# To Wachusett and back



## Marc (Jul 25, 2009)

I'm starting to taper for the PMC, so today was only an 80 mile ride.  I decided, for the hell of it, to ride up to Wachusett to see if the auto road was open.  I wasn't expecting it to be, so you can imagine my surprise when I got there and discovered it was open... after having not really paced myself smartly on the ride up.

Anywho, I snapped some pics with my phone.. it was a nice day.  They're not very exciting photos, but here we go:

View from the top towards Boston:






Picturesque parking lot and radio tower:





The trusty steed at the top, looks good with the new wheels, all cleaned up:





Couldn't take just one picture of my bike... didn't really feel like assaulting an innocent hiker while in Lycra bibs with my jersey unzipped for a photo of my with my bike, but you're probably thankful for that anyway:





Snapped this pic on the way home up on Route 56 of the Worcester Airport runway:





So there you have it.  80 miles, 5500 feet of vertical gain.  Hot as balls, but thankfully not to humid.  And, YAY, the auto road is open again.


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## Zand (Jul 25, 2009)

What route did you take there from Dudley?... Seems you veered off 31 then went back, which I could see with 31 being a pain in the ass in Spencer.


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## Marc (Jul 26, 2009)

Zand said:


> What route did you take there from Dudley?... Seems you veered off 31 then went back, which I could see with 31 being a pain in the ass in Spencer.



Yeah, I went up into Oxford, and took 56 from route 12 in Oxford up through Leicester and I picked up 31 in Paxton.  You're right, the surface condition of 31 through Spencer is horrible.  I can't wait until they finish repaving that.


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## severine (Jul 27, 2009)

Wow, Marc! Impressive!


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## GrilledSteezeSandwich (Jul 27, 2009)

Nice Marc, a couple more rides like this and your pot-belly should start to dissapear


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## Marc (Jul 28, 2009)

GrilledSteezeSandwich said:


> Nice Marc, a couple more rides like this and your pot-belly should start to dissapear



I just need to lay off the booze and hot pockets.  They're just so damn good though.







Actually, I often do drink a beer for a recovery drink.  Lol.


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## Johnskiismore (Jul 28, 2009)

Nice!


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## Marc (Jul 29, 2009)

Here's a map-






and a historgram-






for anyone who is interested.


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## mlctvt (Jul 29, 2009)

Nice ride and trip report Marc, especially difficult if it was just you riding?  Usually my wife and I share the pulling which makes it much easier than riding alone. 
I guess I should post some Road bike trips too. I should have done a trip report for the Northeast Kingdom century ride we did around Jay peak back in June but I forgot my camera.


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## Trev (Jul 29, 2009)

Good stuffage


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## Marc (Jul 29, 2009)

mlctvt said:


> Nice ride and trip report Marc, especially difficult if it was just you riding?  Usually my wife and I share the pulling which makes it much easier than riding alone.
> I guess I should post some Road bike trips too. I should have done a trip report for the Northeast Kingdom century ride we did around Jay peak back in June but I forgot my camera.



Thanks... I always ride alone so I have very little basis for comparison.  I only do a few group rides a season, although lately I've been doing a short ride out of Barney's in Worcester on Monday night as a recovery ride.  It's slow, no drop, but forces me to ride slow and recover and I get to BS with the owner of Barney's.

Anyhoo, I actually didn't bring my camera with me, I snapped those with my cell phone, although it takes a descent picture for what it is.

I've been trying to get my girlfriend to ride more and more, but she's a runner first, so the more I get her to ride, the more I have to run to keep things on equal footing and... I don't really like running.  Not in the summer anyway.  I'll run in the winter.


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## awf170 (Jul 29, 2009)

I fixed your histogram for you....






That 14,000 ft. HC climb in the middle of the ride must have been a killer with an average grade of 28% and everything.


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## Marc (Jul 29, 2009)

Austin, your skills with MS Paint continue to amaze me.

Hey, maybe with all the riding I'm doing this summer, I might actually be able to do a 5,000 foot day on Washington without dragging ass like I did the last time.  Since I now have something later in the summer to train for, I'm going to just keep on riding.


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## mlctvt (Jul 30, 2009)

Marc said:


> I've been trying to get my girlfriend to ride more and more, but she's a runner first, so the more I get her to ride, the more I have to run to keep things on equal footing and... I don't really like running.  Not in the summer anyway.  I'll run in the winter.



Good move. When I first met my wife she was a runner too. She biked a little but not much. We started slowly, I think our first ride together was about 10 flat miles. Now she's really into cycling and we ride about 4000-5000 miles per year. 
The interesting thing is she got me into skiing and diving, so I didn't have to take up running again.


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## cullenking (Jul 30, 2009)

This is Cullen, one of the founders of http://ridewithgps.com/ (where the elevation profile image is from).  Just saw some traffic coming through to the site from this forum and decided to say thanks for using the service!  If there is anything you think could make the service better, don't hesitate to drop me a message on the site.  We are happy to take user suggestions and feature requests, so don't be shy.  Enjoy the weather!


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## Marc (Jul 30, 2009)

Oh yeah, I shoulda plugged ridewithgps.com when I posted the photos, didn't even think of it.


Give that site some traffic, it's a really nice interface and works fast.  Much better than mapmyride.


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