Nawth Shaw riding

I don't know Boston's Nawth Shaw well. So, when Beverly native, Matt Roy, suggested, in one of his infamous Bad Ideas (TM), dragging David Wilcox and yours truly on some of his favourite roads in that direction, I leaped at the chance.

Matt had the decency too, to lay on simply splendid February weather. It was sunny, dry, if breezy and a smidgin chilly. However, it transpired we were going to cover a large portion of the North Shore in our day out, so there wasn't much hanging out and chillin' to be done!

I wasn't too worried about the rip-roaring tailwind we enjoyed early in our ride, even when I was spinning out the top gear on my junior racing (16-27) cassette. Until perhaps, I saw this sign. I wondered if it referred to the headwind battle that awaited us on our return journey...

After enjoying a very friendly coffee shop stop in Ipswich at ZUMI’S Coffee House, we started heading (vaguely) in the direction of home.

This included a very worthy side-trip out to the secluded Conomo Point.

Next up were some rough coastal neighbourhoods, where I was worried about puncturing and having to ride the rim to safety...

Did I mention it was a gorgeous day? And the roads weren't too bad either!

We continually tacked back and forth, so the feared headwind was never a big factor.

200 quality kilometres in our legs had us running on fumes towards the end of the day. However, the ever kind Mo stuffed David and I full of heavenly quinoa (courtesy of the awesome Bob's Red Mill) and berry pancakes, before sending us off on the last leg of our journey home. Not a bad day out for February!