Alternate Route

I recently altered my commuting route to include more back roads at the cost of adding only a few miles to the round trip. The ride is now much more enjoyable, as if it were a ride I’d choose to take on a weekend rather than a commute.

The new route takes North Road through Great Brook Farm State Park, which has rolling hills and is mostly tree covered with a few open areas like the one pictured below.

On the ride home I take the Narrow Gauge Rail Trail from Bedford up to Billerica. It is unpaved and I rarely encouter other bikes though walkers and joggers are not uncommon. The surface is well packed for most of its length and it rides like a dirt road.

Gas Line Trail

As part of my goal to find more of the dirt roads and trails in my neck of the woods I headed out this morning to explore an area I’d seen on the map but never visited.

View Gas Line Trail in a larger map

When I set out to find this path, I was hoping it would be more like a dirt road and less like the trail it turned out to be. Still, the 35mm Paselas handled it well.

Now that I know where it is, I’m planning on making use of the trail on additional trips to the Billerica State Forest and eventually out to the Bay Circuit Trail in Tewksbury.

Morning Ride: Great Brook Farm

Today I headed over to Great Brook Farm for my Saturday morning ride. The weather was great, starting out a bit cool and warming up during the ride.

We’ve had a few days of rain making for some wet sections on the trails. This was the first real test for my new fender, a Zefal Deflector RM60, and it performed well. It is sturdy and holds its position while riding, yet will move if it hits the ground so as not to break. Coverage is perfectly adequate for the 36″ wheel.

This ride has a great variety of terrain. The 36″ unicycle is a good match for the road and wide trail sections on this ride and when I’m up for a challenge riding some of the trickier trails in the woods is a blast.

Neighborhood Trails

Things are settling down after our move last weekend and I was able to get out to some of the trails in the new neighborhood this morning.

Trotting Park Road

The streets were wet from last night’s rain but the air was warm when I set out for my Saturday morning ride. The recent rains have littered the ground with leaves but there are still plenty left on the trees. Everything combined to make for a really nice ride.

Wachusett Summit

This morning I drove out to Wachusett Mountain with my bike. The four mile ride from my parking spot on Bolton Road to the summit was the easily the hardest I’ve ever worked on a bike. Thankfully the crisp air was refreshing and the view from the top was clear.

Morning Ride: Lowell-Dracut-Tyngsborough

The leaves are starting to change around here and I was glad to have a camera along on my Saturday morning ride through the Lowell-Dracut-Tyngsborough State Forest.

Offroad Unicycling

This morning I took my new mountain unicycle to the Lowell-Dracut-Tyngsborough State Forest for the first time. I did well on the fireroads but was humbled on the trails. This is one of the few smooth sections I was actually able to ride:

Haystack Observatory

I’ve been wanting to take a bike ride out to Haystack Observatory for a couple of weeks and got a chance this morning. It was great weather for a ride and I spent about half an hour riding around the Observatory.