Southborough - Marlborough
Took the train to Southborough for a meeting with the NEC folks in Marlborough. (10 miles from the station). Got there a few minutes late, but earlier than some others. Meeting lasted about 90 minutes, then rode home. Regret not getting to talk to Jim B., that was one of the main reasons I went.
It was very cold and very windy, but at least most of the wind was at my back. Some of the side gusts made the bike a little squirrely, though and that was a bit unnerving. There’s really no good route back from Marlborough. I started back on US 20 but that sucked with a capital K. So I turned off at Wayside Inn Road and followed some other streets back. It’s very weird but there are no east-west roads out there except for US 20. There NE-SW, SE-NW and N-S but no E-W. I eventually got to Wellesley and took Beacon Street back in.
To look at me, you wouldn’t know it, but sometimes I forget to eat. I looked down at my clock and it was 2:00 and I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast at 7:00. I was out. of. gas. And the part of Wellesley or Natick or whereever I was didn’t have anything to eat, or at least nowhere I could get something eat without leaving my bike. I eventually got to Waban and went into a deli, but everything in there was huge. No way I could eat a twenty pound pastrami sandwich. A little further along I found a bakery and got something to eat there. All I really wanted was some Chex Mix, but I decided to show some solidarity with our friends from Denmark so I bought a cheese Danish. Fifteen minutes later, I had lots of gas energy.
So much so that I could have ridden much further, but my feet were frozen, along with my water bottles (again!), and it turns out my gloves don’t ventilate very well, so my hands were soaked and starting to prune. Though I don’t pay much attention to speed at this time of the year, my time of 13.75 mph was disappointing. Maybe it was the cold, maybe the added winter tonnage, maybe it was stopping to check the map every friggin 10 feet. Don’t know. But that pretty much makes up my mind not to sign up for B2B. I don’t think I can get to 16 mph through that kind of terrian by June at this rate.
I’m tired now.
