Cooling my wheels

 I'm also cooling my heels, sitting in the departure terminal at Logan Airport while my not too untrustworthy bike sits, sheltered in the economy parking garage, at racks within sight of the lot attendant. Looks like we made it!

Yesterday was an interesting trip. Today was an interesting trip. It seems a theme. Yesterday started pleasantly unexciting, riding back roads to Ware on a route I more or less used before. I made it that far without consulting a map, so I decided to make that the day's theme, or at least the day before 5pm. After all, I'd left early, so I might as well use the time.

In Ware, I joined Route 9, which wasn't great, but also wasn't awful, and yet after an hour or two of that, it seemed I could made better use of my extra time by branching off the known path. In Spencer, I opted for the right fork heading, it turns out, into the residential bit of town. That could have been a short blip that rejoined the through route, but before that, I was ever so easily enticed my the dirt rail trail heading off to the right.

There was a map at the trailhead, but instead of orienting it in the typical north-is-up fashion, they had rotated the image to align with the trail. I guess  I am a conformist after all. I missed that detail. I do however seem to have an internal, although possibly also immoral, compass, so I was bothered by how the trail kept curving to the south. I needed east.

It was a lovely trail, with a beautiful causeway crossing of a pond I'll share once I can again include photos, and bonus, it carried me well away from Route 9, which so unimaginatively goes the way I needed. It did end, and at the other end, the map had the more typical orientation, so yes, I knew I'd just ridden five miles at ninety degrees to my intended direction.

There are worse things, like immediately correcting an error without exploring what options it might offer, so for the next couple hours I headed east on back roads at a lower latitude. Nearing Worcester, however, all the more significant roads headed into town, or away from it, and the latter was definitely the wrong direction, so I rode to, and through, Worcester. Detail: I rode through at five o'clock, on a weekday.

It wasn't great, but it wasn't horrible, and the build up of the city ends surprisingly quickly for a town of its size. I even managed to find the local's path that cut across the commuter rail line onto even more back roads with a selection of well timed patches of woods in time to an early night's slumber.

I had started consulting a map in Worcester, and figured I might connect with commuter rail service in Westborough, just a short distance from where I slept, but the next morning I learned there was as even closer station in Grafton that presented itself after just two miles of riding. I took a peak, hoping I might at least fill a water bottle, but it seems the MBTA commuter line lots are pretty sparse on resources. The riding was pleasant, and included the possibility of replenishing my stores, so I kept pedaling, to another rail station in Ashland.

By that point, still early, I'd already ridden further than I thought, and the remaining distance to the outermost subway station looked reasonable, so I kept at it, with the plan to pick up Route 16 in Wellesley. Traffic was steadily increasing as I headed east, but in good time I saw the sign "Junction 16". What I didn't realize is Boston area signs are more for people who already know where they're going. The sign was, in my opinion, a bit early, so I took the next left, which wasn't Route 16.

It didn't angle east like I wanted, more due north. Not awful, but drat, a bit more of the busy riding I would prefer to avoid. And hey, it turns out, the OSMAND app uses a lot of battery if you use it to suggest a route but then don't cancel the route. Once I realized my sign mistake, and checked the map, my phone's battery was reading single digit. Oops

Lucky me (nothing new), there were school playing field just up the road with an outdoor power plug on one of the maintenance sheds, so I took a break, had a snack, or two, and half recharged my phone. I also checked the MBTA site to confirm when bikes were allowed onboard and learned they are never allowed on the outlying line that was closest.

New plan time, I figured out how to correctly join Route 16, and from there, I could continue north past the T station to paths along the Charles River that would deliver me most of the way to the T lines my bike could ride, the ones actually in Boston. It was a lot of this, with a chunk of that, but both my bike and I did make it after a short T jump across the water instead of the long loop around under our own power.

On the way home, I'm thinking commuter rail sounds pretty good, especially after my bike started breaking rear spokes, half of which can't be changed without freewheel removal, which requires tools I don't carry. The front wheel? That's been fine, so far. And yes, I did swap the one spoke I could in parking garage. If someone does steal the bike, they'll get a slightly more satisfactory rear wheel.

Time to board (not proof read, sorry)!