ABC Ride: Monday, March 30 at 11 a.m. from Stone Park, Ashland
Joel Arbeitman
Hi everyone.
The Ashland Bike Club is scheduling its next “spring warmup” ride for this Monday, March 30 at 11:00 a.m.
The ride will begin and end at Stone Park in Ashland opposite 27 Park Road. There’s plenty of parking along the park.
GPS address: across from 27 Park Rd, Ashland, Ma. (aka Stone Park)
Route Name: ABC – Spring Warmup 3 (version III) (get the right version)
Ride Rating:
Distance: Easy (14.5)
Elevation: Moderate-Challenging (55)
Total Gain: 803 feet
Steepest: 6.0%
Note: The route does
NOT include any
bike path sections.
ABC E-Bike Policy (effective for all rides during 2026
until
further notice)
Only Class
1 and Class 2 e-bikes are permitted on Ashland Bike Club rides.
Bikes that are
labeled Class 3, or that could be modified using software to
become Class 3, or
those that can exceed 20 mph with battery-assist are not allowed
on ABC rides.
Monday’s Weather
The
forecast for Monday is calling for a
warmer day with temps between 55 and 61, mostly cloudy
skies, and a fairly strong breeze from the southwest.
After that, we could be looking at 7 consecutive days of rain. Sheesh!!
The Ride
As with all our early season rides, we plan
to keep
the pace down to give everyone a chance to get back into shape
after the
winter.
This is a really short route at just 14.5 miles but there are plenty of moderate hills (and even one or two tough ones) to help get you into riding shape for the season. The route includes a roll along the scenic Trolley Brook Trail in Ashland, a mostly uphill roll through Hopkinton State Park, and a screaming downhill on the appropriately named Breakneck Hill Road in Southborough on the way back.
Here’s
a link to a map of Monday’s route: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/42356204.
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”.
Note on downloading: Even if you already have the route on your phone from a prior ride, it’s always a good idea to ensure you have the latest copy of the route by downloading it again.
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. Riders
who are or
will turn 80 or more this year get a free membership!
If you want to join the club for 2026, dues should be paid any time before your second ride of this season. Our insurance automatically covers all riders for their first ride with the club each year; you will not be covered for subsequent rides until you pay your dues. 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!!
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. If you’ve provided your information in a
previous year, we
still have it!
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
Ashland
Bike
Club Radio
Taj Mahal – Statesboro
Blues
The Hollies – Bus Stop
Jethro Tull – Locomotive
Breath
Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band – Ragged
But Right
Open
Letter
for Clearer E-Bike Standards by Hans Rey and a bit of a rant
from me
It’s hard to find a
topic,
perhaps excluding politics and war, that has been attracting
more attention
than e-bike regulation.
The current hysteria and national blowback have been caused by an industry that is out of control. E-bike companies, in pursuit of profits, have been advocating for bigger and faster e-bikes. The problem is, though, that many are not happy with the current state of affairs. Bigger and faster is leading to increasingly strict regulation.
The article linked below makes a case for limiting the term “e-bike” to Class 1 (750 watts, 20 mph) only. It argues that anything else is NOT A BICYCLE. It does NOT argue that other vehicles should be banned. Implicit in the argument is the idea that proper labeling could lead to better regulation.
For example, only e-bikes and not e-mopeds or e-motorcycles would be allowed on BIKE PATHS.
Here’s my take on this …
To be labeled a “bicycle”, any battery-assisted vehicle should provide “performance parity” with average riders of manually pedaled bicycles. If an average rider could cover a given route in ten minutes, then the goal should be to limit e-bike power to covering that same course in roughly the same amount of time.
E-bikes should not be faster or more powerful than what a manual bicycle can provide. In the EU, e-bikes cannot provide more than 250 watts of continuous power (allows for more “peak” power) and cannot exceed 25 kph (about 15 mph). I would like to see this same standard adopted for Class 1 e-bikes in the US. This would come very close to achieving “e-bike parity” with regular bikes.
Again, this does not mean other types of battery-assisted vehicles would be banned; they just wouldn’t qualify as bicycles and could potentially be subject to different regulations.
In my view, since it does not seem viable (unfortunately) to expect local police to weed out the few bad apples, we need to look at regulating the bicycles rather than the rider’s conduct. It shouldn’t be this way but it is.
ABC’s new e-bike policy allows for Class 1 and Class 2 e-bikes on our club rides. Unfortunately, we have had to disallow Class 3 e-bikes because our insurance company does not provide general liability coverage for them. ABC is in the process of trying to get American Specialty to include coverage for Class 3 e-bikes but it is unclear whether or not we will be successful. We are also looking at other insurance companies to see what options we have. Stay tuned …
A review of all ABC rides we conducted last year, during 2025, revealed that exactly 75% of those rides were conducted, at least in part, on “multi-use paths” (aka bike paths) mostly in Massachusetts but also in Rhode Island. FYI, Massachusetts does not allow the use of Class 3 e-bikes on bike paths. Rhode Island does not allow the use of either Class 2 or Class 3.
In ABC’s online meeting about e-bike policy held on Tuesday night, someone raised the point that it seems silly to exclude Class 3s given that they go a mere 8 mph faster than Classes 1 or 2. After the meeting I researched this with AI. I was told that an impact going from 20 mph to 28 mph (e.g. Class 1 to Class 3) DOUBLES THE FORCE OF THE IMPACT. If true, making a distinction between covering Class 1 and Class 2 and not covering Class 3 is not without at least some merit.
Here’s the Hans Rey e-bike article: https://www.pinkbike.com/news/an-open-letter-to-the-bicycle-industry.html
Insightful policymakers, and there are a few, understand that helping the e-bike industry grow is important for all kinds of reasons. It is becoming increasingly apparent, however, that bigger and faster might not be the right way to get there.
See you this Monday at 11:00 a.m. across from 27 Park Rd in Ashland.
Remember to check your email after 9:30 a.m. on Monday to make sure we didn’t postpone or cancel the ride due to weather or other reasons and … don’t forget those helmets!
Joel