Location: Revolution Hall near Bedford, MA (right off the Minuteman bike path)
Ride Type: Mixed Terrain Ride
Date & Time: Saturday, September 4, 2021, rolling at 9:00 am
Distance: 25 miles
Price: Free
RSVPs: Required, see bottom of page for RSVP form
Details: The Saturday morning mixed-terrain ride takes cyclists all over Bedford, Concord, and beyond. The ride takes paved roads to trails, dirt roads, grassy areas, and other places off the beaten path.
The ride departs at 9:00 am with various speed groups; we ride based on time rather than distance. We have a designated RSC Super Domestique leading the last group to depart which will be rolling at a moderate pace. If you have ridden mixed terrain before and can average 16mph on a paved road ride, you should be fine with the pace of this ride. We typically have at least two groups - one spicier and peppier ahead of the Super Domestique led group.
We don’t have a sweep rider for this ride so only participate if you’re confident in your skill level and fitness.
Parking: Please park across the street from Revolution Hall. Use this address for GPS navigation to the ride start and for the parking lot:
10 Maguire Rd, Lexington, MA 02421
Route: The route is emailed to all by 8pm the evening before the ride. The weather and trail conditions dictate the route. We do not ride on soft trails ever; we have rain trail-friendly routes prepared.
Estimated time: ~3.5 hours
Ride Notes: We discuss these with you prior to rollout. Note that a mixed terrain ride is a little rougher than a “gravel” ride. You’ll be riding over some roots and rocks, though nothing in this ride can be considered technical in nature.
Last Minute Information: Watch Ride Headquarters’ Twitter feed for last-minute updates, weather cancellations or other changes. We email all participants with any critical late-breaking news.
Contact Information: Email - connect@rideheadquaters.com, Phone which reaches the ride leader before and during the ride: 413-461-7433
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.
How do we decide if we’re having the mixed-terrain ride?
Thunder storms: If there’s a 33% or greater chance of a thunder storm at 9:30 am, 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 ride start time we cancel the ride. If it’s only threatening to rain, we ride.
If it’s misting or drizzling, 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 in the morning, 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; 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. The coldest Sunday ride started at 5 degrees. It was a blast!
The proper bike for this ride includes the following:
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. Note that mountain-style pedals/cleats are significantly better than road-style. We strongly discourage road pedals/cleats on a mixed terrain ride. You can possibly get away with road pedals/cleats on a gravel (dirt road) ride, but not a mixed terrain ride.
A bike that’s in safe working order that is properly lubed and tuned. We’ll ask you to call for a ride or take an Uber home if you have a mechanical situation that will hinder the forward progress of the group by more than a few minutes.
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 50% of the ride is on pavement; having slightly higher pressure makes the road sections go by faster.