Ride Reports and News

5 riders today, Justine, Jaime Davila, Jim B, Jonathan Wallender and Kent Johnson. We rode  40 miles and 1,000 feet of climbing from Keyes street in Florence to Old Deerfield, (where Jim had never been), and back. We took a break at the Deerfield convenience store:(really nice proprietor) and discussed the pros and cons of various protein bars ( scintillating!)

Jim B lives in Alexandria VA and is visiting his parents in West Springfield. He googled local riding clubs and found NCC!! He is also skilled at taking pictures from a moving bicycle ( I dont recommend this - but he got some good ones!).  the weather was amazing, fresh, sunny, 70 degrees, and though there was a head wind going out, we had a light tailwind the whole way home. Fast pace for this C ride, averaging 15.1 mph with lots of teamwork!

Just Tim and I rode Monday morning, a fun, relatively fast ride, 35 miles of 'Meandering Monday', averaging 14.8 mph with ~2,000 ft of climbing. Tim pulled essentially the whole way--he's stronger, and had fresher legs-- so I 'let' him.!  

We had a quick  stop at Outlook Farm at 20  miles, having completed most of our climbing and were back home before 11 am, beating the heat of the day.  ( Tim rode further having come from home to the Keyes street meeting spot) 

Maybe it was the hot weather, maybe it was busy August schedules, or maybe nobody just likes doing the long TT, but we had very light turnout for tonight's race in Hatfield/Whately. Melissa, Shawn, and I were the only ones at the start. We rolled north with the benefit of a light tailwind, which felt like a bit of a stronger headwind after the turnaround. Melissa had to contend with a couple of strange vehicle interactions, and everyone reported feeling sapped on the return leg.

Despite the heat, Shawn managed to beat his previous best time by 13 seconds, and edged me out by a couple of seconds to take the win. Madeline and Tim rode earlier in the day, when it was even hotter, and Tim managed to turn in an impressive PR, taking 1:20 off his best time.

Despite being out of town and not racing tonight, Andy retains the men's lead in the overall series, and Madeline maintains a slight edge over Melissa on the women's side. I have somehow managed to sneak into the lead in the TT series, a situation that won't last long once Andy and Frank get back, and Madeline also leads Melissa in the women's TT standings.

Next week is the Route 66 hillclimb, going up to the Huntington town line. Hope to see you there!

Full series results are available here.

We had four riders turn up tonight, with Beth & James, another Beth, and Stephanie joining Ari and me for our Easthampton loop on a lovely evening. We rolled through the bike path to Easthampton, appreciating the brush-clearing effort that has beaten back most of the vegetation that has been threatening to engulf the path for the last few weeks.

After a quick climb on Glendale Rd, we also enjoyed the nice fresh pavement and gradual descent on Pomeroy Meadow Rd, before turning onto Park Hill Rd for the climb up to the orchard. Beth was struggling with the heat by that point, and we had to take a bit of a break. The folks at Park Hill were super-friendly, with water and offers to assist. Mike, one of the artists from Art in the Orchard, was also on hand with a pickup truck, offering a ride. Eventually we decided to take him up on his offer, so we loaded up Beth's and my bikes into the truck for the ride back down to NoHo, while Ari continued with the rest of the group.

We all arrived back at Sheldon Field at around the same time, with Beth feeling better by that point. We didn't manage to take a group photo, so I'll leave you with a lovely shot of Mike Perusse's installation at the 2023 Art in the Orchard, called "Bird Show". He has an installation at this year's show as well, so be sure to check it out -- the 2025 Art in the Orchard opens this weekend, and runs through Thanksgiving (more info here). Thanks for your help, Mike!

Joe Lellman designed and led this week's SMR B ride.  This new NCC website is a bit of a challenge to navigate, so I am posting Joe's report he sent out via email below, and I am adding a couple of photos I took along the way. (I loved the route and especially enjoyed the new climb up Bush Rd.)

We had glorious weather for this demanding Hilltown SMR loop. We began the ride at JFK, which worked out very well in general, and for me in particular, as I live just about 1 mile from there. Since we were heading west, we avoided downtown roads and traffic.

We had nine riders at the start, including: Wendy K., Tim C, Madelyn N., Michael B, John and Robert Whalen (in their flashy Sleepy Hollow kit), yours truly, Shawn L., and a guy named Luca, who left the group during the climb on 143 to Chesterfield.

We took South St to Burgy, then the 143 climb to Chesterfield. We continued down to the bottom of the Gorge, and up 143 to Worthington. We stopped at the General Store there to refuel, and where Shawn changed a flat tire. Then, continued north on 143 to Rte 9. Left in Cummington and eventually Bush Rd and West Rd, which was a nice, rolling climb with minimal car traffic and lots of shade. None of us had ever been on this road before, so I suggested re-naming it Lellman Lane. From there, we climbed up 116 to Plainfield, then down 116 to 112. The two Whalen triplets continued on 116 from there, and we took Steady Lane and Creamery in Ashfield, then Ashfield Rd back to Burgy. Home on South St and Audubon. I had 58.5 miles, and 4,648 feet of elevation, and a ride time of 3:52:14. It was good.

On a smoky, hazy night, ten of us gathered in the center of Pelham to tackle tonight's hillclimb. Ryan likened the atmosphere to a smoker's lounge, and with all the haze from the Canadian wildfires, it almost felt that way.

Given the poor air quality, we made a consensus decision to just ride easy up the hill, and then have a sprint finish at the top.

Just kidding. Instead, Shawn decided to launch an attack right off the starting line, and opened up a big gap on the group. Which suprised me, because normally Ryan would chase down an attack like that, but he had a lot of trouble clipping in, and was still pedaling with one leg about thirty seconds into the race. Which surprised me, because normally Andy is the one who has trouble clipping in, but he seemed to do OK with it tonight.

Anyway, Ryan eventually managed to get his pedals straightened out (I guess -- or maybe he just rode the whole thing with one leg), and disappeared up the road ahead of me. Most of the rest of the group managed to catch Shawn on the early part of the climb, only to have him go rocketing by again on the flatter middle section. There were some close finishes up near the front of the group, but I didn't see any of it, as I was trying to cling to Melissa's wheel and failing to come around past her at the finish.

We crossed paths with Andy R near the bottom of the hill, he must have just missed the start, and rode up solo, which is always challenging. Tim also did a solo run earlier in the day, hopefully the air quality was better for him.

Garret had the night's only PR, by eight seconds. Sam remains in the lead in the men's hillclimb series, while Melissa clings to a narrow lead over Madeline on the women's side. In the overall series, Andy remains on top of the men's standings, and it's Madeline who is just slightly ahead of Melissa for the women.

Tonight's results:

Full series results are available here.

We had a great group of ten tonight for our Hatfield loop -- Susan, Sheri, Clarisa, Carl, Adam and Steve joined newcomers Stephanie and Beth, along with me and Ari. Steve had a bit of trouble with his seatpost at the north end of Industrial Drive, but Carl and Clarisa once again came to the rescue with the tools he needed. After that it was smooth sailing through the backroads of Hatfield, although the smoky haze from the Canadian wildfires obscured the views a bit. We rolled back into Sheldon Field around 7:15 PM with 17 miles at an average pace of around 12 mph.

Our Monday Night Intro Ride series will continue for three more weeks, through the end of August. Next week we'll do the Easthampton loop -- hope you'll join us!

For a third week in a row, I volunteered to lead the SMR B as Austin has been recovering from an injury.  

I was thrilled to see that Saturday’s weather was finally going to be a break from the 100 degree temperatures and saturating humidity. I chose a route heading north up to Bernardston and Lyden, with the main event climbing the Eden Trail, which I have ridden and lead rides up there several times.

At home, as I was kitting up, it was 51 degrees (F) at 7:30 AM. It felt cold! I tried not to complain, given the aforementioned 100 degrees. I was fussing over putting on arm warmers or a windbreaker. I settled with a windbreaker- which I think was the right choice for the ride into Northampton. Once I arrived at Pulaski Park, the air had warmed, and so had I. It was a bit of a pain to carry the windbreaker with me all day. Sort of wished I had toughed it out from home.

Nine riders gathered to take on my route. It was sunny, clear, and definitely a top 10 weather day for the cycling season. About half the group were regulars this season, but the other half, I have not seen in quite some time, so it was great to have this mix in the group.

We had a good steady paceline on River Rd until we crossed over in Sunderland, where it broke up a bit with the risers and drops.

The Deerfield end of the bikepath led us by the Turners Falls canal and up to the Connecticut river. A short climb into Gill found us on some nice side roads, including Hoe Shop Rd- which has a short dirt section- very well maintained.

Once in Bernardston, we turned onto the main feature of the day, the Eden Trail Climb.  This is about 3.5 miles over 750 feet in elevation. Takes you by beautiful farms and views into Lyden.  When we thought we were done, nope, a left turn took us up one more sharp climb- Frizzle Hill, with a beautiful view at the top.

The descent down Frizzle, was a bit "frizzling" for me, at least.  Cross winds and deep dish aero wheels are not a great combo.  At the bottom we met up with Eric W, who intended to ride with us, but did the route in the other direction.  We debated which direction was better and parted ways. (my vote gets Eden Up, Frizze down!)

From there it was mostly downhill- we turned off to cross the covered bridge over the Green river and paused for a photo op.

From here, it was off to a quick stop at Harper's store to refuel, and then "the home stretch".  Except, the road was closed on my planned return leg in Greenfield.  So I used my brain (no electronics) to get us back on track- no choice but having to weave in rotary traffic, and ended up taking Upper Rd instead of Lower Rd.

As you may know, I don't take the easy way home!  Instead of heading through Deerfield and the "flats"- we went home via Whatley and the climbs into Haydenville, complete with the final climb up N. Farms Road to make it an honest day on the bike.

We rolled into Florence a bit later than I planned (1 PM), with 67 miles, 3383' and 16.3 MPH average for the route. 

With the temperature hovering at around a million degrees, we had six hardy souls who showed up for the start of the Short TT this evening. While we huddled in the shade of the one tree on Sugarloaf St at the start, we got to hear about Madeline's exploits this past weekend, whereby she set a *16 minute* PR in the grueling Sea to Summit Triathlon. She swam 1.6 miles on the Maine coast, rode her bike 95 miles to Mount Washington (with 6,000' of climbing along the way), and then hiked/ran another five miles to the summit (gaining another 4,300'). "It was OK", she said, with her characteristic modesty, not mentioning the fact that she finished second in her age group and seventh female overall. (Another shout-out to fellow NCC triathlete Alicia Wendowloski, who also scored a top-ten AG finish).

(Also, after racing across Maine and New Hampshire and climbing the highest mountain in New England, Madeline sprained her ankle this morning while walking her dog, and still managed to show up for tonight's race. How was your ankle, she was asked after the race. "It was OK".)

In the "managing adversity" category, Shawn also gets a shout-out. He started 30 seconds behind me, and I kept wondering why he hadn't passed me yet. Turns out he flatted in downtown Hatfield, his second TT incident in the past few weeks, after crashing in Deerfield in June. He patched it up and managed to finish though, big kudos.

The biggest kudos of the night, though, go to Tim, who rode the TT earlier at probably the hottest point of the day. "I was feeling a bit dizzy" afterward, he said, due to the heat, and so he decided to show up at the group ride finish with a cooler full of ice-cold drinks. The cold water and ice packs felt like manna from heaven on this steamy night. Thanks Tim, you win this year's Nobel Refreshment Prize!

Tonight's results:

Place	Name	Time	Points
1	Charles Mathers	20:20	8
2	Patrick Sullivan	21:08	7
3	Jonathan O'Keeffe	22:30	6
4	Andy MacDonald	22:36	5
5	Madeline Nagy	23:52	4
6	Joe Lellman	25:22	3
7	Tim Pitkin	25:45	2
8	Shawn Lakota	26:45	1

Full season results are here: https://www.nohobikeclub.org/Time-Trial/Hill-Climb-Series

We scored another beautiful night tonight for the second week in a row, perhaps the first time this season that we've managed to string together two weeks of good weather. Adam, Beth, Sheri, Susan, and Carl & Clarisa joined Ari and me for our Northampton loop. This route is 16.5 miles, featuring a decent-sized initial climb on Burt's Pit Rd, followed by some rollers on Sylvester Rd, and then a long gradual descent on the bike path to the finish. Susan was celebrating her birthday, and Mark & Sheri brought a dozen fabulous cupcakes to share with the group at the finish -- a great way to wrap up the ride!