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See you Sunday.

Here's a link to the website for our starting point, the Bedford Depot: http://www.bedforddepot.org/freighthouse/index.html

We'll be meeting in the parking lot next to the yellow building, the "Freight House."

To anyone planning to ride--let us know you're coming, and feel free to ask any questions in this thread or by PM.

As there have been questions about who should go and who shouldn't, I'll try to answer them.

This ride is my attempt to bring back the old shop rides I went on back in the day. They were lead by really good riders like Don from Ridgewood Cycles in NJ or Tom Judd in the Boston area. They knew all of the roads and they could hang with any group, their job was to be the map - that's Ian's job on Sunday, he's more than up to the task. On those rides you had two types of people, those who have no problem staying with the group, and those who would be in over their heads, so they brought a little extra horsepower in the form of a friend who can shelter them from the wind and keep them in.

This isn't a race. If it becomes a hammer fest, Ian will simply return to a reasonable pace - he's the only one with the directions. If you're too stupid to follow the guy who knows where he's going, stick with Strava. So the only real question is if all of the riders can hold a pace that the group considers fun, and if all of the riders can handle the distance of the ride. I'm a bike coach, my nature is to drop back for riders who are struggling, get them on my wheel as I sit up tall and bring them back in. I may ask other people in the group to do the same - it makes the ride a bit harder for the stronger riders and keeps the ride together.

Do you know what happened to Don?

I remember him as well

As I recall when shop was sold he did not stay

I haven't heard from him in years. He was the first great bike tour guide I knew. Without him we would always go on the same rides, I felt like I could do them in my sleep - some early rides I'm not so sure I didn't. With Don things changed. We would be heading out and Don would say "I have to show you this road I found", and the whole ride would change. He showed us a road above 17a where they blasted out some rock to make the road, the rock face reflects the sun down on the black top, so it's always 20 degrees warmer there. He also showed us this switchback near Skyline Drive that cuts directly into the fall line of the hill, so it goes from 6% to 24% and back to 6%. I can't imagine driving down something like that...

Ian is a lot like Don. There's a road off Monument Street in Concord with a sign that says "GPS error, turn around". To Ian that says "come on down" I have the same sense of adventure, but no sense of direction at all. My girlfriend and I were on the tandem, heading back from the north shore when this giant black cloud pulled in off the ocean, so we put it in the big chainring and headed for home. We passed Woodmans on 133, but there was no time to stop. About 45 minutes we passed another Woodmans that looked exactly like the first one - I didn't know there were two...

Will have to take a raincheck on this one too. Am doing the VT Overland this weekend. Besides, Kristin and I would probably just talk about work anyway. :p

I can't make it myself, but I'd say that someone who is thinking about it and on the fence might like to have at least a ball-park idea of expected distance, ~avg. pace, and what kind of terrain.

Well, this thread has been relatively active over the last couple of days, so you may have not read from the beginning of it, but there were links to the "official" ride thread in the Events section of the forum. That thread has your suggested information. I'll post it again for convenience: http://forums.thepaceline.net/showthread.php?t=189306.

For anyone who is curious--and who haven't already gotten in touch with me or read the other thread--the ride will be about 60 miles, and will go out to Harvard, which for the greater Boston area, qualifies as hilly. We'll probably do in the vicinity of 3000 ft of climbing, and I anticipate a ride time of about 4 hours, maybe a little less. Total time will be longer because it is important that we stop for baked goods at least one time, possibly twice.

Hope that helps. :D

OK - fair enough. Thanks. Oh, and 3000 ft of climbing over 60 mi is not too bad. Have fun.

Yeh, 59 flat miles and 6 laps of Old Schoolhouse road...

It's not flat right in the Boston area, but the hills are of the short and sometimes steep variety, provided you know where to look. You definitely have to travel a bit to find big climbs--Western MA or north to NH and VT.

The steepness of Old Schoolhouse must have altered your memory--your math suggests that it gains 500 ft of vertical, but it can't be much more than 100 ft. See above. :D

To the best of my recollection, I have no memory.

Hey, I just want to ride some roads I haven't seen in decades and meet some new people. We'll meet at the summit of the climbs and regroup, and if anyone wants to wick it up on the flats, I'm game. If not, who cares. This is a fun ride.

Have fun. You have a great field.

GREAT ride, thanks Mr Lefty and Ti.

Good riding with you Shovel.