NBW-106: Uxbridge Animal Farm Ride

This was my third ride with the club since joining last summer. It was the first one in warm weather. I finally got an opportunity to meet and socialize with some of the members. I saw someone on a recumbent that looked very similar to one a friend of mine had. It turns out that Paula Bissel had bought my friend's Strada, small world.

As the ride stretched out, it started to feel like a solo ride with the difference being that most of the other rider I saw was going in the same direction. At the 30 mile cut off point, it was a solo ride. That is, until I caught up with Andy on the outbound portion of the 50 mile loop. I wasn't breaking any personal records at this point and our pace matched up pretty well so we rode together for most of the remainder of the ride.

At about mile 45 or so, with my legs tired and muscles burning, I remember thinking: "This feels good". Probably the endorphins talking ;-)

The next ride I hope to make it out for is the NBW: Scramble Metric. According to the map, it passes less than a mile from my house. That rotary along the route in Norfolk (@ Rt. 115 in the center of town) might pose a challenge.

Map, um, differences…

The ride was very well arrowed. There was one arrow that led some of us into a person's driveway, though that was a painless wrong turn. To be fair, the driveway resembled a small side road enough to cause a bit of confusion.

There were three areas along route (if one did the full 50) where the arrows differed from the map. All of these updates were improvements.

The start was different than it was on the map. The map had the route going through downtown Uxbridge. That would have been problematic given how "grouped" we all still were at that point.

The second was a minor change in Grafton, where George Hill Road meets Leland St. The arrow pointed left instead of right and took us down a side road (Leland St.) that ran parallel to RT 140 as opposed to riding on RT 140 itself. (Trust the arrows…, trust the arrows…)

The third was along the 50 mile "loop". It "cornered off" the Rt. 16/North Ave intersection (Mendon). I only saw it on the way back. I don't know if it cut it off on the way out. That could explain why I didn't see any arrows where Rt. 16 met North Ave . I was with Andy at that point. Andy saw the arrow; I knew it was different than the map. We stopped. I checked the map. We decided to "Trust the Arrows" and proceeded. Ironically this safer quieter cut-off was the only place we had an issue with a car as somebody came tearing out of a blind driveway in a Pacifica without looking first just as another (more patient) motorist was trying to pass us.