Wednesday, March 23, 2016, Spring Butterfly rides
Ride Leaders: Clyde Kessel & Tom Allen
37 & 26 miles, 10:00 am start from 385 Curve Street, Carlisle, MA
Riders - 37 mi (11): Clyde, Barry Nelson, Bob Wolf, Butch Pemstein, Curt Dudley-Marling, Dom Jorge, Francie Sparks, Gene Ho, Jim Cant, Lindy King, and Richard Vignoni.
Riders - 26 mi (7): Tom, Dick Harter, Gardner (Sandy) Gray, Jack Donohue, Robyn Maislin, Roy Westerberg, and Susan Sabin.
Present at lunch: Helen Greitzer.
Long Ride
We had a smaller than usual turnout for such a warm day in early Spring. Presumably folks were worried about getting caught in 50 degree rain. We were fortunate though, the rain missed us both geographically and temporally. The ride went smoothly and, en route, we lost less than 10% of the riders, which is within acceptable tolerances.
We were treated to a great blue heron flying high overhead, a red-tailed hawk which swooped low over the road, giving us a lovely view of his tail feathers, and an enthusiastically burning brush pile. Near the end, we saw an impressive row of cairns along Tadmuck road - it is worth a bit of a detour to see them, so delicately balanced.
The group stayed close together, until the first hill. Kaz was late and missed the start, but he did the entire long ride, and then some, and showed up at the finish shortly after everyone else had finished and gone home.
Thanks to all the arrows and to Curt for sweeping.
Report by Clyde Kessel.
Short Ride
Turns out that the butterflies were not the attraction for the short ride group. We stopped at The Butterfly Place and a couple of folks used the restroom, and then we proceeded without visiting inside. So the attraction must have been either the lovely route designed by Clyde or the charisma of the ride leader - TBD.
Anyway, the weather turned out to be very cooperative, despite a few raindrops on windshields as people were driving to the start. I was very comfortable in my biking shorts, despite being the only one so attired.
One scary incident on Chestnut Road as one of our riders was cut off by a vehicle and forced off the road. The victim took a few moments to recover her composure and was able to continue riding.
Having skipped the butterflies, our group not only got to lunch before the long ride group, we were finished and leaving just as they were arriving. Thanks to Dick Harter for sweeping and to Jack Donohue for being the lone deployed arrow.
Anyway, the weather turned out to be very cooperative, despite a few raindrops on windshields as people were driving to the start. I was very comfortable in my biking shorts, despite being the only one so attired.
One scary incident on Chestnut Road as one of our riders was cut off by a vehicle and forced off the road. The victim took a few moments to recover her composure and was able to continue riding.
Having skipped the butterflies, our group not only got to lunch before the long ride group, we were finished and leaving just as they were arriving. Thanks to Dick Harter for sweeping and to Jack Donohue for being the lone deployed arrow.
Report by Tom Allen.
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