Cycling in Worcester County? (Boston, Cambridge: home, to live, centers)

[Atomicdoug]

How is cycling in Worcester county? The roads look narrow! Am I taking my life in my hands riding there? I ride all over this part of (Western NJ) but we have a lot of secondary roads that are very lightly travelled.

What about bike trails, rail to trail etc. Or Mountain biking?

I've heard the Berkshires are great for riding, but haven't heard much about riding in Worcester county or Metrowest. I guess its better than in the city!

[495neighbor]

Originally Posted by Atomicdoug

How is cycling in Worcester county? The roads look narrow! Am I taking my life in my hands riding there? I ride all over this part of (Western NJ) but we have a lot of secondary roads that are very lightly travelled.

What about bike trails, rail to trail etc. Or Mountain biking?

I've heard the Berkshires are great for riding, but haven't heard much about riding in Worcester county or Metrowest. I guess its better than in the city!

If cycling is your passion outside work, you really should reconsider looking for a home northwest of Boston along route 2. We have the best cycling trails around. Chelmsford and Westford have the Bruce Freeman trail along route 27, which will soon extend into Acton, go through Sudbury and eventually go as far as Framingham.

Great Brook Farm in Carlisle has miles and miles of varied terrain. Great for going on and off road with hybrid and mountain bikes.

Summer time, Concord, Bedford and Carlisle are full of road cyclists.

Then there's the Nashua rail trail that goes from Ayer all the way up to the MA/NH border.

And the Minuteman trail that starts in Bedford and ends up at Alewife in Cambridge.


The closest bike trail I recall anywhere close to the boroughs where you have been home seeking is the one that goes through Marlborough and Hudson, Assabet Trail. There may be recreational cycling in Hopkinton State Park and the parks in Ashland.

[Parsec]

Originally Posted by 495neighbor

If cycling is your passion outside work, you really should reconsider looking for a home northwest of Boston along route 2. We have the best cycling trails around. Chelmsford and Westford have the Bruce Freeman trail along route 27, which will soon extend into Acton, go through Sudbury and eventually go as far as Framingham.

Great Brook Farm in Carlisle has miles and miles of varied terrain. Great for going on and off road with hybrid and mountain bikes.

Summer time, Concord, Bedford and Carlisle are full of road cyclists.

Then there's the Nashua rail trail that goes from Ayer all the way up to the MA/NH border.

And the Minuteman trail that starts in Bedford and ends up at Alewife in Cambridge.


The closest bike trail I recall anywhere close to the boroughs where you have been home seeking is the one that goes through Marlborough and Hudson, Assabet Trail. There may be recreational cycling in Hopkinton State Park and the parks in Ashland.

We just voted this month to indefinitely postpone Phase 1 of the rail trail in Sudbury, but we voted to approve the Mass Central Rail Trail non-binding resolution. Very disappointing.

Aside from Sudbury, the rest of the area that 495neighbor talks about is great for cycling trails. Hudson/Stow also has the Assabet Wildlife refuge which is good if you have a hybrid bike or something with knobby tires (the trails are unpaved).

I don't see many cyclists when I drive through the country roads in Worcester County though. People have a completely different mindset out there. They're not as healthy/active as the Boston crowd. IIRC Worcester County has much higher obesity rates than the rest of the state.

[495neighbor]

Originally Posted by Parsec

We just voted this month to indefinitely postpone Phase 1 of the rail trail in Sudbury, but we voted to approve the Mass Central Rail Trail non-binding resolution. Very disappointing.

Aside from Sudbury, the rest of the area that 495neighbor talks about is great for cycling trails. Hudson/Stow also has the Assabet Wildlife refuge which is good if you have a hybrid bike or something with knobby tires (the trails are unpaved).

I don't see many cyclists when I drive through the country roads in Worcester County though. People have a completely different mindset out there. They're not as healthy/active as the Boston crowd. IIRC Worcester County has much higher obesity rates than the rest of the state.

I just checked out the site.

Too bad they couldn't have built another commuter rail line along the old tracks.

[Parsec]

Originally Posted by 495neighbor

I just checked out the site.

Too bad they couldn't have built another commuter rail line along the old tracks.

I think it would've alleviated a lot of traffic on Rt-20 in Weston, which is one of the worst stretches of rush hour traffic in the area. The old tracks run along Rt-20 and has/had a platform in Hudson, Sudbury, Wayland and Weston, then terminates in Waltham. From there you can take the 128 Business Council shuttle bus to the nearby office parks. I guess we didn't know any better 40 years ago.

[Atomicdoug]

Well, that is a bit disappointing, but I guess I will make the best of it. I am not going to live all the way up on the Rt 2 corridor and have a longer commute to work (and pay much more for a home) just to have better cycling options. There should be rideable roads in the more rural areas. I did see that one of the bigger clubs (Minuteman) is based out of Concorde...

As far as rail trails, those are great for families, and also fun to ride on my CX (cyclocross) bike. I guess I am spoiled right now as I have the Delaware Canal trail about 3 miles from my house. That runs ~ 60 miles on the PA side of the river and 50 miles on the NJ side. Rail trails for some riders are (yawn) boring. They tend to be very flat and not have much in the way of curves. Ride one for 30 miles and it can get monotonous. The more fun ones go through towns and you can stop for coffee and food. They can double as XC ski trails in winter, but most XC skiers will have more fun on more technical terrain.

Yes, once they rip out the tracks there is little chance that the trains will come back, although in at least one or 2 cases here in NJ they are putting a rail line back in a place where it was removed. There is talk that NJ will reactivate approx 15 miles of railway to link High Bridge and Phillipsburg (and into Easton PA). Tracks are still there but overgrown and would need to be redone. Those type of big expensive projects don't usually happen without immense political power and funding from the state.

[jayrandom]

Originally Posted by Atomicdoug

How is cycling in Worcester county? The roads look narrow! Am I taking my life in my hands riding there? I ride all over this part of (Western NJ) but we have a lot of secondary roads that are very lightly travelled.

What about bike trails, rail to trail etc. Or Mountain biking?

I've heard the Berkshires are great for riding, but haven't heard much about riding in Worcester county or Metrowest. I guess its better than in the city!

I used to bike around central NJ (Mercer/Hunterdon/Bucks, PA) and the biking around here isn't quite as nice as it is there. There are a lot of weekend road bicyclists where I am now (Westwood, more in Dover/Sherborn) and it looks to be reasonable. There definitely seem to be as many bicyclists on Dover roads as cars some weekends. Can't say much about Worcester county specifically, though. That area is less dense than Norfolk county on the whole, so I'd have to imagine there are some reasonable places to go if you can get away from major population centers.

One possibility that is in Worcester County (and Rhode Island) is the Blackstone River Bikeway. It's long and relatively flat, but it is pretty scenic. If you're looking for mountain biking, try here:

The BEST Mountain Bike Trails in Massachusetts || SINGLETRACKS.COM

[missionhill]

For bicycling right outside your door, I'd get ahold of Howard Stone's "Short Bike Rides in..." series. They may be out of print but easy enough to get online and extremely comprehensive; I don't think he neglected a single town in the whole state. The Worcester County area would be covered in "Short Bike Rides in Central and Western Massachusetts."

If you don't mind driving to a ride, there will be many nice routes in the western part of the county between Worcester and Quabbin Reservoir. If you're in southern Worcester County the cycling in northeast Connecticut would be close and could be great; certainly the countryside is beautiful there, in Woodstock and thereabouts. The 'Pioneer Valley' is full of cyclists, especially north of the Holyoke Range (a/k/a the "Tofu Curtain"?). Many beautiful country roads on both sides of the Connecticut River, and it can be either not at all challenging but very scenic if you stay in the valley or extremely challenging (and scenic) if you climb the hills to the east and especially to the west.

[colleenceci]

The biking in worcester county is fine. Stay out of worcester itself -- for lots of reasons, but primarily because it is not really bike friend
Y.

There are lots of hills, but the back country roads connecting town to town are actually really good for biking

[FCMA]

Lots of cyclists in western Woo County. Places like Petersham, Hardwick, Barre, Brookfields, Paxton, etc, are perfect for leisurely rides through beautiful countryside. Worcester and the busy and ugly old milltowns aren't so good, but the rest is pretty wide open. A ride threading through back roads avoiding Rts 20, 9, and 2A, can be quite wonderful. Fitchburg and environs has its annual Longsjo bike race series, one of the very few annual events that brings a small mass of outside people in to that slightly abominable little region. It's a great, long-established tradition and actually a big deal nationwide in bicycle racing circles.

There's also a cinder-surface Central MA rail trail in the Westah Wistah region, part of a vision to connect MA east to west by bike trail, which sees its biggest obstacles to completion in overcoming classist paranoid NIMBYism in places like Weston and Sherborn because obviously most burglars get around by bicycle.