Ride # 25: Bone Dry

Tuesday, March 25, 2014, 3:00 o'clock
an austere 39 degrees (3+ C)
despite occasional sun

Spent the past weekend in Florida softening up on the Gulf Coast so the return to austere, bone dry conditions, cold & overcast, was the correct antidote to my momentary ease. Still, the rest came at a good time, I'd developed some nagging hip discomfort and time off the bike was good.

But time back on the bike is better.

Almost thirty miles today (a half mile short). The wonderfully ragged roads through the Princeton hills; abundant in sand, frost heaves, potholes, bereft of car traffic, white washed with salt. The landscape a forest of stark lines, granite, stone walls, and the immovable trunks of gray hard woods. Very far from Florida, not a drop of moisture in the air.

Felt vaguely stiff and uncomfortable out of the gates but five miles or so into the ride I started to loosen up, warm up, come around. The hills felt good. A blessing that. Today's meander was ALL climbing. The only 29+ ride I know that is entirely uphill. It hardly seems possible.

The maw of another climb

Near the furthest arc of the loop today, Gregory Rd, a road I can't come upon without thinking of Gregory Corso. Like Corso, the road is a shaggy ruin. A sandy, rutted, narrow climb up to Mountain Road, the road that runs along the base of Wachusett. Getting to the base of Wachusett from Chez Shad is, hyperbole aside, an hour+ of climbing. Not continuously but one climb after another. I love the climbing - it's slow, meditative, emboldening. I pay close attention to my cadence, my comfort, my consistency. I get out of the saddle and ride methodically, steadily, without breaking the rhythm. up Up UP. Ride to climb.

Intersecting with Gregory Corso

The road to the summit of Wachusett is closed this time of year, passage blocked by ski slope snow. While getting here was some initial low grade but steady climbing that morphed into several serious inclines, going back is not all downhill, despite logic that might suggest that going up means, ultimately, going down. But in this case, while indeed there is an initial sharp drop down from the mountain's base from Mountain Rd., there follows the long slog up the Justice Hill Cutoff, a branch road that's all UP. Then more UP on Justice Hill and Upper North Row Rd and onto the plateau of Sholan Farm.

Shad Style and Mountain of Zen Fritters

The final push home through the neighborhoods yields some additional climbing up and over Grove St and down again to Doyle Field and home to Shad Avenue.

Not very fast but felt good nonetheless. Kept turning the pedals with honest pulls the entire ride.

Ride Stats: 29.59 miles (47 k), 12.5 mph, two hours plus twenty minutes more or less. No road kill today. No special bird sightings, except for a massing of starlings chortling and chattering in the maple trees on Upper North Row Rd.

Parting Shot

Where the thunder comes from