So here's a link to what I've been doing this past week: The Mass BikePike Tour. You can check out the link to Bikely.com to see the maps and routes we took, and to get a sense of the planning that goes into getting a group of 100 or so cyclists together for a 3-4 day tour of Massachusetts. After planning and training all summer, I showed up at Ephraim Curtis Middle School in Sudbury, MA, on Thursday, August 14th, for the start of the ride. Robert dropped me off at 7 or so and took a picture for a "before the ride" record. We were allowed to bring 2 duffel bags, tents and other camping gear, plus our bikes, helmets and other riding equipment. The tour organizer transported our bags and gear from Sudbury to each night's destination - it was our job to transport ourselves there on our 2 wheels.
We have had an especially wet summer in MA., and our hope was that the weather would clear up so that we could ride without rain. I don't mind riding in the rain, but I prefer not to. When you get water in your bike shoes, every pedal stroke squishes unpleasantly.
Day 1
Riders had a choice of 3 distances each day: 30, 50 or 65 miles. On Thursday I joined the 50 mile group. We left Sudbury and wound north through Lincoln into Concord for our first rest stop. Then we headed west to Acton, through Stow, Hudson, Marlborough, Southborough, stopping for another break in Hopkinton, which is the town where the Boston Marathon starts.
The weather was beautiful and sunny, but started clouding over in Hopkinton. As we were mounting up to leave, a guy pulled up and warned us that they had just broadcast a severe thunderstorm warning with lightning, hail and heavy rains. We were near a gas station with a large shelter over the pumps, so as the rain started we all grouped under the shelter. We waited for a while and didn't see anything worse than heavy rain (har-har), so we finally pulled out and headed to Upton.
The group spread out as the faster cyclists wanted to get out of the rain as soon as possible. I wasn't one of those, and several of us eventually got dropped from the main group and formed our own little sub-group, trying to navigate through the rain.
The worst problem we ran into was that our cue sheets - the sheets that tell us what road to take, how many miles to go, where to turn, what the elevation is, and where the ice cream is - disintegrated in the rain. We were wandering around a bit until Neil came up from behind. He had stopped to ask someone where the Northbridge Middle School was (our destination for the night), and so we followed his orange poncho and finally arrived at the middle school. All told we rode in the rain for around 14 miles, along some pretty high-traffic roads - stressful, to say the least.
The other difficulty that I had was that at one point when I mounted and locked my left foot into my pedal, it slipped because of the wet and the rain. I ended up with a nice abrasion and bruise, but no blood - much to my disappointment!
Shortly after we arrived, the rain stopped and the sun came out, so we were able to dry out, take a hot shower and get rested up. Redbones did the catering for dinner - we had brisket, salad, corn bread and other tasty BBQ foods.
While most of the participants camped out, I opted for the motel/bed-and-breakfast routine. I stayed at the Grafton Inn that night. This is a lovely little inn just off the town green in Grafton, with a pub downstairs and a list of all the owners going back to the 1790's. The room had an antique queen bed, and a fan in the window instead of air conditioning, and was very comfortable and pleasant.
Day 2
Friday morning we had a pancake breakfast courtesy of 10th Gear, a Christian youth cycling organization. My "taxi" to the inn was Arlen, who is one of the adult leaders of the group. He told me a bit about their work - they start kids out in middle school on short trips, and eventually work the kids up to participating in cross-country fund raising trips. If anyone has any used equipment they are happy to accept donations.
Here's a "before" picture for Friday morning. I opted for the 30 mile route on Friday, as the forecast still had rain in it, and I didn't want to be out in the wet for most of the day. In retrospect this was a very good choice. I found that the day 2 30 mile route was significantly more difficult than the day 1 50 mile route.
Central and western Massachusetts geography consists of towns by rivers in between hills and ridges. The pattern for day 2 was up to the top of a ridge, then down to the town, then repeat that for the 30 miles. 
The Visitor's Center had some fun quilts hanging on the walls for decoration.
Some people went scrambling among the boulders and rocks - I decided to wait until I could return with grippy soled hiking boots instead of bike shoes with slippery metal cleats.
Leaving Purgatory, we climbed to 728 feet at the end of Purgatory Road in 1.09 miles, then dipped down to 511 feet in Oxford, where we stopped for lunch. Then over the next 6 miles we climbed to 876 feet, first on Muggett Hill Road (you know it's going to be a bad road if it has "hill" in the name), then on Masonic Home Rd, and finally dipping down to 748 feet in Charlton. Not to worry, though we're not done yet - we next climbed to 830 feet over 2.5 miles, in coming into Sturbridge, did a little dip down to Podunk Road, 787 feet, then climbed up to 826 feet in 2 miles to catch the right turn to Wells State Park, our destination. The day ended with a screaming descent to 613 feet to the park, followed by the attack of the killer mosquitoes. 
We had beautiful dry weather all day until about 4:30 PM, when the rains started. We had dinner on a pavilion sheltered from the rain, but had to forgo smores around the campfire. The rain didn't quit until around 1 AM according to the campers - I was tidy and dry at the Comfort Inn in Sturbridge, but dreading the coming ascent out of the park the following morning.
Day 3 Saturday morning we woke to gray skies, dry roads and a nice breakfast at the motel. There were 15 of us staying there, enjoying the fact that we were warm and dry and ready for the day. After the ride back to camp, we started up the hill out of the park. We were pleasantly surprised that the 200 foot climb out of the park was much less painful than some of the 200 foot climbs the previous day. IMHO, the difference today was that the big climbs were at the beginning of the day rather than at the end, and that we were well-rested and fresh.
Our road went by Quaboag Pond, which provided a nice photo op. We followed the Quaboag River for a while, meandering through some gorgeous wetlands and climbing a bit into Brookfield, where we headed west on Long Hill Road. Notice the "hill" in the name of the road? This was a steep hill in addition to being a long hill, a climb from 626 feet to 921 feet over 2.48 miles. It levelled out in a few places, and then rose quite steeply.
I had planned to power over a small hill, but it turned out to be more steep than I thought, so I geared down, but something happened to my gears and they wouldn't mesh. So I came to a sudden stop, but couldn't get my feet out of my pedals. I thought for sure I was going down, but somehow I managed to free my right foot first, and then balance by leaning forward on my handle bars until I could disengage my left foot. I still don't know how I stayed upright - it was a pretty scary moment.
At the top of the hill we stopped for a breather in front of a house that had beautiful gardens. If you look closely at the picture on the left you can even see the trestle of their model railroad that winds through the garden.
Somewhere in this area we went through a lot of farmland. We stopped to catch a breather and take some pictures for people who think that Massachusetts is crowded and urban. We even saw some llamas on one of the farms.
Farms and Fields
The ubiquitous New England stone wall
The next stretch of road should have been one of those screaming downhill drives, a reward for all the hard work climbing up, but the road was in very poor condition - cracks, potholes, sand, ruts, and all kinds of challenges. I was really thankful that I had new brake pads - I had to stop several times to rest my hands and arms from pushing on the brakes. We had to keep our speed down to under 10 mph to avoid problems, and it was quite a bumpy jarring ride for a while.
We stopped in Warren for lunch on the town green. For those of you not familiar with New England, many of the towns have a green park in the center of town. Warren has a statue commemorating the battle of Gettysburg, a library, an old railroad station, and some nice shade and benches. We also collected a few more mosquito bites.
Left to Right, Bob, Gary and Neil
That's me, with the library in the background
A view of the library
The Civil War Statue with the town center in the background
More bikers. Bernie is 3rd from the left.
A group of us left Warren together, including Neil, Bernie, Elizabeth and myself. Lynne caught up with us a bit later. This was probably the best group that I rode with. We were well matched in speed and determination - some of us did uphills better, and others did downhills better, but we pretty much all kept together and had a lot of fun.
The last half of the ride into Belchertown was very pleasant, with some moderate hills, but nothing too difficult. I left the tour on Saturday afternoon, but the rest of the group continued on to Northbridge on Sunday. Robert picked me up in Belchertown, we had dinner at a pizza place, and then returned home. Belchertown to Billerica is around 70 miles on the Mass Pike, and my first thought riding in the car was "Cars go so fast!" It took a bit before I was comfortable with trees whizzing by as we drove along the road.
Lessons Learned
The first take-away is that I need to stop avoiding hills on my training routes. The coastal areas around Boston don't have the long steep hills that you find in the rest of the state, having more "rolling hills" than the long climbs. But there are a few places on my regular training routes that have hills that I have been avoiding because they are a long grind. The kinds of hills that I can presently handle are those that have some downhill before, which allow me to get part way up with my momentum from the previous downhill, and then that don't last too long, so that I don't run out of lower gears. I also need to do more interval training and weights on my off-season so that I'm stronger for the climbs.
The 2nd lesson: group rides are fun! When you are cranking out 50 or even 30 miles all alone, without any pauses or breaks, it can be a drag. Riding with a group of cyclists with similar abilities was great - we helped each other along.
The 3rd take-away was a bunch of new friends. I had interesting conversations with people from all over, and from all walks of life, about everything from biking and training to careers and life histories. I look forward to seeing members of the tour in other rides in the future.
