Ride Reports: Formaggio Kitchen & Smolak Farms

Remember how I mentioned earlier in the week that I’m a freelancer and I can make my own schedule, so I have a bit more flexibility to fit in rides to build experience/practice, etc.?

Wrong. Not this week, anyhow. Picked up a new project on Mon that had to be done on Fri, plus I had some existing work, so I worked my butt off this week and didn’t get to go for a single ride. Yesterday afternoon, around 4PM, I had been really productive and gotten a lot done, so I gave myself a choice between working another hour and being done when the SO got home, or going for a ride and then having that extra hour of work to do in the evening.

I’d been off the bike for 6 days at that point. I chose a ride.

Formaggio Kitchen

I wanted to go somewhere close, as I’m still not all that comfortable with speed. Alas, I decided to go out during rush hour, but that really doesn’t bother me in the city. Yeah, it’s a lot of starting and stopping, but it was really slow anyway – speeds I’m comfortable with. Was good practice for me – gave me a lot of chances to practice starting out from a dead stop, since I’m still new to this whole clutch thing, and I got some practice on starting out from a stop on a hill. (That? Trivial, but still kinda sucks. I get that you have to hold the brake and give it some extra gas, but it turns out that the first time I tried this, I thought I had downshifted but was still in second, so I was in second AND on a hill – managed to stall the bike. Luckily traffic was moving really slow, and was stopped again ahead of me, so it wasn’t a big deal.)

So I decided to go to Formaggio Kitchen, which is about 3.5ish miles from my house. But it was in heavy stop-and-go traffic, so it took me a little over 30 mins each way. I got up to 35MPH at one point, and was actually fine with it – not nearly as nervous about corners and stuff. Arrived at Formaggio Kitchen and did a little U-turn to get into a parking spot, that actually got unnecessarily complicated because there was a drainage cover recessed into the curb that jutted about 2 feet into the road (about the size of a man-hole cover, but drainage) and it had sunk WAY down so there was a big lip. I realized it at the last minute and tried walking the bike around it, but got too close and lost my balance and the bike went down standing still. No new damage, and I’m relieved to find that I can pick the bike up from a drop even when I’m not loaded with adrenaline, but I looked and felt like an idiot.

Went in, got some nice cheeses to enjoy with the lady, and then came home. Simple ride to a local destination – I knew all the roads, so I wasn’t worried about surprises, just traffic – and the ride was awesome. Even in stop-and-go traffic. Left me grinning from ear to ear. I wanted more. That’s what I was expecting when I got a bike (before I went down) – that riding would leave me grinning from ear to ear. It was awesome, even though it was a 7-mile local ride across town.

I felt a lot better about the bike after yesterday’s ride, and felt more in-control of it than I have since I started riding. (I was slightly intimidated at first – felt like the bike was rolling along and I was just a passive passenger.) Yesterday, I felt like I was controlling the bike – my shifting was smoother, my speed and acceleration were smoother, my braking was good – I felt good about riding at low speeds (up to 35MPH) and decided it was time to tackle my next mental hurdle: going faster.

Smolak Farms

I’ve been antsy about speed on the bike. Get me above 40MPH, and I’m suddenly WAY outside my comfort zone. Add to that, since I went down in a curve, curves make me anxious. So I decided that today I would tackle this in a bigger way: I rode up to Smolak Farms. It’s not a particularly notable destination – just a cute little farm that has become a major tourist trap, which happens to have really good cider donuts. I’ve been there a couple of times, so I kinda know how to get there, and I found a route that would take me on a little more city driving, out through the burbs, along a couple of state highways and on back roads.

I was fine on the city driving out through the burbs. I really don’t mind riding along through the city. My route took me through Wakefield and around Lake Quannapowitt, which was interesting (the pic on the front page of that link is the road I took) – downtown by the lake was annoying because the speed limit was like 20MPH and cars and people were being very unpredictable – running across the road, stopping and reversing direction unexpectedly, pulling out of and into parking spaces – was an annoying little tourist place. And the road along the lake itself was a bit windy. The lake is really pretty, but I was too busy stressing about the traffic/speed/people/curves to really enjoy it, which was sad.

I had forgotten that there’s a Honeydew Donuts at the far side of the lake where Harley riders congregate, and I got a few head shakes on my little Ninja in full riding gear from the t-shirt and jeans Harley riders. I wanted to shake my head back at them. I low-sided and got up and rode away. They would have ended up in the hospital.

After that, there was a little highway riding, but it was a state highway that went through a lot of little towns and residential areas, so the speed was pretty slow (25MPH to 45MPH most of the way). Even so, there was a surprising amount of traffic – I left at 8:30AM on a Saturday to try to get out before there’d be too much traffic – but even at like 9:00-9:15, there was a lot. And they all wanted to go fast. And this being a state highway, there were a lot of curves and stuff. Nothing gave me trouble, but they still made me anxious – especially at 45MPH. I just kept telling myself “LEAN! Don’t even think about braking – just LEAN! The bike can handle it! LEAN!” It helped.

Road degenerated and I missed my turn. The road at that point was through thickly forested areas, with lots of hills and curves – very nervous-making for me. It was beautiful countryside, though, and I was able to enjoy the pretty – particularly when the road was traffic-free (which was rare) and I could move along at my own pace without worrying about people riding my bumper for going like 5MPH over the posted speed.

On the downside: I had my first run-in with furry forest creatures. I was riding along at about 35-40MPH with some guy behind me – not too close but close enough that I felt pressed to go a bit faster than I was really comfortable with. I saw what I thought was a leaf starting to blow across the road, but I realized as my bike came closer and closer to intersecting with its path that it was actually a fast-moving chipmunk.

I had a tiny fraction of a second to decide what to do about it – the ideas of swerving or braking flashed through my mind – but in that split second, I had visions of me low-siding again, or running off the road into the woods, or falling to be crushed by the car behind me – and I decided that if it was me or him, the chipmunk could bite it. I kept rolling along without altering my path or speed, and I didn’t feel any impact. I’d like to think it made it by me. I had an adrenaline spike, but didn’t get too bad – not like the time I hit those dear in my car in 2000 – and just kept on riding. So at least I didn’t freak out/panic and dump me and the bike, which I consider a positive development.

I finally arrived at Smolak Farms, and I’ve gotta admit that at that point I didn’t particularly want to get back on the bike. I’d felt pressured by the traffic behind me to go faster than I wanted to go on the road – with all the curves, holes, bumps, grooves and unpredictable-ness – and that stressed me out big time. I went inside, bought some cider donuts and a coffee, and called the gf. She had just gotten her bike inspected, and was ready to head up to meet me if I’d be willing to wait around for a half hour. I agreed, because a break sounded good, I had just gotten a coffee, and I didn’t particularly want to get back on the bike. I read and drank my coffee and had a donut, and then went outside and sat in the sun waiting for her. She got there about 45 minutes later, and grabbed a drink, and we sat on picnic tables for a bit and talked about our respective rides. Her GPS had routed her along the interstate and major state highways, and she said it was a nice ride.

I had the task of deciding how to come home. If I still wasn’t comfortable going fast, I could lead us back along the back roads, with the curvy and the crap roads and the suburban traffic. Much of the stuff that had stressed me out coming up. Or we could go back her way – on the highway and then the interstate. I still wasn’t sure if I was ready for the interstate. I’d gone around 50MPH at one point on the way up, but mostly was still most comfortable under 40MPH. This route would require me to go on a highway where I’d be expected to go 55-60 most of the time, and then an interstate (I-93) where I’d be expected to go 70-80MPH.

I decided that the interstate was a mental hurdle I needed to overcome, so I opted for highway to interstate. I wasn’t comfortable with the idea, but it was a discomfort born more out of a fear of bad things that could happen at that speed – not fear of the bike or my ability to handle it. Turns out that the highway portion that led to the interstate was trivial. I hadn’t been comfortable going fast before, but it was a nice, big, wide highway. I was regularly going 50MPH, and was doing an indicated 60+ at times. Luckily, we were behind some slower folks much of the way, so I didn’t feel quite so pressured to go faster, but I really didn’t mind the speed on that road. There wasn’t really anything unpredictable, and the road was a lot better than the roads I’d taken to get up to Smolak Farms.

Then we came to the interstate.

First of all, I’m worried about interstate entrances/exits. A lot of the on-ramps onto I-93 north of Boston are big curvy ramps, and I’ve gone too fast on them in cars several times and had to brake to get my speed under control. I’m now well aware of the fact that I can’t brake in a turn on the bike, so I took the on-ramp at like 20-25MPH and I’m sure I annoyed the people behind me. It was the only way I could feel safe, though, and part of why I want to avoid interstates is wanting to avoid the exit.

When I hit the straight part of the ramp onto the interstate itself, I quickly shifted up a bunch of gears and got on the throttle. It took me a bit longer than I think was absolutely necessary to get up to speed, but I’m still not used to going so fast out of the gate. I ended up riding all the way home on I-93 with my engine RPMs around 7k-8k and I’m pretty sure I should have shifted up another gear, but I was kinda petrified.

Being on the interstate is no fun, I’ve decided. Going that fast doesn’t feel comfortable to me. The bike did it happily, but it was windy and I did get blown around in my lane a little. The weather forecast says it’s a 5-10MPH wind with gusts up to 20 today, but the gf followed me home once we got on the highway, and she said the wind was trivial. Which makes me really anxious about REAL wind. Whenever I felt the wind pushing me around in my lane, I mentally told myself to ease up on my grip on the handlebars, because I know that my body movements get transferred to the handlebars wicked easy. I’ve read a lot about newbies navigating the wind on the interstate, and problems are almost universally the result of newbies having a death-grip on the bars and transmitting every little buffet down to the bike. So I kept telling myself to ease off, and it wasn’t so bad.

I did get up to an indicated 75MPH once, but most of the time I was going 60MPH to 70MPH. I got in the second lane over from the right (which wasn’t the middle, as it’s 4 lanes at that point) and ended up behind a woman in a car going kinda slow-ish, which I was totally ok with. The bike felt pretty stable – I just wasn’t particularly comfortable with going those speeds. I kept seeing other bikers pass me in a leather jacket and jeans, or a t-shirt and jeans, and reminding myself that bikers ride on the interstate all the time and it’s really no big deal. It wasn’t particularly pleasant, but it also wasn’t the “ZOMG I’M GOING TO DIE!!!!” high-speed death trap that I think I was mentally expecting.

I can never remember what exit to get off when I’m coming back into Boston, so I accidentally ended up getting in the lane for North Station (which is the one into the city proper, instead of the ‘burbs) and it was stopped like a mile before the exit. Traffic was just packed. So I got to sit in stop-and-go traffic on the interstate for like a mile to get to the exit. More chances to practice riding along in first, starting from a dead stop, and stopping on a hill.

Made it safely home.

When I got to Smolak Farms, I didn’t particularly want to get back on the bike to come home, but when I got home, I would happily have done more riding. So going on the highway + interstate turned out to be less stressful than dealing with the crappy back roads and traffic.

Thoughts

Riding a bike is definitely a learning curve, and I can see myself progressing along it. When I first started riding, I worried about things like shifting and stalling the bike. Now, I worry about things like going too fast into curves (largely, I’m sure, due to crashing in a curve) and going too fast in areas where I don’t know the road, or may have to decelerate suddenly. Things like unfamiliar roads with a 50+MPH worry me, because I don’t know where to expect curves or whether they’re bad or whether the road dips or whatever. And interstate on-ramps and exits worry me because of the curves and the sudden acceleration/deceleration.

I think, at this point, it’s just going to take some riding and getting over the mental hurdles in my head that the crash put there. If you’d asked me last weekend to take the bike on the interstate, I would have said “NO WAY!” I did it today, and would do it again, although I’d prefer to do it where I know the on-ramps and off-ramps. (And would still prefer not to do it, but it doesn’t have quite the same dread for me as it once did.)

I love my gear on the bike. Everything fits well and makes me feel safer. The only problem I had was today I wore the ear plugs with the helmet for the first time, and the right ear plug pushed against my helmet and hurt my ear. I need to get different ear plugs that don’t stick out as far. I love my pants, and I love my boots, and the jacket, gloves and helmet. Off the bike, I still love my boots and pants, but the jacket is big and awkward to carry, and the helmet is just a PITA to figure out what to do with it.

I particularly love the boots because twice now they’ve saved my right foot – first when I went down in my low-side, and then again yesterday at Formaggio Kitchen when I tipped the bike over. My right boot got caught between my bike and the curb, and I had to do some serious pushing to get the bike off my foot. But if I hadn’t been wearing good boots, the bike would have crushed my foot against the curb, and my foot would have been seriously fucked up – just from losing my balance and letting the bike fall over.

Yay for gear. I love gear. ATGATT just makes sense to me, and it’s the only thing that keeps me from being petrified of riding under any circumstances.