ABC Ride: Saturday, November 8 at 10:30 a.m. from Dover-Sherborn Regional Middle School
Joel Arbeitman
The Ashland Bike Club’s next ride, called Dreaming of Dover IX, is scheduled for this Saturday. November 8 at 10:30 a.m. from the Dover-Sherborn Regional Middle School parking lot.
GPS Address: 155 Farm St, Dover, Ma
Route Name: ABC – Dreaming of Dover IX (get the right version)
Ride Rating:
Distance: Easy (20.8)
Elevation: Easy-Moderate
(40)
Total Gain: 837 feet
Steepest: 5.3%
The Weather
Saturday’s forecast calls for a partly cloudy day
with temps starting
off around 60 degrees early in the ride but then soaring up to
about 61 degrees
later on. This should be
the
warmest ride we’ve had in quite a while.
Next week looks much colder so it’s not clear whether we’ll schedule a ride. Stay tuned …
The
Ride
When we created this route, we knew we had come up with a
winner. Even still, we
have been overwhelmed by the
feedback we’ve received from club members.
With this latest version, we’ve tweaked it a little more.
The route meanders through Dover, South Natick, Wellesley, Needham, and Medfield before returning to Dover. Although almost every road on the route is great, some standouts include Claybrook Rd (both directions!), Elm Bank in S. Natick, and Pine St in Dover. The route is an embarrassment of riches with great scenery throughout the entire ride.
This version of our Dreaming of Dover route, now version IX, is just 20.8 miles long and, although it constantly goes up and down, the hills really aren’t too bad.
Rest stops are planned at the 8.8-mile mark at the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in Elm Bank in South Natick and at roughly the 13.4-mile mark at Chickering Fields in Dover.
Here’s a link to a map of Saturday’s route: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/51452521
You can print our “official cue sheet” by clicking the link above, then click “More”, then click “Print Map and Cue PDF”, and finally click “Print Official”.
Emergency
Contact Form
It’s
getting pretty late into ABC’s riding season but many of you are
recent
additions to the ABC riding community and may not have provided
us with your
contact information yet.
If
you haven’t or if your contact information has changed, please
follow the
instructions below. Note that we retain your information from
previous years so
there’s no need to resubmit it.
The Ashland Bike Club has an “Emergency Contact Form” that
offers our riders
the opportunity to provide us with their contact information and
also their
emergency contact information.
Completion of the form is optional but recommended. If you would like us to be
able to contact
someone in case of emergency, this is the information we’ll
need.
We try to bring an up-to-date list of everyone’s contact information on every ride.
The EMERGENCY CONTACT FORM can be reached by clicking here.
Off the Route
Our
“Off the Route”
feature includes interesting tidbits we’ve come across that we
think are worth
sharing. Please let us
know what you
think.
Ashland
Bike Club Radio
Gordon Lightfoot – Steel
Rail Blues
Beginner’s
Guide to
Indoor Cycling
As the weather gets colder, I’ve
had
recurrences of my annual thought: “wouldn’t it be great to
stay in cycling shape
through the winter?” Every spring, it seems like the hills of
autumn have grown
steeper and longer.
As ABC rides become less and less frequent due to the cold weather, I try to convince myself that “this will be the year I stay in shape.” Yeah, right. My “AI friend” tells me that only 30% or so of indoor cyclists are able to maintain consistency.
I’ve been looking at all kinds of setups. Perhaps the most popular is a Wahoo Smart Trainer (about $549,) paired with one of my old bikes (free) and a monthly Zwift subscription (about $20). Zwift is pretty cool. You get visuals on a screen of many different terrains that affect how easy or hard it is to pedal. You can even do races or club rides. Maybe we could start having indoor ABC rides during the bad weather.
But that 30% keeps screaming at me. “Don’t do it!!! It will just become a clothing rack.”
Do any of you do indoor cycling? What has your experience been and what gear are you using?
Here’s an article that discusses the many indoor cycling alternatives: https://www.bikeradar.com/advice/fitness-and-training/beginners-guide-to-indoor-training-all-you-need-to-get-started
Top Ten
Indoor Cycling
Mistakes
Before reading the article, my
guess
would be that the biggest cycling mistake is having an
expectation that you’re going
to be able to maintain any degree of consistency. The biggest
mistake might be
spending any money on it.
Here’s what the article has to say: https://www.cyclingnews.com/features/indoor-cycling-mistakes/
Could
you make it up an
18% uphill grade?
Well, maybe with a little help
from your
friends.
The city of Trondheim in Norway has a sort of bicycle escalator that helps local residents and tourists from all over the world make it up their big hill on a bicycle or a scooter. This thing has been around for decades and, as far as I can tell, it “might” still be the only one in the world. It’s surprising other towns haven’t installed one of these as a tourist attraction.
If an enlightened Metrowest town decides to go for it, rest assured, ABC will be paying it a visit on a future ride. It would be a great addition to the steepest hills we climb.
Check out the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec_ujdz-mn0
To recap this Saturday’s ride, we’ll meet at 10:30 a.m. at the Dover-Sherborn Regional Middle School parking lot at 155 Farm Street in Dover.
Remember to check your email after 9:00 a.m. on Saturday morning to make sure we didn't cancel or postpone the ride due to weather or for other reasons and ... don't forget those helmets!
See you soon.
Joel