What springtime’s for…

[ornoth_cycling]

A couple items of note.

First, I made a couple cycling purchases recently. One was a set of Continental Ulta Gatorskin tires in 700 x 28C. They seem like nice tires so far, but I’ll have a better idea once I get some miles into them.

Second, I bought a new Giro Pneumo helmet, to replace my old Specialized helmet.

I actually looked at the Giro Atmos, which is their newest and best road helmet, but frankly it sucked. A cycling helmet must sit comfortably and stably on the front of your head, but the Atmos felt like it really wanted to cover the back, like a yarmulke. Wearing a helmet on the back of your head, as many inexperienced cyclists do, is about as good as wearing it on your handlebars.

However, the Pneumo fits very nicely, and should be an effective replacement for the old Specialized, which cracked apart when it fell to the ground from my (parked) bike last autumn.

One of the best things about springtime riding is that you don’t have to focus on serious training, since you’re really only working on getting some base miles down before you segue into more serious interval and periodicity training. So it gives you the opportunity to explore some new routes, without worrying about your speed or heart rate.

Yesterday I took the afternoon and had a (mostly) leisurely ride out to Waltham and back, via the Charles River bike paths, rather than the usual roads I’d take. My goal was to explore a new “missing link” section that has been built in Waltham between Bridge Street and Farwell Street.

It’s actually very strange, and unlike all the other Charles River paths. First, it’s a gravel/dust surface, rather than asphalt. Second, in many places there are extensive boardwalk/bridges that are about ten feet wide, rather than the few narrow boardwalks in the Watertown section. Finally, whereas all the other paths are on the north side of the river, you actually have cross over to the south side of the river at Bridge Street. It stays on the south bank until it reaches the little open culvert at Farwell; however, just before you get to Farwell there’s an elegant little footbridge that spans the Charles River, and if you cross there it dumps you out right at the next section of path, by the new Shaw’s supermarket.

Well, I’m not sure you needed quite that detailed an explanation, but aside from being unpaved, that section of path—and particularly the footbridge—looks pretty cool, and is certainly a huge improvement over the alternative: Pleasant Street, which is anything but “pleasant”.

Comments

[lothie.livejournal.com]

That helmet looks like something out of LOTR. *giggle* Cool!