ABC Ride: Wednesday, May 14 at 10:30 a.m. from Fruit St Athletic Fields, Hopkinton
Joel Arbeitman
The Ashland Bike Club’s next ride will be held Wednesday, May 14 at 10:30 a.m. from Hopkinton Fruit Street Athletic Fields.
GPS Address: 29 Pratt Way, Hopkinton, Ma (Note: our “new(ish)” starting location – check a map before you leave home!)
Route Name: ABC – Red Rock, Upton XI (get the right version)
Ride
Rating:
Distance: Moderate
(23.9)
Elevation:
Moderate-Challenging
(60)
Total Gain: 1433 feet
Steepest: 7.2%
Wednesday’s Weather
Wednesday’s
forecast is
calling for a cloudy
day with temps between
65 and 73 degrees. This should be
PERFECT riding
weather.
Despite all the rainy weather we have been experiencing, this will be ABC’s 14th ride of the year which puts us about one week ahead of where we were last year at this time.
The
Ride
Although this has long been one of ABC’s most
popular rides, we keep tweaking the route to make it even
better. Because the
Fruit St. bridge is still closed
to bicycles (an outrage!), we’ll be starting this ride from our
newish location
at Hopkinton’s Fruit St Athletic Fields.
There is plenty of parking in the lot which is about .6
miles from Fruit
St.
The modified route still includes a roll through Upton State
Forest, and a few
back roads in Grafton that will make you feel like you’re
traveling through the
deep-woods boonies of Maine. Most of the route feels far more
rural than
it does suburban and takes place on very scenic country roads
with numerous
water views. This is very clearly one of ABC’s most scenic
routes.
At the ride’s mid-point, we’ll be paying a visit to the Red Rock Grill & Bar in Upton for a little outdoor dining on their patio. We’ll try to get a headcount before we start riding so that we’ll know whether to modify our reservation. If you would like to study the Red Rock’s menu before the ride, click here. We have a reservation for 12 at 12:15 pm.
Bring your appetite and be prepared to do plenty of hill climbing, too. Make no mistake about it, this is a hilly route!!
On the way back home, we’ve added a few new roads in Hopkinton to our route including W. Elm St, the eastern end of Pond St, and Winter St. In addition to being roads we haven’t ridden before, all these roads offer really great scenery.
Here’s a link to a map of Wednesday’s route: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/50691890
You can print our “official cue sheet” for the ride by clicking the link above, then click “More”, then click “Print Map and Cue PDF”, and finally click “Print Official”.
Off the
Route
Our “Off the Route” feature
includes interesting
topics that we think are worth sharing with the ABC cycling
community. Please let
us know what you think.
Ashland Bike Club Radio: Sluetown Strutters / Yes Ma’am – Squishin’ Bees
How to Design Safe Routes for
Cyclists
I recently had a very lengthy discussion with ChatGPT about
whether it has the capability to generate safe bicycle routes
based on
user-provided criteria. It
doesn’t! It
looks like I’ll have some job security for a little while
longer.
But it did ask what types of criteria I would want to provide to AI if such a thing becomes possible in the future.
What would you say?
Some of the basics I listed didn’t focus just on safety. For example, ride length, number and grade of hills (or average climb per mile), starting town or general area, free and adequate parking, scenery, food stops, and probably lots of other factors. Got any more?
Some were all about safety. For example, time of day (or night), weather conditions, average traffic volumes and speeds, number of trucks per hour, road conditions (e.g. asphalt vs stone dust, potholes, sand, high-curbing, etc), bike paths and bike lanes (especially separated bike lanes), no left-turns off busy roads, long curb cuts into parking lots and gas stations, intersections supported with lights and stop signs, frequency of cycling accidents, and, again, many more. Can you add to the list?
ABC’er Al Pincince sent this great article about a new device that can collect data to help determine what roads are risky for cyclists. ABC is always looking for ways to make our rides safer. We should keep an eye on this new gizmo.
Check it out: https://techxplore.com/news/2025-05-small-bicycle-handlebar-sensor-region.html
Want to learn about plans for
the next section
of the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail?
MassDOT is holding an online information session that is
open to
everyone. The new
trail section, which
is still in the planning stages, will run from Route 20 (near
Union Ave) in
Sudbury south to Eaton Rd in Framingham.
To attend (via Zoom), you need to register on the website shown below. You’ll be asked for first name, last name, and email address. After registering, MassDOT will email a Zoom link you can use to watch the webinar once it begins.
To read about the plan: https://sudbury.ma.us/pcd/2025/04/29/massdot-public-hearing-bfrt-phase-3-25-design/
To register: https://www.mass.gov/event/sudbury-framingham-bike-path-construction-of-bruce-freeman-rail-trail-05-15-2025
Meeting Date and Time: Thursday, May 15, 2025 at 6:30 pm
Thanks again to Al Pincince for sending the information!
Please remember to check your email after 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday to make sure the ride was not cancelled or postponed due to weather or other reasons and … don’t forget those helmets … and your appetite!!
See you Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. at Hopkinton’s Fruit Street Athletic Fields (29 Pratt Way, Hopkinton). The food will be great, the scenery will be even better, and the company of your fellow riders will be best of all!
Joel