- Location: Ride Headquarters in Sherborn, MA
- Ride Type: Mixed Terrain
- Time & Date: Departs Every Full Moon, varying start times
- Distance: ~15 miles
- Price: Free
Description: The Full Moon ride takes cyclists all over the trails of Sherborn and beyond. The route includes paved roads to trails, dirt roads, grassy areas, and other places off the beaten path.
The calendar of Full Moon rides and start times is:
**IMPORTANT** November 4 Note: Prior to the Full Moon ride is a Winter Riding Clinic. Come early to participate in the clinic, join in the raffle (over $1,000 worth of winter goodies), then we're rolling out at 6:45!
Route: The route is available to attendees the evening of the ride at Ride Headquarters.
Ride Notes: We have a designated Ride Headquarters Super Domestique leading the ride and pointing out turns. We don’t have a sweep rider for this ride so only participate if you’re confident in your skill level and fitness – or know your way back.
Last Minute Information: Watch our Twitter feed for last-minute updates, weather cancellations or other changes.
Estimated time: ~1.5 hours
Contact Information: Email - connect@rideheadquarters.com, Phone - 508-975-4678
Riding Rules, What to Bring, How Our Rides are Different: All riders are required to read and are expected to abide by These Rules.
Waiver: Ride Headquarters requires a signed waiver before your first ride. Please fill it out online prior to your first ride.
Proper Bike for this ride:
- 32c knobby tires minimum. Wider tires are nice, too. Tire choice depends on your riding skill set.
- Clipless pedals and shoes. These are important elements of bike control. If you ride with platform pedals you’re likely to be over your head in some of the more technical parts of the ride.
- A bike that’s in safe working order. We don’t stop for preventable mechanical issues.
- Higher tire pressure than you’d ride on a cyclocross ride. We recommend about 80% to 90% of maximum rated tire pressure, for two reasons:
First, we want to minimize flats on the ride; waiting for someone to change flats is not why we ride. We typically see zero flats on our ride. One of the primary reasons for this is due to higher than average tire pressure.
Second, on average, about 30% of the ride is on pavement; having slightly higher pressure makes the road sections go by faster.
We do not recommend fenders since sticks and twigs can get caught in them.
- How do we decide if we’re having the Full Moon ride?
- Thunder storms: If there’s a 33% or greater chance of a thunder storm at the ride start time, we don’t ride. It is not safe to get caught out in a thunder storm.
- Rain or sleet: There are a few variants of this. We don’t ride sensitive trails when they’re wet; this can cause damage that’s not repairable. Fortunately, we have some rain-friendly routes that don’t damage sensitive trails.
- If it’s raining at the start of the ride we probably cancel the ride. If it’s only threatening rain, we ride.
- If it’s misting or drizzling at the start of the ride, with less than 50% chance of rain in the coming hour, we ride.
- If it’s been raining a lot for a couple days, but not raining the night before, we ride. Our rain-friendly routes avoid sensitive trails. Of course, every few years there’s such a bad storm that we won’t ride on a Saturday; we take the force majeure very seriously.
- Snowing: We ride; it is so much fun to ride during a snow storm.
- Snow on the ground: We ride. It doesn’t matter if there’s 1 inch or four feet, we ride. We recommend studded tires or fat bikes for these kinds of conditions. The only exclusion to snow riding is when there is a state of emergency and we’ve been asked to stay off the road.
- Icy conditions: We ride. For this you have to have studded tires in order to ride with us.
- Cold: It doesn’t matter what the temperature is, we ride.
- Ride leader: A couple times a year we might not have a designated ride leader. It’s not fair for us to send you out without someone to help guide. Of course, if you want to ride without a ride leader, you are more than welcome to!
If you'd like us to do any work on your bike prior to the ride, please email us the day before so we're ready to do the work as soon as you come in; we want you to be ready to roll before 9am.