Metro-West Rough Stuff

[Brian Postlewaite]

Always looking for more rough stuff in the metro-west area, especially off of the Fitchburg commuter rail line since that region is the most convenient to me.

Does anyone have any experience riding through the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge just south of Maynard?

http://www.fws.gov/northeast/assabetriver/pdf/Assabettrails.pdf

Appears there may be some good unpaved roads there. I presume pretty muddy in the spring?

Thanks,

~Brian

PS also wanting to ride across Mt. Wachusett on the many unpaved roads, probably via commuter rail since I'm usually exhausted and the day spent by the time I bike there :)

[Jon]

Why yes, I have explored the Assabet River NWR. There are several old roads; some crumbly pavement, others dirt, and some marked for hiking only. When I visited last April the conditions were rather dry, see photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wwwdotjondoyledesigndotcom/6894051548/

I made my way to Assabet River NWR via this Ride Studio Cafe route: http://ridewithgps.com/routes/655222

It's a neat place, and there seems to be an abundance of trails nearby.

Jon

Watertown, MA

[Postbc]

Jon, I should have known you had visited these trails.

I may want to take the train out to Acton to explore these trails in the spring.

I've also heard there is a nice old bike shop in Maynard.

~Brian C. Postlewaite

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[Steve Park]

This is my map of an Assabet ride.  Comments are in the photo rollover boxes.  Link to the gps route is there too.

[Steve Park]

Here's that link
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27988383@N06/7222797500

[Ray]

Brian Postlewaite wrote:

I've also heard there is a nice old bike shop in Maynard.

That would be Ray's Cyclery - very friendly.
It seems their vintage used bikes (in very good shape) are priced high.
Maybe it's what they can get for them these days or maybe it is a strategy to get people to buy new ones for only a wee bit more.

Ray - no relation -

[Ray]

That would be Ray's & Sons Cyclery

http://www.rayandsonscycle.com


See also Metropolitan Area Planning Council map:
 
http://trailmap.mapc.org

[Jon]

This MAPC map is great!

Jon

[Ray]

On Apr 10, 3:15 pm, Jon <jondoyledes...@gmail.com> wrote:
> This MAPC map is great!

Note that a lot of the trails are in reality just easements with no
trail extant.

Ray

[Aaron Pikcilingis]

That map is amazing. I'm surprised to see the skeleton of a dirt-road loop through Newton-Needham-Natick-Framingham-Wayland etc. I'd love to work out a way to follow that loop. Anyone have something along those lines already setup somewhere, or should I try to put it together?

[Jon]

The Ronde Rosey could be helpful in working out a loop: http://ridewithgps.com/turer/1224898 and http://roseyscot.blogspot.com/

I often use the Powerline Trail to from Waltham to Wayland, that one's great. The Sudbury Aqueduct Trail is less familiar to me; I'm not sure if you can actually get into Framingham on that.

Jon

Watertown, MA

[Aaron Pikcilingis]

Yeah, I continued reading posts in the group and found the one about the Ronde Rosey. I may give that a try sometime in June or July. It uses a lot of trails that aren't marked on Google (or, therefore, ridewithgps), which is very nice to see.

I have a Sam Hillborne with 35mm tires and fenders, but also a CX bike I can fit with knobbies. Do you think the Sam would be adequate for the parts of this you've ridden? I'm ambitious about off-roading on the Sam, I should note.

[Aaron Pikcilingis]

My apologies for not noting my location: Belmont, MA

[Jon]

I would ride those Ronde Rosey trails without fenders, or be VERY careful with them on. There are logs and sticks out there.

A bike with ≥28mm tires should be up to the task. How much walking the bike will depend on skills—I dismounted quite a bit!

Jon

Watertown, MA

On Thursday, May 23, 2013 9:28:19 AM UTC-4, Aaron Pikcilingis wrote:

[Aaron Pikcilingis]

Cool, I'll go with my fenderless CX bike, then. I'll probably be off-bike a lot, too.

Looks like a bar-mount GPS device is a good idea for this ride, huh?

I'll post here when I'm planning to go try this out in case anyone else is interested in getting lost a bunch with me.

Aaron

Belmont, MA

[Steve Park]

I've been noodling around town, and I assembled this loop.  24 miles of trails, multi-use paths and decent roads in an effort to link up all the unpaved goodies in Wellesley.  There are a few bits I'm hoping to add if I can link them without too much pavement. 

btw, if you attempt to ride this at dusk, please close your mouth if you don't have a taste for odd clouds of bugs.

[Steve Park]

That gps route:

http://ridewithgps.com/routes/2621795

[Ray]

On Jun 3, 1:25 pm, Steve Park <steve...@gmail.com> wrote:
> That gps route:


Thanks, Steve.

Ray

[Steve Park]

This group has been quiet for a bit, but my Wellesley Trails work brought me back to the MAPC map recently.

The MAPC map has been enhanced quite since I last checked it.  I has more trail markings and 6 trail-type layers - the Natural Surface Footway layer is comprehensive, maybe even too comprehensive in that a small share of the paths are not maintained etc.

I haven't yet figured out if MAPC/Landline has any plan to make this data gpx exportable because there is a bit more here than there is in any of the RideWithGPS et al utilities.

https://trailmap.mapc.org/

Also, hi everyone. 

[Aaron Pikcilingis]

Thanks for sharing, this is great.

Can anyone comment on the bike-ability of the "unimproved path" in Waltham that goes west from Lexington street? Or perhaps the section between Beaver St. and Lexington St.? I've ridden the bit to the east of Beaver St. a bunch, but the part beyond Beaver has always looked a little rough (looks like fresh ballast). I'd love to continue to Wayland, which looks like a possibility.