It was a beautiful route, courtesy Rubel's Pocket Maps once again. The route picked up at the Bedford end of the Minuteman path and took me through Lexington, Carlisle, Bedford, Acton, Concord, etc. The destination of sorts was Nagog Pond, a public water supply lake in Acton with no public access. Very pretty, though.
But man it was cold! It was dark and about 22 degrees when I left the house, and it only eeked up to about 33 by the time I arrived back home. Because it was pitch black until around 6:30, I opted to avoid the bike path until Lexington. And in that first half hour, both of my water bottles had already frozen up substantially - an hour later they were completely frozen! At least I was dressed warmly enough, except for my toes, which were pretty cold all morning.
3 comments:
Sounds like a good ride! Any particular reason you left at 6:30 am? I commuted my 15 miles a week ago and it was pretty damn cold. I realize that while I have *almost* the right amount of gear, that still wasn't enough to save my toes. i'm off to Wheelworks today to get some toe covers!
Geoff
JP, MA
Excellent question! Weekends are usually pretty full of family activities, so it's nice to do a good ride (on traffic-free roads!) before everybody is up and around.
Toe covers sound like a great idea... Do you have full-cover booties? I wore mine, but it only occurred to me later that the soles of my feet were also really cold because I'd removed the insoles to make room for my Smartwool socks!
Very true with the family activities. And there's nothng better than traffic free roads. I'll occasionally ride downtown because it's such a different way to see the city.
I wasn't sure if toe covers or full booties would be the best bet or even bigger shoes with lots of wool socks -- this is my first year to ride in the cold. Otherwise I'm a fair weather biker.
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