Tour of Carlisle, Chelmsford, and Concord - July 22, 2015

Ride Report

Wed, July 22, 2015, Tour of Carlisle, Chelmsford, and Concord

Long Ride Report – Jack Donohue

Riders(30): Annemarie Altman, Bob Anderson, Jack Donohue, Curt Dudley-Marley, Richard Fortier, Dmitry Gorenburg, Paul Greco, Ken Hablow, Kathy Horvath, Frank Hubbard, Dom Jorge, Jim Kant, Herb Kavet, Rick Lawrence, Anne Lee, Robyn Maislin, Steve Maislin, Barbara Martin, Bob McCarty, Janet Miller, Jack Mroczkowski, Ann Northup, Paula O'Sullivan, Butch Pemstein, Karen Saltus, Chris Schuch, Francine Sparks, Rich Taylor, Patrick Ward, Bob Wolf

The weather was absolutely perfect, a welcome relief from the heat and humidity of the preceding few days. At the start, I made the bold claim that I would observe the official Wheeler speed of 13 mph average.  I sensed some were chafing at the bit, and since we started out with a large group, I gave Ken my blessing to form a breakaway group. So Ken and his merry band took off, relieving me of performance anxiety. We did encounter them again at Great Brook Farm, but they didn't want to participate in the photo shoot and sped away not to be seen again.

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We were greeted with some nice stretches of brand new pavement. Carlisle in particular seems to be making up for years of neglect with many of my favorite roads getting a makeover, like Curve Street, which took quite a beating over the winter. We had a brief failure to communicate since I had turned off the sound on my cell phone at a wedding and forgot to turn it back on.  So Butch attempted to alert me to a mechanical problem in vain.  Since Butch was conspicuous by his absence we waited, and not much later the missing riders showed. Jack M. gets the prize for having the oldest jersey.  I still may have one like that, but I haven't seen it in a couple of decades. 

Short Ride Report – Jacque Smith

Riders(5): Bob Armstrong, Carol Anderson, Cindy Bernstein, Eli Post, Jacque Smith

Four riders had a delightful, uneventful ride of 22 miles. Then, we had the pleasure of a wonderful lunch at Mike's house joined with the longer riders. Every ride should be this good and with such a small group no arrows or sweep were required.

Organizer Report – Mike Hanauer

Organizers: Mike Hanauer, Edie Baxter

The weather was perfect, but the neighborhood roads were a mess. Thanks to all for the tolerance.

Huge quantities of edibles were eaten and apparently enjoyed or even reveled. BBQ, rice, bean, salads, sausage, and lots more. I did notice that sweet BBQ sauce is much more popular than hot -- we are a cool group. For drink, the banana-lemon smoothies were again most appealing without the peal.

This event of events turned out to be a wonderful team effort, and I want to thank the ride leaders, those that helped with food prep, cleanup and supplies, and all for the wonderful dishes and personalities.