by There was a full moon behind the clouds. Maybe the clouds would part. Maybe they wouldn’t. Either way, it was a great night for a winter night-time ride. A local bike shop organizes a full moon ride into the woods every full moon. The woods were a mess for this full moon, with the trails muddy and icy. So, the shop decided to head for the beach. Revere Beach.
Dave met me beachside to join the group at dusk. Thick clouds with planes passing overhead instead of the moon.
The tide was very low so we had plenty of sand to ride on. The winter storms had taken a toll. Large sections of the beaches were just piles of big rocks, instead of sand. The clouds were still thick at the start. We had the roar of jets and their landing lights in the sky as the sun set. Lights on.
We started at the pavilions on Revere Beach, along the beach for a while before heading on to some roads and parks to get on to Winthrop Beach. As we hit the sand on Winthrop Beach, the moon snuck out from behind the clouds for a brief moment. Just long enough to get a quick picture of it passing between the clouds.
As a much more exposed beach, Winthrop Beach was mostly sizeable rocks. We found some smoother patches of sand near the surf. There was a lot of looking around to find good lines to ride.
Then disaster struck. One of group must have hit a big rock. He snapped off his rear derailleur. The hanger did its job of breaking and taking the damage, instead of the bike frame or derailleur itself. We spent a long time trying to fix the problem. The conclusion was to try to convert it to a single speed. It didn’t work the big gears on the fat bike cassette kept tossing the chain around. It wasn’t rideable. We cut short the beach ride and towed him back to the cars. Fat bike tubes make excellent tow ropes.
https://www.strava.com/activities/4862282882
