ABC Ride: Saturday, April 11 at 11 a.m. from 310 Pond St, Ashland

[Joel Arbeitman]

Hi everyone.

The Ashland Bike Club’s next ride has been scheduled for this Saturday, April 11, at 11:00 a.m.

Saturday’s ride will begin at the Habitat Restore Plaza (formerly Sears Plaza) at 310 Pond Street in Ashland.  There’s plenty of parking available.  The plaza is located at the intersection of Eliot St and Pond St (aka Route 126). Please park as far away from the stores (near Route 126) as possible along the perimeter of the parking lot.

GPS address:  310 Pond St, Ashland, Ma

Route Name:  ABC – Spring Warmup 5 (version III) (get the right version)

Ride Rating:
Distance:  Easy (15.7)
Elevation: Moderate-Challenging (59)
Total Gain: 925 feet
Steepest:   7.8%

The Weather
Saturday’s weather looks great with sunny skies, temps ranging from 55-58, and a steady breeze.

The Ride
This is another really short route at just 15.7 miles, but it includes lots of hills including one climb with a 7.8% incline.  If you don’t like hills, this would be a good ride to skip. 

We hope you’ll find this route somewhat challenging but doable enough to help you get in shape for the riding season.  The scenery will be great as we roll by some beautiful horse farms and estates in Sherborn’s numerous rural settings. 

At the ten-mile mark, we’ll stop for ice cream at C&L Frosty in Sherborn.

As with all our early season rides, we plan to keep the pace down for the winter couch potatoes in the crowd.

A post-ride lunch at Los Cabos Mexican Grill & Cantina, just across the street from the Habitat parking lot, is a possibility.

Here’s a link to a map of Saturday’s route: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/42486390

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”.

ABC 2026 Memberships
Please note that all memberships from last year expired on January 31.  Although our insurance premium increased again for 2026 (what else is new), we’re going to keep the same $10 per year dues we’ve always had.

If you want to join the club for 2026, dues should be paid as soon as possible so that you will be covered by ABC’s insurance.  Memberships can only be paid for with cash; we have no way to accept checks or credit cards.  We often are unable to make change; please try to pay with a $10 bill.  Thanks!!

By the way, if you’re over 80 years old or will turn 80 before 2/1/27, you get a free membership! How cool is that?

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

If you haven’t or if your contact information has changed, please follow the instructions below.

The Ashland Bike Club has created 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 both bicycling and non-bicycling topics we hope you’ll find interesting.  Please let us know what you think.

 

Ashland Bike Club Radio 

The Box Tops – The Letter
Eilen Jewell - Outsiders

Don Mclean - Vincent

Bob Dylan – She Belongs to Me

 

U Mass Bike Simulator Hopes to Improve Cycling Infrastructure
There’s something rotten in Denmark the US. Countries all over Europe have developed much safer on-road infrastructure for cyclists.  Changes in the US, though, aren’t happening at a snail’s pace … they really aren’t happening at all.

 

Studies done by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in 2019 showed that car-bike collisions at intersections account for between 65 and 77% of all car-bike accidents in the US. It should be clear to everyone that fixing our poorly designed intersections should be job one in the US. Sadly, we’ve seen virtually no intersection re-design efforts in the US.

 

Many European cities have developed much better intersection designs that have demonstrated track records saving cyclists’ lives. Is anybody out there listening? We’ll look at the so-called Dutch intersection design in a future ride notice.

 

For now, we have the new U Mass bike simulator studying cycling infrastructure to build our case for better roadway design.

 

Here’s an article about the simulator:  https://www.boston25news.com/news/local/umass-amherst-researchers-build-bike-simulator-study-improve-cyclist-safety/VWN6UDZGPBDYPEQMQIKS3ERGSY/

 

A Case of Road Rage - How Can We Enhance Our Safety Now?
If you add up all the miles ABC riders cover during club rides every year, we probably average a little under 40,000 miles. Of course, some of those miles are ridden on bike paths. Nevertheless, we spend lots of time and distance sharing the roads with cars.

 

While most drivers treat us very courteously, there are always a few bad apples out there. In rare circumstances, we’ve tried to report dangerous driving incidents to the police. While they are often sympathetic, they rarely take action. One thing that can really change that, though, is when we get the incident on video especially if that video can capture the offending driver’s license plate.

 

I don’t know that we should all be riding around with a Go Pro on our helmets. Still, perhaps if we had more cameras in use, it might give us a fighting chance to catch the bad guys. Just something to think about …

 

In the video linked below, providing more “separated” bike lanes could have helped, too. Note how the entire incident was caught on video and the driver was caught by law enforcement.

 

Watch the video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NMNhxwB8lM

 

See you this Saturday at 11:00 a.m. at the Habitat Restore Plaza (310 Pond St, Ashland). Please park in the lot’s perimeter spots and leave the inside spots for Habitat’s customers. And remember to check your email after 9:30 a.m. on Saturday to make sure we didn’t postpone or cancel the ride due to weather or other reasons and … don’t forget those helmets!

Joel