Autumn Riding

Wachusett Reservoir
Saturday, October 7, 2017

Bright days of autumn, of October though oddly humid days in Woo City and across the Bay State, residual hurricane breath perhaps, the big up-gust of wind and moisture from the tropics after all the destruction of Maria, Irma, and Jose. But in my small moment on the spinning orb, I welcome this beneficent anomaly, take advantage of balmy temperatures in the low 70s, a warm sun and a cool shade, perfect days for riding.

Second Wachusett summit 2017, this time by a new route, rt 70 around Wachusett Reservoir and into Clinton where I picked up old reliable roads through the Princeton Hills & up to the base of Wachusett. That's one serious climb that "up to the base of Wachusett." Then the mountain climb itself, almost two and half miles base to tower, caps it off. Sturdy stuff.

Today, October 10, another weirdly humid day. Feel good on the 29+ mile ride but the energy on the road was harsh, aggressive. A lot of traffic on the main roads forced a lot of in-a-hurry commuters onto the back roads where their impatience was evident. Several close calls with trucks coming too close to me had me growling and muttering invective.

Eventually I did enjoy long stretches of pristine October afternoon back roads bereft of traffic. But in the end, today was a reminder (not exactly a needed one, but still useful) that the roads are the domain of the automobile and that I, as a diminutive cyclist, have to glower and glare and gesticulate without hesitation in order to claim my right of way and my tarmac terrain.

Weekend with the Leonator I

A big Team Shad welcome to the Leonator, a Brooklyn-based cyclist possessed of a wolverine relentlessness and unflagging spirit.  Longtime friend of both Wing Nut and Dubstoevsky, the Leonator doesn't make it to the Bay State that often so having him along for a team ride this weekend was a special treat. And what a weekend - more booming sun and clear blue skies, no humidity, slight breeze, perfect weather for the long haul.

The Leonator in the final sprint for the summit of Mt. Wachusett

Setting out from Team Shad HQ in downtown Woo, the 55 mile round trip to the mountaintop promised everything - empty country roads, farmland, sinuous descents, vistas, several cat 4 climbs, a cat 3 climb, wretched connector stretches on busy main road, neighborhoods, kamikaze downhills, twists & turns, long slogging pedal-cranking ascents, flat straightaways under canopied green foliage along reservoirs.

The fact is, you can plot out a mega ride in central Massholia. Though getting to the the huge swathes of forest and farmland requires traversing various town 'centers,' these are often just intersections of roads at town commons, and they are quickly and easily navigated. Mostly, you can be 'out there' on small, sparsely-traveled roads for very long periods of time.

The fact is that this was Wing Nut's first training ride from Team Shad HQ. Centered as he is in western Mass with a surfeit of long empty roads and fabulous climbing, he was, until Saturday the 25th, uninitiated into the glories of Woo-centric cycling, especially the Vonchusett Summit loop. Now it's a done deal, and having the Leonator along rounded out the triumvirate shadosterone.

As team leader I was responsible for the route. Small worry there. On a dry sunny Saturday with temps in the mid 80s, conditions were utterly perfect; it was so nice, we could have done laps around Holden Reservoir and it would have been excellent. But we didn't do laps - we hammered into the hills, we paced ourselves on the long rollers, we pulled each other along like a team time trial.

Wing Nut on Mason Rd

We also chilled and soaked up the general awesomeness of Being.

A hawk jumps out of the canopy'ing oak trees and flaps silently into other-side-of-the-road wisdom. A great blue heron, surprised by our passing, leaps into unnecessary flight from the silent pond face over which it stared. Occasionally, massive trees rear into consciousness, giant old veterans that have been growing for centuries and that have escaped the farmer's ax. Whispers of generations passed. The cycle of growth and regression. It's all there, visible across the landscape. Etched with stone walls. Dissected by road and field.

Dinner for Hungry Shad

Pompano and Red Snapper

Scenes from the June Roads

The high time of summer, the long days, the bright sun bearing down from a relentlessly blue sky.

Muschopauge Rd, Rutland

The long country roads shaded by hardwood canopy. The farms with faded barns and expansive green fields. The livestock gazing in grass-fed splendor.

The Bedouin have come to watch Team Shad train
Rutland, June 14, 2016

Two Wachusett summits recently.

One, on June 12, the 40th anniversary of my first Dead show, a wildly cloudy day that, while warm enough at the lower elevations, was actually chilly on the gray summit.

Dub on the Mountain

Grateful Dead, live at the Boston Music Hall, June 12, 1976

And the second, a week later on what would have been my brother's 59th birthday, June 19, 2016, a classic summer Sunday, but very hot.

Captain Swelter and Franklin's Tower

Unusually, I didn't do a loop on the 19th. Instead, I started from Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, Massachusetts where I'd attended a Father's Day Brunch.*

En route back to Woo City, I succumbed to the pull of the Mountain and detoured north despite it being a sweltering day of remorseless sun heat, the kind of day where you drink so much water that you feel sick and don't want to drink anymore but you HAVE to drink more because you're sweating so much you're losing water at a rapid pace and need to replace it.

Departure from Fruitlands, June 19, 2016
the peak of Mt. Wachusett visible in the distance

Sterling

Looking south toward Woo City

* Father's Day brunch honoring Team Shad's founding father, Vladimir Andersshadokov, visiting from Sverdlove, a small village two hours or so northeast of the Black Sea port of Odessa. The brunch was more or less a success, marred only by the well-intention'd caviar that the old patriarch declared to be of Iranian origin and so obviously inferior to the Russian.* 

* Yes, he said "Russian," not "Ukrainian"

Another Summit; Muschopauge Rd; Ali is Gone

Capping a three ride week  with a Sunday morning 45 mile mountain top summit loop that pushed me over the 100 mile mark for the fifth week in a row. These are the prime weeks of the cycling year. The light is long and the weather generally excellent.

Dubstoevsky in the cottony maw

Today, for example, was a beauty, though windy like a fucknatty. Serious northwest wind gust hurtling down from a revolving storm in eastern Canada. But warm. And mostly sunny. And luckily, on the climb to Wachusett's summit, the wind was wholly absent for half of the ascent, the mountain's bulk providing the windscreen.

Atop was a tumult of gust and blow, however, and I did not linger.

It's been a remarkable week, going back nine days to Friday June 3 when Muhammad Ali died on Allen Ginsberg's birthday (AG would have been 90). What other human being could unite so many disparate people by the common bond of the love of a single man? Or, how could one man mean so much to so many different people? Surely none other that Muhammad Ali.

And 40 years ago today I saw my first Grateful Dead show, at the Boston Music Hall, June 12, 1976 (listen here).

The raw persistence of time, and the unexpected gifts that appear along the way.

The Apex of Tuesday's Ride

Earlier in the week, on Tuesday, I rode north to Rutland and apex'd at Muschopauge Rd where I turned right and had the pleasure of (mostly) descending for three or four miles on hyper-rural, well-conditioned, traffic-free, roadways. Dreamscapes of curve and foliage tunnel, huge trees standing stout sentry in the thicket whirring past. Alive in the hurtling wind rush.

57 on Saturday

Hunkered down with a pint of strong latte at six AM. The gray Sunday morning resounds with bird song and the first hesitant raindrops patter the crab apple tree.

I should be speeding swiftly north in the team car, headed to the starting line of the Tour de Haunch in the hills west of Brattleboro. But I am not.

Dubstoevsky earlier in the week

I, Dubstoevsky, marauding Amur tiger of the Russian taiga, have been reduced to tabby stature by the ignominy of a few showers. Or downpours. Even by the threat thereof. Appalling.

Dubstoevsky reacting to the news of showers

Shad fans are rightfully disappointed by team management's decision to withdraw from the grand Heifer ramble. But these things happen in the shadowy world of Big Time amateur cycling, and sometimes the sensible decision comes across as folly or weakness or calculated evasion. There's nothing to be done about it. The races and the challenges go on. The cowering tiger cub tastes fresh meat and learns how to snarl, learns how to hunt.

Once the decision came down to abandon the quest for a Triple Crown this season, the logical response was to seize the moment and ride. Saturday, after all, was a jewel of a day, the kind of clear, bright, not-too-hot day that cyclists dream of.

A mountain summit seemed the logical goal, with a punishing but rewarding route to the base a prerequisite. So, flogged by the lash of guilt over abandoning the Heifer, I checked to make sure my claws were still attached to my paws, climbed aboard the aluminum shad, and set out for Mt Wachusett.

The summit in the distance

Ah, the sweetness. The sharp, pleasant morning air, the landscape pulsing with green. You could almost hear the photosynthesis, the expiration of oxygen by every tree, shrub, roadside weed. And where just a month ago you could look deep into the forest and clearly make out the landscape's folds and ridges and rocky quirks, today all is a tangled thicket of Green. The long dun views through the naked trees are gone until autumn.

Which is fine. We are now fully in the season of verdant extravagance.

View from the last climb before the summit

But while the landscape disappears into the Big Green Embrace, the close observer is often rewarded with glimpses of wild critters going about their springtime business. So it proved to be Saturday morning. In a wide, still dew-dampened expanse of shaggy field, beyond the red-winged blackbird perched & signing on a conservation land sign, a large white tail deer grazed at the meadow's edge. She looked up and briefly gazed at me across the hundred yards that separated us.

Not too further along, a gray shadow loped swiftly and silently across the road, from one fern-strewn berm to the other, and disappeared into the tangle. A gray fox! I breathed a silent OM, grateful for having glanced up at the key moment to see this elusive hunter.

Along rt. 62 in Princeton, on the long climb towards the turn onto Merriam Rd, a large red-tailed hawk leapt from its perch above the road as I passed underneath. For a few brief moments we rode together and I snapped this picture; look closely and nearly in the center you'll see its inverted v-shaped winged majesty.

Red-tailed hawk on the wing

But the day was more than a wildlife lark; there was the business of the summit and the need to punish myself for my abdication. I hit Gregory (Corso) Rd and powered up the steep slope to Mountain Rd, the last stretch before the mountain's base headquarters. A couple of struggling rabbits lurched slowly up the long straight climb ahead and I overtook them with ease, adding them to my soup pot of dominance.

The summit road is now open to vehicle traffic but being still relatively early in the morning there were no cars yet and not many hikers either. As I cranked upwards on the initial long ascent, I glanced behind me to make sure that I hadn't unknowingly become a rabbit to some stealthy predator. No one behind. And no one in front either. So I set my ferocious forelegs to work and, badger-style, clawed my way to the summit.

Dubstoevsky and the Leaning Tower of Shad

But reaching the summit is only half the ride; there's always the small matter of the return trip and despite the plethora of descending, more than a few inclines remain to offer their own challenges. From Princeton to Holden is mostly all descending, but from Holden back to Woo City one encounters a series of small climbs of varying lengths and steepness. The challenge is being able to assault the climbs with stoic conviction and not succumb to the lethargic plod.

Many of the climbs and stretches of the day's ride have been charted out as intervals on Strava. One in particular, the 'Climb out of Tatnuck,' is a short, steep climb of 50 yards or so out of the little enclave of Tatnuck. For some reason, I've managed to hit this climb just right a couple times in the past and ended up among the top twenty riders overall for this interval. To put that in perspective, for almost any other interval that I normally do, I am firmly nestled in the middle of the pack. If 500 cyclists are on record for an interval, it's safe to assume I'm somewhere around rider 295.

Today however, despite arriving at this climb after 55 miles & a grueling three and a half hours, I hit it in stride, got out of the saddle, and hammered up it. I felt good, but I had no idea how good. Only later, after uploading my ride data to Strava, did I find out that I'd ridden myself into the top five overall (small caveat; I share the fifth spot with five others, all of us with the same time).

Parting Shot

One of Dubstoevsky's many fans

Me and My Uncle

Call him Uncle Steve. A septuagenarian from New Jersey, he's a sinewy, wiry dynamo of cycling enthusiasm. He's family and doesn't visit often but when he does he becomes an honorary rider for Team Shad.

The ringer from NJ and Dubstoevsky

He got a new bike a month ago, a carbon fiber Cannondale with some kind of extraordinarily expensive and incredible wheels. It was last year's model so he paid half price for it in Florida (where he lives and rides during the winter months). It still cost $6,000. The bike weighs next to nothing and is completely matte black, like a Bat Mobile or something. I mounted my trusty seven year old Specialized Allez Comp (with carbon fiber forks), and off we went, the summit of Mt. Wachusett our target.

The way I devised to the mountain led us on a circuitous route through Paxton and Rutland over classic central Mass terrain - rolling hills, ridges, hardwood forests, farmland, reservoirs, sparsely-traveled country roads. Plenty of climbing, plenty of newly-paved surfaces, a veritable sylvan dérive over farmland and rural byways. But here's the thing - because he wanted to get in some serious mileage, he rode solo earlier this morning ; he put in twenty miles before he even came to Team Shad HQ. Virginian-esque, a real cycling animal.

Uncle Steve, the cycling animal

We rocked it. At one point, we espied a white-jersey'd cyclist far ahead of us. A quarry, I thought. Gradually, doggedly, we roped him in. Steve caught him first (because he was already powering 10 yards or so ahead of me). I reached the guy's rear wheel, rode there for a minute or so, then pulled alongside him.

He looked across at me and said "I have that jersey, I almost wore it today."

Steal your face.

"When was your first show?" I asked, knowing immediately he was on the bus.

"1974" A fellow head, and a real veteran.

We rode as a threesome for a while, racing at considerable speed down Hillside Rd and Causeway Rd. When we hit 122A and asked him if he wanted to accompany us to the mountain, he opted out saying that he had to turn toward home. Adieu, Jack Straw!

My Steal Your Face jersey elicited many comments over the course of the ride, from the guy who leaned out his pick-up truck window driving toward us and shouted 'Dig your shirt!" to the several cyclists on Wachusett Mountain who commented on it and asked where I got it.

It's interesting. Occasionally I encounter the total dickhead driver, like last evening for example when, toward the end of a euphoric 43 mile ride, I was beeped at and swerved at by an asshole in a pick-up truck. This kind of harassment doesn't happen to me often, but it does happen.

Steal Your Face, Mount Wachusett Summit

Though never when I'm wearing the Grateful Dead shirt. Every comment or acknowledgement I've ever gotten by a passing motorist or fellow cyclist has been positive. Today proved no different when, filling our water bottles at the park HQs after climbing to the summit, several different cyclists expressed their connection to and approval of the Dead. It's an informal club of comfortable familiarity.

Uncle Steve and I climbed the mountain, he on his feather weight marvel and me on my aluminum idea of lightness. I followed him as best as I could and in a final surge after turning left at the Summit marker, I hove alongside him then pushed ahead, powering on to the lookout tower summit.

We could see Woo City miles away across the clouded horizon and knew that much of the way back there would be downhill, the descent from the mountain first and foremost. We zoomed downward, cautious of hikers but wildly exceeding the universal speed limit (for cars and bikes) of 20 mph. We killed no one.

And then plunged further downward on old familiar roads from the days when Team Shad was based in Lemonstar - Pine Hill Rd, Mirick Rd, rt. 62. Eventually, we picked up Mason Rd and enjoyed that long, bucolic stretch of car-free spinning. Uncle Steve is used to riding out of Elizabeth, NJ, a busy, urban environment, so a stretch like Mason Rd is a cyclist's glory.

Uncle Steve and the Mason Rd Glory

Notes: Cardinals, crows, chipmunks and squirrels, sparrows, blue jays, turkey vultures; we heard birdsong everywhere, we inhaled the abundant scent of lilac throughout the ride, we smelled the freshly-lain red mulch in the mega church's landscaping, at one point several Baltimore orioles burst across our path rapturously orange-y gold.

Fox on the prowl in Rutland

And on a ride yesterday afternoon/evening up into Rutland, I noticed a red fox in a green and sunny field. I pulled over to watch it as he lay like a cat in the grass, almost fully hidden, except occasionally he sat up to look stealthily around and sniff the air. Surely he was hunting mice and moles

But the sad thing is that spring, as much as it's a time of rejuvenation and rebirth, is also a time of slaughter. Wildlife slaughter by automobiles. Small mammals, snakes, songbirds, these account for the lion's share (no pun intended) of the road kill. Turtles crawling across the roadways to reach sandy berms are routinely crushed, though I haven't seen one yet this year. But yesterday I came upon a chipmunk still flapping from the impact of the car wheel that had crushed its back half. Last week I whooshed past a three foot water snake that had just been run over. I circled back to remove its body from the roadway for the sake of its animal dignity and to my horror its front half lurched upwards, mouth agape as if both snapping and gasping for air. It was still alive! But doomed and dying, it offered no resistance when I lifted it with a stick from the tarmac and laid it in the shade on the roadside.

OM AH HUM

Parting Shot

Racing down the row of oaks on Jefferson St

Summit Style

Alta Vista Farm, April 30, 2016

Saturday. Weekends allow for prolonged exploration. It's hard to consider a really good & serious ride of 45 miles or more in the middle of the week, not for Dubstoevsky, at least. Wing Nut (formerly known as "The Virginian") is the exception. But consider the reality: to do 45 miles in three hours requires an average speed of 15 mph. I realize that that's not complicated math but the implications are simple - three hours required! Factor in daylight and work and you're hard-pressed to leverage that kind of window during the Monday thru Friday stretch. At least, I am. That's why Saturdays, for many cyclists et moi, are the Big Ride day.

The summit in the distance

This particular Saturday (yesterday) dawned bright and clear in Woo City. Though chilly early on, with the sun's ascent the temperature rose into the 50s and by 10:30 AM the promise of a mild spring day bloomed with certainty. Over the course of the ride, I passed many cyclists. Everyone was out taking advantage. One guy, at the water fountain at the base of Mt. Wachusett, answered my query about conditions on the road to the summit (clear). I thanked him and asked where he was riding from.

"Arlington" he replied.

"Holy shit!" I responded without thinking. The thought alarmed me, having to ride all the way back to Arlington. His ride would be more than 100 miles overall. "Hey, good luck, ride safe!" I shouted. He seemed as if he needed the well-wishing. Arlington to the summit of Mt Wachusett and back is a long fucking haul and he was only halfway.

To the mountain

Strava has a May Gran Fondo Challenge: on a single ride, cover 115km or more (that's 71.4 miles). I considered having a go at it but it was April 30 and the challenge hadn't kicked in yet. Still, I toyed with achieving the distance by covering 58.9 miles overall. But this ride was more about climbing than it was about distance and when all was said and done, I'd ridden upwards in excess of 3600 feet, a more than acceptable result.

"Be light on the bike" I kept reminding myself. I learned that from I Ward more than twenty years ago when we mountain biked together. Something about gripping the handlebars lightly, about inhaling and floating like a feather. Or today, like a titanium arrow. I tuck myself into the shape & essence of a blow dart gusted forth by the Divine Unknown and hurtle down the mountain. I imagine my inhalation a lightening of the body, a suffusing of weightlessness. I lay upon the bike like a shadow.

Summit Road

Still climbing toward the top

And then there's Form. Always thinking about form. Good form, bad form. Always trying to be conscious of bad form. Bad form is not paying attention, is missing something obvious, is losing your line, is somehow messing up a fluid situation, it's putting yourself & others in unnecessary danger. Bad form. It's obvious when it occurs. Cycling requires constant attention.

I notched but one incident of bad form on the 58 miler. Early in the ride, I saw a Verizon trucked parked along the roadside at the bottom of a hill and I whizzed by, but as I did I noticed a Vertizon technician standing behind the truck. I should have noticed him earlier. He could have stepped out without seeing me and I was too close and would have slammed into him. This was a small incident, one Bad Form point on the ride. Over 58 miles that's an acceptable outcome.

At one point about half way up the Mt Wachusett summit road a cyclist came upon me from behind and blew by me like a gust of wind. Diablo! I instinctively increased my pace but realized quickly I'd never catch the dude. He was an animal who, if I were prey, would have eaten me. He made rabbit stew of me. And was gone.

Mt. Wachusett Summit, looking toward Woo City

But just as I was a rabbit in the eyes of a predator, before the ride was over that role was reversed. A coney* appeared in the distance around mile 40 and I set to chasing him and subsequently toyed with him as a cat toys with a doomed rodent. He proved to be an amiable dude as I came alongside of him and he confessed that this was only his third ride of the season. Allez! I wished him well, and he wished the same to me, and off I rode.

Coney chasing (the small dot alongside the road sign)

* Note: "coney" is a little used (obsolete, some would argue) term for rabbit.

At the end of the Big Ride, back safely at Shad Quarters, nearly sixty miles under the wheels, the mandate came down to Eat BIG. This was obvious, and readily accommodated. The post ride Feed started and ended with steak. Beer was involved. As were potatoes and butter.

Before

After

To Wachusett and Back

Mountain Road, en route to the park entrance

The summit road to the top of Mount Wachusett is still closed, the thick layers of man-made ski slope snow still lying across the tarmac at several locations. I found that out firsthand by pedaling my ass to the entrance to the state reservation and right up to the first locked gate replete with snow bank deterrent. A walker informed me there were several more wide snow swathes up the way that would require bike-schlepping. Not for Dubstoevsky, not today.

Summit Road, April 9, 2016

It didn't matter. A big day in the saddle with more than 2000 feet of climbing. A cold day, mid 40s, though the chill was tempered for more than half the ride by a bright sun in a blue sky. By the last 15 or so miles, though, the sun was overrun by a gauzy cloud cover. But there was plenty of climbing, plenty of pedal turns, plenty of long empty roads, the pre-foliaged slopes on either side pillared by hoary oaks and etched with stone walls that once, perhaps, boundary'd fields.

Dubstoevsky on the fly

When the ride was in the books, I'd knocked off 42+ miles in the weekly quest for 63, the base number deemed necessary to achieve by DS Mawgs if Dubstoevsky has any hopes of a respectable showing in the Rasputitsa. With another big day looming tomorrow with The Virginian, it seems certain I'll reach the requisite 63 and then some.

Note: I averaged 14.3 mph over the 42 miles today. I'm content with that. Especially considering the day's venture required full winter regalia. With the temperature in the mid 40s, I opted for triple layering, including the chest-protecting paper bag. booties, and tights over the 3/4 length bibs. Tomorrow promises the same costume.

Gray November Triptych

November 7, 2015

Dour November rides, the foliage fallen from the trees, the harsh news from Paris a grim reminder of mortality and chance.

I might get hit by a car on my next ride. I cannot predict that everything will go well. These days, Western culture under attack from the long subjugated inheritors of colonialism, despotism, and fundamentalism, what can I do but carry on?

Like today, Sunday, November 15, 2015, winter not yet come with vengeance to the Woo, not even a hard freeze yet. The Reservoir road, the swirling wind, the blowing leaves, the denuded trees, the fading light. Or like November 7, the ride from Lemonstar to the Woo, traversing long familiar roads, a grayed acknowledgement of loss, the sun wan in the sky.

We cannot live anywhere but where we live.

I rode to the mountain top on Saturday, November 7th.

Climbing toward the summit

Summit

Tower of Shad

Monadnock to the north

Yesterday, grim wind and gray sky, harsh brown leaves swirling in the surreptitious moil. The Reservoir face an angry ripple of white caps and disapproval. Comfort has waned. Nothing staunches the moment like the loss of season.

Holden Reservoir November 14, 2015

Today I ventured into new terrain on the road bike. From Harris Rd I continued beyond the point at which the road was marked 'closed.' Closed years ago, never kept up, a crumbling pavement path through the woods toward the Quinapoxet River and the Wachusett Reservoir.

Road closed, November 15, 2015

I'd been here before, years ago, and was here now again, and grateful for the recently-added high end 4x season Continental road tires, the surface was cracked and strewn with debris but I didn't fear a flat.

Looking behind

Looking forward

The great challenge posed by road cycling is to be ever alert and ever in the quickly-changing moment, completely aware at all times; a breath-to-breath, pedal-to-pedal stroke forward, fully deliberate. In a weird way, this is actually relaxing; the only thing I as a cyclist need to be concerned with is my immediate moment. No baggage, nothing making fraught the struggle, just the road ahead, every rolling wheel circle a victory.

The yawning maw of expanse

Prime Days

It's prime time now. Terrific riding days. Pristine October New England days filled with blue skies, sharp sun, crisp air, clean vistas exploding in color.

Since nearly being taken out by the hawk on October 4th, I've ridden seven times. Fantastic afternoons after work storming the Reservoir, dancing up the cat 4 climb to the Airport, logging the Big Miles with El Virginian, noble Team Shad mate, on new roads in the Athol hills.

Unlike Herr Scrod in the German gloaming who suggests that "the season is nearing its end," here in the land of Shad we are gathering our tights and silky under things, our gloves and head warmers, our extra layers, we are clamping lights to our handlebars and celebrating the onset of autumn's capricious yet magical weather.

The truth is, I'm more than ready for colder rides. It's funny, when spring and summer comes and I can finally ride in shorts and a short-sleeved jersey, I'm always psyched. But then summer becomes a myriad of humid, sweaty rides and after a point I get tired of being slathered in a slick sunscreen sheen, perspiration running into my eyes. I want the crisper air, the snap and chill, the little shivery hum of setting out just on the edge of cold.

Plus, there is something about donning the layers of the cyclist's costume that appeals, a certain Boy Scout-ish or ninja-like sense of order and preparedness. I find plenty of satisfaction in assembling just the right kit, the perfectly-chosen layers to maintain a balanced, not-too-hot-and-not-too-cold temperature throughout a ride.

On the visual front, October marks the transition from the lush, green expanses of summery fullness to the psychedelic landscapes of orange, red, and yellow that presage the somber dun hues to come. October is the month of imps and sprites and woodland fairies, the last whimsical days of abundance when the great hoary hardwoods assume the garb of jesters for a few final weeks before shedding their whimsy and hunkering down for the long freeze.

Photo Gallery of the Last Seven Rides

Airport Paxton Loop October 5th

Woo City Airport Summit

Dubstoevsky falling into space

Holden Loop October 6th

Fecund but fading

Paxton Kettle Brook Loop October 8th

Getting out of the Woo

Lemonstar State Forest to Mt. Wachusett Summit Loop October 10th

Team Shad car

Lucas Rd, Princeton

Approaching Mt. Wachusett

Busy day on the summit

Team Shad Training Ride with The Virginian October 12th
Montague Shutesbury Wendell Orange Athol Warwick Northfield Sunderland

The Virginian setting the pace through Wendell

North Orange

October's bright blue sky

Sunderland, not Bordeaux

The French King Bridge

The final climb of the day

Shadows of the Dub

Reservoir Loop October 13th

On the fly

Reservoir Loop October 15th

Return to the Woo