JP Bikes rides to beautiful Farm Pond in Sherborn this Sunday August 23rd. Bring lunch and a suit so you can take a dip in the pond. It’s about 18 miles each way with some rolling hills too so this ride is more suited for those with some experience with longer distance rides. I expect we’ll average around 15 mph, so not too slow or too fast.
If you really want to go but are concerned with the speed or distance, the commuter rail stop in Natick is six miles from the pond and there are lots of good roads for biking in this area. Reply to this email if you’re interested in doing this and I’ll look into a good route.
Meet at Ferris Wheels at 10 am. -Bob
We’re a bit tapped out from the ROCK, Roll, and Ride planning, so Sunday’s ride to Blue Hills is postponed. It’s supposed to be a nice day so do get out and ride. If you need a recommendation on how to get down to the Blue Hills, where to ride, and what to do, send us an email (Contact Us link above).
Also, our Deer Island ride is being merged with the MassBike and Rozzie Bikes ride so is now on Saturday the 25th. See the link in our calendar to the right on this page.
Perhaps not unexpected given the weather in June, but our trip to Cape Ann was misty. But that’s OK since it’s still a very nice ride in the mist. Like Scotland I suppose (I’ve never been). And it never really rained so we were comfortable riding. Jeffrey Ferris even jumped in the ocean. We had five take the train to Rockport and then ride down to the beach in Manchester, and we had five riders ride to Manchester from Boston. The bike train was great, although we were all stumped on the correct usage of the Thule bike racks screwed to the ends of the bike car. All in all a great day, maybe we’ll do it again on a nice sunny day! Let us know if you want to go and I’m sure some will join you.
At the Manchester train station
The train home wasn’t a bike train, but there’s always a car with a bunch of space on one end for bikes, so we piled them up.
Department of Conservation and Recreation
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
and the Emerald Necklace Conservancy
PUBLIC MEETING
ON
JAMAICA POND
PEDESTRIAN ACCESS ENHANCEMENTS
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Arnold Arboretum Visitors Center/Hunnewell Building
125 Arborway, Boston
At the meeting, design alternatives for safer pedestrian crossings to Jamaica Pond will be presented, and public input sought, for the following three locations:
• Jamaicaway at Eliot Street
• Parkman Drive at Kelley Circle
• Parkman Drive at the Parkman Memorial
If you have questions about the public meeting, please email DCR.Updates@state.ma.us or call 617-626-4974.
Summer biking to Cape Ann Sunday June 28th! It’s supposed to warm up this weekend finally! Take your bike on the MBTA’s Bike Train. The bike train has a special car with bike racks replacing the passenger seats along one side of the car. Two ride options are available:
One group will take the 10:15 AM bike train from North Station to Rockport. Meet at Ferris Wheels at 9:00 am or meet at North Station in time for the train. This group will then ride the coastal route from Rockport to Manchester, where we will go to Singing Beach to eat and swim (if you can brave the cold water!). The bike trip is about 18 miles.
The other group will not take the train to Rockport but instead ride all the way to Manchester (about 30 miles). This group should still meet at Ferris Wheels at 9. You might be interested in this route if you’ve always wanted to know how to ride northeast from Boston through Chelsea, Everett, and Revere.
Both groups can hang out at the beach, or consider more riding. And then, both groups will take the train back to Boston. The 2:21 train is not supposed to be a bike train, but bikes are allowed and there is often plenty of room. The 5:31 train from Manchester is a bike train.
At the moment the weather is calling for scattered thunderstorms. We will only call the ride off if it is raining in the morning and/or if there is a good chance of prolonged rain during our ride. It’s the summer, and it will be hard to avoid this kind of weather. You can call Bob at 617-947-2721 on Sunday morning to see if we’re going.
Please RSVP to Matthew at mdemarrais@yahoo.com and let him know which ride you would like to do.
The T-shirts that we sold at the Spring Roll are available for sale at Ferris Wheels for $10. They come in the green color shown, as well as a natural color.
Our first event – the “Spring Roll!” bike parade and celebration – was a great success this morning. We estimate 140 riders came to the South Street Mall and rode the festive loop. Some pictures are up on the “Spring Roll!” page in this blog (linked above). More pictures will be posted soon. If you took any pictures, let me know and I’ll put them up too.
Special thanks to:
The District E-13 “Safe Street Team” of the Boston Police Dept
City Feed, Fiore’s, and the Harvest Coop
Ferris Wheels and Bikes not Bombs
The city’s Bike Boston initiative
Stay tuned for our next event next month:
Summer biking in Rockport! Sunday June 28th, take your bike on the MBTA’s Bike Train. See Halibut Point and enjoy the ocean. Ride will leave from Jamaica Plain or meet us at North Station. Train departs at 10:15 AM.
On May 10th we roll! Get the word out!
The first annual JP Bikes “Spring Roll” is on May 10th, so get the word out! It’s a bike ride/parade and mini festival right in the heart of JP at the South Street Mall (South and Carolina). We’ve got our permits and are ramping up promotion. Stay tuned for a meeting announcement for April 30th and look for our flyer (copied below) to be posted all over JP storefronts soon. We need everyone to talk it up in advance and volunteer, so please join our group if you haven’t already.
Click on this link or on the “Spring Roll” tab above for a map and other details.
First . . .
We’ve got a general meeting tomorrow, Tuesday 3/10/09 from 7-8 pm at the Agassiz School, 20 Child St., JP, MA 02130. Come join us and get involved with any one of our great committees – media (website and outreach), education, advocacy, rides and events, and more!
Specifically we’re looking for volunteers to help add a forum to our website, so y’all can start talking directly to each other, planning your own rides, and whatever else your cycling heart desires. We’re also in need of volunteers to help take our Spring Ride to the next level. It’s currently on for May 10th, with the blessing of the City of Boston’s bike coordinator, Nicole Freedman. We need youth coordinators, bike decorating volunteers, and loads more people to make this a success, so please come to the meeting and sign up to help out!
Next . . .
Come join JP Bikes and a plethora of other local JP businesses and non-profits at the Milky Way this Wednesday, 3/1//09 from 7 – 9 pm for the Neighbors for Neighbors info night!
You can speak to one of our members one-on-one about everything JP bikes has to offer, plus find out more information about our upcoming all-ages Spring Ride on May 10th. Also, join us on the NFN site and check out all the other great local groups online while you’re there!
Hope you’re weathering the storm today and we’ll see you at the meeting and the Milky Way!
JP itself boasts great places to bike, such as the Southwest Corridor path, the Jamaicaway path, the Arboretum, and Franklin Park. However, it can be quite daunting trying to bike from JP to elsewhere within and near Boston. Our intention for creating the map was to show places to ride within Jamaica Plain and offer suggested routes for getting from JP to various places of interest. The map, which is available as a tab on the top of each page, is intended to be a “living” document, and your input is not only welcome but necessary. I don’t claim to know the best route from JP to South Station, since I still get lost or get caught on one way roads!
Our education committee will brainstorm to come up with the most common destinations and agree on one or more routes to get there by bike. In the near future, our intent is to implement a “forum” on the maps page which will provide a convenient mechanism for site visitors to comment on map routes, suggest new ones, or request that we provide a suggested route to a destination of the visitor’s choice. For now, you can add comments to this blog post to do any of these things.
The map itself is available from a tab at the top of this page, and can is also at this link.
