Location: Ride Headquarters in Sherborn, MA
Ride Type: Mixed Terrain
NEW TIME - Time & Date: Departs at 9:30am on Saturdays starting June 22
Distance: ~15 miles, equating to approximately 2 hours
Price: Free
June 15 Update:
This ride is canceled for today. Help out at the Barber Betterment Day with the Sherborn Forest and Trails. Meet at the Barber Reservation parking lot at 8:30 for coffee and donuts, then everyone will divide into teams to fight invasive species and improve wildlife habitat. Work normally ends by noon. Wear appropriate clothes for the work.
Monday Night, June 17: It’s the next Full Moon Mixed Terrain Ride!!!
Description: The Saturday Mixed Terrain ride takes cyclists all over Sherborn and beyond. The ride follows paved roads to trails, dirt roads, grassy areas, and other places off the beaten path.
Route: The route is available to attendees the day of the ride at Ride Headquarters.
Ride Notes: We have a designated Ride Headquarters Super Domestique leading the ride and pointing out turns. Sometimes 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: ~2.5 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 mixed-terrain ride each week?
Thunder storms: If there’s a 33% or greater chance of a thunder storm at 9am, 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 9am we cancel the ride. If it’s only threatening rain, we ride.
If it’s misting or drizzling at 9am, with less than 50% chance of rain in the coming hour, we may cancel the ride.
If it’s been raining a lot for a couple days, but not raining the night before, we may 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. Again, watch our Twitter feed for last-minute information.
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 don’t 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 the ride!
Note: The proper spelling of Beowulf is Beowulf. Not Beauwolf, Beauwulf, or Beowolf.