ABC Ride: Wednesday, July 8 at 10:30 a.m. from 406 Commonwealth Ave, W. Concord
ABC Riders
This Wednesday, July 8 at 10:30 a.m. the Ashland Bike Club is doing our very popular Oscar’s Burritos route that will start near the former Concord prison in West Concord.
GPS Address: 406 Commonwealth Ave, West Concord, Ma (let’s meet in the LOWER parking lot which has more spaces, bathrooms, and a gazebo).
Route Name: ABC – Oscar’s Burritos VIII (get the right version)
Ride Rating:
Distance: Challenging (29.5)
Elevation: Moderate (42)
Total Gain: 1247 feet
Steepest: 6.7%
Wednesday’s
Weather
After all the extreme
heat and then rain on Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday’s forecast looks great with sunny skies, temps ranging from 72 to 79 degrees,
and dry, comfortable air.
Wednesday’s Ride
This route, now at version VIII, has been
updated many times to make it both safer and more scenic. The route is 29.5 miles long, has a few tough
hills but lots of flat sections, tons of amazing scenery, and … Oscar’s.
The scenery on the route offers many heavily wooded areas, a few farms, several water views, and even short sections on the Bruce Freeman Trail and the Assabet River Trail.
Oscar’s is a most unusual Mexican restaurant. There’s some outdoor dining available and also a screened porch with picnic tables. There are plenty of indoor tables, too. The food is not only really good but it’s really cheap as well.
Here’s a link to a map of Wednesday’s route: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/51496182
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”.
Off the Route
Our “Off the Route”
feature includes interesting topics we’ve come across that we think are worth
sharing. Please let us know what you
think.
Ashland Bike Club Radio
Linda
Ronstadt – Silver Threads
and Golden Needles
First Aid Kit – My Silver
Lining
Claire Lynch – Silver and
Gold
Cheryl Wheeler – Silver Lining
Kris Kristofferson – Silver-Tongued
Devil
An
ABC’er is riding this year’s Pan Mass Challenge
One
of our ABC regulars, Tom Schuler, is doing his first ever PMC ride this year.
Let’s toss a few bucks his way to help him out.
Tom writes:
Hi All,
On August 2nd I will be riding 50 miles in the Pan Mass Challenge (PMC) to raise funds for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. The funds I raise support the innovative work of doctors, nurses, and scientists in their search for cures for cancer and related diseases – the type of research that led to the breakthroughs that saved my life when I was diagnosed with Mantle Cell Lymphoma in 2001.
After 5 years as a volunteer, this year I finally decided to make the commitment to ride. Why now? First off, the need for private donations to fund research is greater than ever. But also, this year is a big year for me, with 2 major milestones in my life – in January I celebrated my 75th birthday, and in November I will celebrate 25 years as a cancer survivor. So what better way to mark these occasions than to ride the PMC!
My personal fundraising goal is $2,000. I hope you’ll take a minute to visit my fundraising page at https://profile.pmc.org/pmc/TS0421 where you can read more about the PMC and show your support with a donation.
Thank you,
Tom
Every little bit helps. I hope ABC’ers will chip in for this very worthy cause!
“Vision
Zero” is Saving Lives, But …
Although
cyclist safety programs vary widely from one locale to another, the
Vision Zero program has been showing real progress. Accidents and fatalities
are way down where elements of the program have been implemented.
That’s the good news …
But, c’mon, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the roads in Massachusetts in worse condition than they’re in this year. All the roadway infrastructure in the world can’t overcome that. If state and local governments want to be credible on the bicycle safety issue, they need to start filling in the potholes and fixing all the cracks. Our roads are a disgrace. Everyone knows it and it seems like nothing is being done.
Read the article about the progress Vision Zero has made: https://mass.streetsblog.org/2026/06/26/not-zero-yet-livablestreets-report-assesses-progress-in-three-cities-after-a-decade-of-vision-zero
Stop Putting Bike Lanes in the Door Zone!
There are all kinds of things traffic engineers can do to increase
cyclist safety on our roads. One example, adding well-designed bike
lanes, especially “separated” bike lanes, can make the car travel lanes
narrower which we know usually slows down automobile speeds. This makes drivers
safer as well.
Unfortunately, though, too many of these bike lanes are too close to parked cars leading to accidents in the door zone. Drivers often open their car doors without looking and, when this happens right in front of an approaching cyclist, the results can be deadly.
Two forms of door zone accidents are common. One, the cyclist crashes into the open car door causing severe injuries to the cyclist … or worse. And, two, the cyclist swerves around the open car door but is hit by a passing car in the travel lane.
There’s something called “the Dutch reach” that teaches drivers to open their car doors with their right-hand (in the US) so that they natural turn to look for oncoming cyclists. There is virtually no education or programs to implement this.
On this Wednesday’s ABC ride, we’ll be traveling through downtown Concord where there are lots of parked cars. Be sure to move left far enough to ensure you are not riding in the door zone. Also, in towns that are foolish enough to include diagonal parking, be sure to keep well to the left of these parked cars, too. Drivers backing out of these spots often are unable to see cyclists or other cars approaching.
Check out this disturbing video about a recent
door zone accident: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZEKT--z_-M
See you Wednesday, July
8 at 10:30 a.m. at 406 Commonwealth Ave, West Concord in the
LOWER lot.
Remember to check your email Wednesday after 9:00 a.m. to make sure we didn’t have to postpone the ride and … don’t forget those helmets!!
See you soon!!
Joel