After Providence it was off to do a little exploring in Boston. I learned a few things for the three days I spent there. Monday I spent half the day sleeping, then cruising around the suburbs for a recovery spin, hung out with my Cousin’s (by marriage) 3 year old daughter, and slept hard that night. Tuesday I had this grand plan for a bike ride, after my bike was fixed (remember I had to pit to my "b" bike on the 2nd day of Providence). I was recommended to head to the Ride Studio Café in Lexington, MA to get my bike taken care of by Mike Berlinger. Brendan, aka cousin, drove me from Melrose to Lexington and my plan was to go for a ride and do some intervals out there and then ride back to the house.
First things first, if you are ever in the Boston area, and you love bikes and are addicted to coffee, you HAVE to go to the Ride Studio Café. This place is the coolest bike shop/café combo I have ever seen (and the first)! Bellingham needs one, really bad. Mike took amazing care of my bike and got her back into working order and he even planned a route for me! He mapped out the route, and we sent it to my really smart Garmin 500 (hint of sarcasm). I turned on my courses function and went about on my ride. It was working great, I ended up on a road and the map function told me I wouldn’t turn for another 15 miles, awesome! About 3 minutes after seeing that I encountered a stop sign, and could only turn left or right. This is when everything went seriously wrong, I mean seriously wrong, and all of the sudden I was off course, no matter what direction I rode.
Keytar Bear is his name…so I hear. A Boston Staple.
Sometimes I like to pretend I know where I'm going, most of the time I have no idea. I rode and I rode, thinking I was going somewhere and I would find a beautiful marvelous road to do my intervals on. Then I ended up in some small like town that looked like an easy place to get lost in. That's when I decided I should call Mike. He gave me a great road to do some intervals on, it went by the Hanscom airport. I went back and forth, back and forth, and then it was time to go home. I was pretty convinced I followed his instructions very well, and I come upon a road that looked quite busy, and wasn't very bicycle friendly, so I went straight across it, and into a line up of cars stopping at some guard shack. I decided since I wasn't a car, I didn't need stop, and I just cruised on by. Then I heard a "MAM, MAM, MAAAAAAM, STOP!!!". First off, I'm not a mam, but I did stop. Then this man in a full on Military outfit came running at me. He asked me for some ID and my first response was "well, thank goodness I brought that with me today", because sometimes I forget things like that. So I dig into my back pocket, pull out my plastic baggie and hand him my WA state drivers license. He looks at it with a confused look, then says to me "do you have a military badge" and now we trade looks and mine becomes extremely confused and I respond with "a what"? He quickly responds as he points to his lovely outfit "This is a military base, you need a military badge to enter, you are not welcome here". I reply "Well, clearly I'm not from here and I'm very confused". He then asks me where I'm trying to go and he points me in the right direction, yes he tells me I need to go ride on that really busy looking road. I told him it didn't look very bike friendly and that couldn't possibly be where I needed to go. He firmly told me it was, he was correct. I eventually made it back to the shop safe and sound, after having some words with a women on the side walk who told me I was going to get a ticket for riding my bike on the side walk.
The next part of the journey was getting from Lexington to Melrose, and a journey it was. I only made a few wrong/missed turns, but eventually (1 hour to be exact) I made it back to the house. That adventure was really very exhausting. I decided my next days ride was going to be in circles around the house. And that's just what I did.
Wednesday was my all time favorite day. I took the subway into Boston and spent the day cruising the streets of Boston by foot and bike. We stopped by the Harpoon Brewery, took the subway to the college district (okay I know it has a better name, but I was surrounded by college kids), saw the water, drank terrible Starbucks coffee and smiled the entire day.
Thursday I made the trek to Rochester, NY for the final weekend of racing on the East Coast!