Arboretum, today I rode to the top of Peter's Hill, which has an amazing view toward downtown Boston. From there I rode up to and around Jamaica Pond, then north and west to Chestnut Hill Drive. I followed that up to Washington St. in Brighton, where I headed left and drove past my old house at #58. I toyed with the idea of stopping to say hello, but I was pretty sweaty and I did not see anyone outside, so I rode past. From there on down to the Charles, past the boat house at Community Rowing, then over toward the Arsenal Mall, and eventually wound my way back to the Eliot bridge, and finally along the Charles and back home. Total distance: 36 miles. Getting easier!

Auburndale, Waltham and Belmont

View 2011-07-31: Auburndale etc. in a larger map


Today was a gorgeous day, but e-mail distractions prevented me from hitting the road until about 9am, which is unfortunate as the weather got pretty hot toward the end of the ride. I started out going along the Charles (Boston side), all the way to the West through Brighton, Newton and down to Auburndale, where Commonwealth Ave. crosses over Rt.128 - right by the Kayak place. Along the way I rode past a beautiful little spot with a railroad bridge and a pedestrian bridge going over the Charles. In fact, most of the path along the Charles is quite lovely, with some beautiful spots along the way.

I then headed north on Norumbega Road, and ran across a cool tower called the "Norumbega Tower," which according to Wikipedia was erected in 1889 to mark the supposed location of a Norse fort and city. I then proceeded north, through Brandeis, North Waltham, and up until I hit Rt.2. Realizing that I could not ride down Rt. 2, I headed back a couple of blocks to take Concord Ave. back toward Belmont. Eventually I rode around the south side of Fresh Pond, down to Memorial Drive - which is closed to car traffic on Sundays - and back along Storrow Dr. When I crossed Comm Ave on Mass Ave I stopped by Back Bay Bicycles where they keep a pump outside during business hours. I had only ever used my small hand pump, and it seemed like my tires were running soft. The tire says it should be kept between 100 and 125psi. When I plugged in their pump, the tires were reading somewhere south of 40psi. No wonder I got another flat tire last weekend! Probably every time I went over something the tire was pinching the tube all the way to the rim. Once I pumped up to 110psi I noticed that the road seemed a bit rougher... I will be curious to see how it feels next week.

Total ride length was abotu 34mi (my GPS was on the fritz for the first few minutes, Google tells me it was 33.6mi, my little bike computer said exactly 35mi). I stopped a couple of times along the way, Google claims my average speed while moving was a whopping 13.7mph, with a total elevation gain of 2,761ft. Interestingly, using the same data MapMyRide tells me my total elevation gain was only 502ft. Now, that's a big discrepancy! My legs of course tend to agree with Google :-).

Moon Island attempt

View Moon Island 2011.07.24 in a larger map

Today I thought I would try to go to the south side of the Boston Harbor. I saw on the map Moon Island, connected to Squantum, and then in turn connected to Long Island. I rode through some not-so-bike-friendly roads, including a bridge under construction (Neponset Ave, connecting Dorchester and North Quincy), which had extremely narrow lanes that made me go real fast to avoid having cars try to pass me.

There is a nice stretch of road on East Squantum Rd. where you get a good view of downtown Boston, and Logan airport beyond it. The view is not as nice as the view I got last weekend in Winthrop. but it is still quite nice.

As I got close to Moon Island I got another flat tire - again the rear wheel. I popped off the tire and found that the leak was actually right at the base of the valve stem - very strange as this was a new tube. Anyhow, it was not patchable but I had a spare tube and was able to fix it. I then rode on another 1/4 mile just to find out that Moon Island and Long Island are off-limits. As it turns out the island is owned by the City of Boston and is use as the Police Department firing range and a Fire Department training facility.

On the way back I had to hurry home so I took a fairly direct route, up Neponset Ave to Dorchester Ave, Southampton and then Mass Ave. In all, a shorter ride than I wanted to do, but not bad.

Deer Island - no flat tire!

View Deer Island in a larger map

Today I decided to try to make it to Deer Island again. I followed the same route as last week, along Memorial Dr. then through Charlestown, Everett, Chelsea, East Boston, Winthrop and on to Deer Island. The ride is mostly nice, though there are some stretches (especially through Chelsea/Everett) where the roads are awfully bumpy. Also, I thought I was going to blow a tire going over the Andrew McArdle bridge - the metal grating on the bridge has a spacing that is way too big for road bike tires - I had to stop immediately and clamber over to the sidewalk, where a more conventional grating size made it manageable.

It was very cool riding over the causeway on Saratoga St., crossing into Winthrop on 145. The road is juts past the end of one of the runways at Logan, and because of the wind patterns, aircraft were landing from this end - buzzing overhead as I rode along. I also stopped at a very cool little spot called "Simon J. Donovan Beach." The beach is not exactly a place where I would hang out, but you get a great view across the bay to Logan, and downtown Boston beyond.

Deer Island itself is very cool. It's no longer really an island, apparently it became connected during a hurricane in 1938, and a road was built over the new connector a few years later. You are actually pretty far out into Boston Harbor, you can look back toward the city and see many of the islands that are often visited by ferry from downtown, including Spectacle, Georges and Long. I found the wastewater treatment plan to be quite fascinating in its own way. There are two wind generators, today it was pretty windy so they were spinning at a good clip - I love the swooshing sound they make.


On the way back I took a slightly different route: after getting off Deer Island I climbed up to the water tower at the southern tip of Winthrop, then rode along the coast up to the rotary where Revere begins. I then headed west on Rt.16, which had nice wide emergency lane until it crossed over Rt.1, at which point it became a less-than-ideal ride with cars zooming by and absolutely no emergency lane. I then headed south on Rt.99, back down into Charlestown past the Bunker Hill Community College, then crossed over toward the Museum of Science, down to the Esplanade (where I got free ice cream, there was some sort of regatta taking place), and back home. Total mileage just a hair over 30 miles, took slightly less than 2.5 hours including a few photo stops and the ice cream break.

Short, expensive ride to Chelsea

Today I was planning to ride out through Charlestown, Chelsea and Winthrop to Deer Island. I made it as far as Chelsea when I noticed my rear tire seemed low. I pumped it up a bit but realized soon that I had a flat. Luckily I was near a sort of dock area where I found a water hose and a bucket, so I set out to fix the flat. Found the hole, patched it up (the tube looked pretty old), and then as I went to pump it the entire valve stem ripped.

After considering my options and thinking about walking to a Target about 2 miles away, I decided that it was a bad idea as it would be unlikely that Target would even have the right type of tube. Fortunately I happened to be on a street near a couple of major taxi depots, so there were empty cabs going by all the time and I got one to bring me home with the bike in the trunk. $32 later, I now have to go find a new tube and fix it. Oh well. Maybe I'll try Deer Island again later today or next weekend.