4/6 Saturday Ride Cancelled

While the temps look like they will inch just high enough to justify a ride, the combination of strong winds from the northwest have convinced us to cancel the ride this week.

3/30 Saturday Ride

It looks like we should have a pretty nice morning this Saturday to start the season, but to give the clouds a chance to burn off and for the temps to inch up just a bit, We will plan on leaving the Back Bay Bikes shop at 9:00 am. 

Rather than navigate the construction for the first ride of the season, we will start out with the Prout's Neck loop (Route Map). Expect a pretty casual ride this week so we can all start to get our legs underneath us.

It's always a good idea to be thinking about safety, so please review the group riding guidelines and don't forget to bring emergency contact information. 

As always, please drop me an email if you have any questions. See you Saturday.

Spring?

There's close to a foot of fresh snow on the ground, but the first day of spring is the line in the sand for me. Winter be damned, it's time to start planning the biking season. 

Unfortunately, this Saturday doesn't look like the best week to start the ride up again. While the temps might inch up just over 40, the wind looks to be pretty brisk and there promises to be some ice on the shoulders for most of the morning. 

So, we'll keep our fingers crossed and plan on an Easter weekend start this year, with the first official ride heading out next Saturday, March 30. For now we'll leave the time up in the air, so check back by Thursday next week for a start time.

With the start of the season comes the opportunity to implement a few changes to the ride. Some will be forced—such as the detour around the back cove construction—but we're also toying with a few voluntary ones. One high tech change that we are planning to play around with this year is that I will be providing a link via twitter that will allow live access to our routes. The thinking is that this live look at our location will help: (1) riders who get lost and want to rejoin the group; (2) riders who want to meet up in the middle of the ride; (3) significant others who want a way to gauge when the ride will be over; and (4) stalkers who want to know where I am every Saturday morning. Once we get some kinks worked out, we'll post more information on how to view the live feed for the ride route.

We're open to other suggestion you may have, so please, if you have things that you would like to change, or even if there were things from last year that you really liked and want to make sure we continue, please drop me an email.

Finally, we've got a poll over on the right column. Please let us know what your threshold is for riding in the cold.

See you next weekend.

No 11/17 Saturday Ride

With morning temps below freezing, there will be no ride this week.

Saturday Ride (No ride 11/10)

Now that we've had our first snow, it's time to consider when we will formally end the Saturday rides for the winter. Please drop me an email and let me know if you would like to keep riding and how cold is too cold (feel free to include a wind chill limit).

Sometime this winter, we were thinking it would be nice to try to get together to see each other and to talk a bit about the ride for next year. I already have contact info for many of the regulars, and I will definitely post an update here if we do anything, but if you drop me an email I will add you to my contact list.

As for this week's ride, there will be no formal ride: it's likely that it will be in the upper 30s even at 9:00 and I'm a bit concerned that the roads will be a mess with the snow that will be melting.

11/3 Saturday Ride

Starting late doesn't look like it will make much difference in the temperature, so we will plan to leave the shop at the normal time tomorrow—just after 8:00 am.

We'll pick the route in the morning, so bring your suggestions.

10/27 Saturday Ride

The ride will start an hour late this week -- 9:00 am -- to give the temps a chance to climb into the 50s. The route will be decided at the start, so bring your suggestions. 

Ride Moved to Sunday 10/21

Nobody responded and I don't want to ride in the rain, so we are going to move the ride to Sunday. We will leave from the shop at 8:00. Bring your suggestion for a route.

10/20 Saturday Ride

Should we move the ride to Sunday this week to take advantage of what will be a much nicer day? My vote is that we move to Sunday, but I'm open to suggestions.

Please leave a comment or drop me an email with your input. I will update this post by 7:00 this evening with the plan.

10/13 Saturday Ride

We will leave at 9:00am this week.

It looks like it will be bright and sunny tomorrow morning, but the temps should be a bit on the chilly side. So, we will plan to leave the shop late to give the sun some time to warm things up a little.

We will pick a route in the morning based on the temperature and the wind.

10/6 Saturday Ride

It looks like we are going to have a dry and a touch chilly window for our ride tomorrow morning. I will be leading the shorter route, which will head out Middle and over to Sligo (MapMyRide route). For those doing the Dempsey Challenge and anyone else who wants to get a few more miles a trip up toward Pineland is an easy extension.

9/29 Saturday Ride

We're going to leave things pretty open this week since the weather looks wet and windy for Saturday and a fair number of people have plans to head to Acadia for the Cadillac Challenge. I am planning to lead the short ride on a nice easy 25-20 mile jaunt (route TBD). If you are interested in leading a longer ride, please drop me an email.

9/22 Saturday Ride

This past weekend was a great riding weekend with lots of cycling options. The few who showed up for the Saturday ride enjoyed a nice doughnut break:

Others opted for beer and chose the Gritty's ride on Sunday:

This week we will continue to put together a long ride for those planning to do the Cadillac Challenge and the Dempsey Challenge. For those of you looking for lodging up near the start of the Cadillac Challenge, the Colony Inn is a good option that is very close to the ride start and has some discounts available to club members on their duplex cottage units. If you call, ask for Kyle, tell him your are heading up for the Cadillac Challenge and that you are with the CCCP in Portland.

The longer ride this week will be an extended variation of the Old Orchard loop we did a few weeks ago (MapMyRide route). There is some construction on the route and there may still be 2 or three sections of unpaved road to contend with on the way to Buxton, but these sections are short and could be paved by now. The shorter loop will be the standard Prout's Neck ride and will split at the end of Highland (MapMyRide route).

We are going to do our best to keep people together, but the ride has been a bit faster as of late and the longer distances can put some breaks in the group. Please review the maps above and do everything you can to make sure you are going to know where you are in the event that you lose contact with the group.

Finally, for these longer rides, please think about your nutrition. You will NEED some calories and some electrolytes during a 70-mile ride so plan accordingly. We will have a planned stop just before we hit Saco so people can refuel and we may stop when we hit Route 1 before heading out to Prout's Neck.

9/15 Saturday Ride

This week is the Loon Echo Trek. I have had a few inquiries into who is planning on doing this ride, so if you are and you are looking for company, drop me an email.

This weekend, there is apparently another ride associated with Gritty's here in the Portland area. The ride is on Sunday, visits three Gritty's locations and was detailed in a Press Herald article. The article links to the doodle signup.

Coming up we also have the Cadillac Challenge, and the Dempsey Challenge.

I'm completely undecided about a route since we aren't sure how many people will be focusing on the Loon Echo and how many would prefer to do the 75-mile Gritty's ride on Sunday. So, we'll pick a route at the shop in the morning.

9/8 Saturday Ride

Summer is now officially behind us and we are on to what is usually the best few weeks of cycling here  in Maine. Now if only we could get the rain out of the forecast for this weekend, we'd be all set.

There are numerous fall rides, but the ones people seem to focus on each year are the Loon Echo Trek, the Cadillac Challenge, and the Dempsey Challenge. To help stretch people out a bit for these rides, the longer route this week will head over to Old Orchard Beach and over to Gorham (MapMyRide route). While I am willing to ride this route rain or shine, we will leave open the possibility to modify the route is the weather is really poor. For those doing the Loon Echo ride, there is also an easy way to bump this route up to a bit over 70 miles if you are looking to get a few more miles in before the ride next weekend.

The shorter loop will do the standard Prout's Neck loop (MapMyRide route). However, I believe we need a volunteer to lead folks on the shorter loop again this week.