ABC Ride: THURSDAY, May 8 at 10:30 a.m. from Haskell Field, Sudbury

[Joel Arbeitman]

Hi everyone.

Our next Ashland Bike Club ride will “meet” on THURSDAY, May 8 at 10:30 a.m.  The ride will start from Haskell Field in Sudbury.

GPS Address:  38 Fairbank Rd, Sudbury, Ma

Route Name:  ABC – Lake Boon But No Bruen

Ride Rating:
Distance:   Moderate (24.8)
Elevation:  Moderate-Challenging (51)
Total Gain: 1272 feet
Steepest:    7.9%

The Weather
Note that Wednesday’s ride has been moved to THURSDAY!

The forecast for THURSDAY is calling for a cloudy day with temps in the upper-60s.  Rain is expected Thursday night but it is very unlikely to affect our ride.

The Ride
THURSDAY’s route is a brand-new one for the club.  Previous routes to Lake Boon used Hudson Rd which has become a high-traffic road and we’ve chosen to not use it anymore.  Also, we’ve eliminated Bruen Rd, which was a closed road, but is now not just closed but blocked off even to bikes.  Apparently, the area is going to be used for some type of development.

So, we now have a brand-new route and we are very excited about it.  Not only does it include a new and much safer route to Lake Boon, but it also includes some great country riding through both Stow and Hudson.

Overall, the route offers fantastic scenery and a chance to explore some new roads the club has never used before. The route is fairly hilly but, perhaps with one exception, there are no killer hills.  We’re rating the ride’s elevation as “moderate-challenging”. It’s far from easy but it’s really not too tough.

Here's a link to a map of THURSDAY’s route: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/50619303

 

To print a cue sheet, go to the link for the ride (see above) and choose “More”, then, from the menu, choose “Print Map & Cue PDF”, then click “Print Official”. 

Emergency Contact Form
Have you provided us with your emergency contact information yet?

Many of ABC’s newer riders and a few old timers as well have not!  If you’ve provided this information in the past and it hasn’t changed, we still have 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’ll 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 tidbits we’ve come across that we think are worth sharing.  Please let us know what you think.

Ashland Bike Club Radio:  Radical Face – Welcome Home, Son

Parlez-vous francais?
You may or may not be able to speak French but everyone reading this knows how to ride a bicycle.  For decades, Paris has been a car city.  Not anymore.  Major changes have happened to make Paris one of the most bike-friendly cities in the world.

Paris needs to become a model for what is possible.  Don’t expect this to happen in the US anytime soon, though.  The American political class views change as something the poor ask them for on the street.  The US is still very much a “cars are king” culture.  And every year we lose about 40,000 Americans due to automobile fatalities and produce an unsustainable amount of greenhouse gases.

So, take a nice bicycling vacation in Paris.  You’ll be glad you did.

Read the article:  https://www.aol.com/explore-paris-seat-bicycle-205057953.html

How to Get Your Non-Cycling Friend into Riding
Joining ABC for a non-rider must be a bit daunting to say the least.  Although the club prides itself on being inclusive, even at our slower pace we still ride much faster than most beginners can handle and the distances we ride are too long.

So, for absolute beginners, ABC is unlikely to be a good place to start.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t support a new bike rider on your own.

The following article provides some excellent tips on how you can get your best buddy into riding:  https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/how-i-got-my-non-cyclist-friend-hooked-on-riding-bikes-and-how-you-can-too

To recap, THURSDAY’s ride will meet at Haskell Field in Sudbury at 10:30 a.m.

 

As always, check your email after 9:00 a.m. on ride days to make sure we didn’t postpone or cancel the ride and … don’t forget those helmets!

 

See you soon.

 

Joel