Two-fer!

Lately (for, like, almost a whole week) I have been trying to get out on the local bike paths and cycle some. I want to get in good enough shape to do my cycling on the road. You know, like a big boy.Today brought me to the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail in Chelmsford MA. This former rail road bed runs from Lowell to Westford with Big Plans to have it extend far beyond! Starting at the Cross Point Towers (the former Wang Building) it passes under Rt. 495 past the town ballfields and throughout he center of town where there is easy access to restarants, stores and the public library. Among other attractions in the town center are a bicycle-repair station complete with tools-on-strings and an air pump. This is, by far, the busiest section of the trail with many walkers dog-walkers and cyclists. From the center of town the trail rises gently through the woods.There is a side trail that leads to a parking area at Sunny Meadows Farm. Not terribly useful since it's about half way down the trail. It crosses Male Rd near the Bynam School, Kate's Corner Store and Post Office and the First Baptist Church. Getting off the Trail in this little village and crossing Rt. 27 and heading past Parlay's Farm on Proctor Road opens up the Cranberry Bog, Great Brook Farms to explore. These areas are best suited for mountain or hybrid bicycles. If you forgo the side trip and stay on the Rail Trail you will pass Baptist Pond and travel parallel to RT. 27 to where the trail ends. As cool as this all is, the Bruce Freeman Trail holds a secret.   It turns out that this is two trails in one!

Another task that I have set for myself over the summer is to section-hke the Bay Circuit Trail. I have been concentrating on the portion closest to my house. You have to start somewhere and closer is always better. As you might expect, it is difficult to design a wilderness trail that circus navigates a major East Coast Metropolitan area. Concessions have to be made, and the Lowell-Chelmsfor portion of the trail is one such concession. I'm not even sure where (of IF) the BCT travels through Lowell, but in Chelmsford, it shares the same space as the Bruce Freeman Trail. So, today, as I cruised around on the Tri-Spec I also got to cross off another section of the BCT! Very efficient use of my time and precious calories, if I do say so myself. 

More pavement Makes me Sad

I took the Cross bike up to New Hampshire yesterday morning. Last summer there was promising rail trail that led out of the Windham Depot to Derry that was not un-improved but was un-paved. I thought that this would be an acceptably "cross" bit of a ride given my fitness level and bike riding skill. Errr... No. It was freshly paved and smooth as glass. It was anise ride right into Derry center where it DID turn to dirt (yea) for about three hundred yards (meh) and ended altogether in what look to be an Elderly Housing Complex (boo). I almost crash doug prey good when I came to this sudden stop going up hill in the dirt and couldn't un-clip fast enough but I saved it I wandered around the streets of Derry for a few and zipped back down the Bikeabaun to Windham. I only saw a few other cyclists on the trail. Most of them were friendly except for one dude in particular. He was riding a Specialized MTB and was kind of....large. He was not actually riding when I cam upon him. He was looking at the pond. It was a pretty pond, to be sure and if he had kept looking at the pond but that's not what happened. He saw me coming and tried to mount his trusty steed.  He was kind of wobbly and took up the whole path and that was to be expected as he got underway. After three or four minuets of watching him "get underway" I gave a cheery "on your left" and slid past him at a crawl. That's when I got it: The Evil Eye of the Slow Cyclist. I have given it myself on many an occasion. It's the look of "WTF is that Road Biker doing treating this bike path like it's a TDF sprint stage?" sort of an Evil Eye. The thing is, i was behind his wobbly ass for so long and going so slow that I could have walked pst him, on his left, of course.