Ice Biking

One of the great things about winter in Massachusetts is that it usually gets cold enough to form safe thicknesses of ice on the numerous ponds, streams, and often even the rivers -- for at least a few weeks each year. This opens a wonderful range of areas for exploration, many of which are normally fairly difficult to visit. The watery swamps become glazed skating ponds when conditions are right, and it's fun to imagine the thoughts of the beavers swimming under the ice as they hear me passing by over their heads.

Appropriate tires for my bicycle are the keys to opening up the icy playground. The only reasonable approach is to buy metal studded snow tires. Although it's possible to make them at home using screws set in heavy-duty tires, please take my word that trying that route will only result in a dangerous, failure-prone mess. My Nokian Extreme 296 tires are worth every penny in healthy fun. I have ridden hundreds of miles on them for the last three winters, and they show no significant signs of wear. I expect to keep them for many more years to come. The 296 tiny metal studs only protrude a few millimeters, so they are not much of a danger when (given my penchant for trying to push my limitations in every situation) I end up tangled in, under, or around the bike. Since the tires are fairly heavy, and could damage the roots of trees when there is no snow or ice cover, I only use them after the ground has frozen solid and there is ice on the trails. On beautiful shiny ice, the studded snow tires give great traction. Not quite like rubber on clean pavement, but more like rubber on sandy pavement. You can slide if you want to, but with a little care you have complete control.

It's a lot of fun riding out to visit the ice fishermen, circle the hockey players on the ponds, and ride circles around pedestrians struggling simply to walk on the slippery ice in areas like the Old North Bridge in Concord. But really, the most fun is exploring the streams, swamps, and rivers which become highways to solitude.

A couple of weeks ago I rode out on the Concord River between Bedford and Carlisle in Massachusetts. This was part of a 25-mile ride (mostly off-road) that day. It's amazing how fast the miles add up when you can get moving at 20+ miles per hours over the smooth ice! The photo shows my bike on the ice, looking toward some huge riverside houses in Carlisle, about half a mile downstream (north) of a public access point at Riverside Avenue in Bedford.

Enjoyable ice biking requires a fine balance between the snow cover, and the air and water temperatures over an extended period. Too much snow simply stops the bike from traveling anywhere but on plowed roads and sidewalks. Dangerous on the roads, and boring on the sidewalks! Even an inch of snow on top of glare ice can often be tricky, since it keeps the metal studs from reaching the ice, and the result is a quick slip and slide. I find it painful to ride below about 15 Fahrenheit (-10 C), so my ideal conditions call for overnight temperatures well below freezing and daytime high temperatures around freezing. An extended period of cold weather without snow cover helps to cool the water in the streams and rivers. If there is an insulating snow cover, the ground water can remain too warm to allow the streams to develop safe thicknesses of ice.

What is a safe thickness of ice? Two inches (5 cm) is a minimum on a small pond, but if there is running water or a deep pond, I don't feel safe until the ice reaches four inches (10 cm). (I remember an old article in Boy's Life magazine stating that 4 inches will support an automobile safely.) For a river with minimal current such as most of the Concord River near Lexington, I look for six or more inches. Any stretches of river with significant current, such as around bridges or narrow stretches, I simply avoid. This is not a place to take risks.

As the winter days lengthen in February, the sun delivers enough energy to melt the ice on the northern edges of ponds and streams, even while the air temperatures remain below freezing. This is especially likely where the dark soil lies directly below the ice. This can lead an unsuspecting adventurer to a sudden encounter with a cold mucky stream bed. Luckily, this nearly always occurs in shallow water, or where the ice is directly on top of the muddy bottom.

Speaking of tricky ice situations, another danger in riding on rivers is the likelihood of thin ice at points where other streams flow in. Even the smallest streams (or maybe especially the smallest streams) can contain warmer water, or salt from road drainage, which can lead to thinner ice. Watch out!

My favorite conditions for ice biking occur when a thick glaze of ice forms atop the snow. In these conditions, the whole world becomes my playground. The snow cover turns steep rocky drops into evenly graded slopes, so I can ride up areas which require dismounting in other conditions. The studded tires bite into the ice glaze, and I glide over every obstacle, dodging between trees, over the undergrowth hidden below the snow ...until I reach the evergreen forest, where inevitably the snow's glaze is thinner and I sink into the fluff...

West Lexington Greenway Project

Some of the Lexington trail folks (Stewards and others) have been kicking around the idea of a link between the Minuteman Bikeway and the Battle Road Trail in the Minuteman National Historic Park for over ten years now. Harvey Bingham and Colleen Haggerty documented some possibilities here in 1997.

A few years ago I started exploring the Tophet Swamp and Katahdin Woods conservation areas, and quickly came to love the nearly-unknown landscape of swamps, slow-flowing streams, powerline clearings, and forest. The unmarked and poorly maintained trails of the area kept out all but the most adventurous wanderers, and I nearly always had the area to myself. This is a land of beaver dams, ducks, foxes, deer, hawks, owls, and other interesting wildlife.

I have tried to keep the trails open, at least enough to pass through with a mountain bike, but often found I spend much of my planned riding time simply clearing away fast-growing brush and fallen branches and trees. Some of the larger trees blocking the trails are too big for my hand tools, and have become interesting tests of bike-hopping skill. While not wanting to abandon the trails to their natural fate, I often didn't have time after clearing a section of trail in the Tophet/Katahdin land to continue my planned route. I didn't have time to continue my explorations of the many other great trails which afford a huge variety of riding and walking experiences in Lexington and the surrounding towns. It was time to think of a long-term strategy for maintaining the trails in this area.

The several branches of Kiln Brook crossing the area force the existing informal trail to run onto the nearby highway right-of-way in several places, not an acceptable long-term arrangement. The trail bed cannot sustain much traffic in the wetter areas, and is often essentially impassable for many would-be visitors, particularly those with limited mobility.

Katahdin stream crossing – one of the easier ones

There had to be a better way to maintain access to the area and allow more people to appreciate its beauty (despite the noise from nearby I-95/128). Discussing this with some of the Stewards who have been involved with improving trails in other parts of the town led to the realization that development of a sustainable trail in this area would be an undertaking beyond the range of our volunteer capabilities. We need a professional assessment of how (or even whether) to route a trail across the wetlands and larger streams to establish a legal trail on the town conservation land, preferably as far from the constant roar of highway traffic as possible. We also want to coordinate the planning with residents adjoining the town conservation lands, to ensure their interests are supported. We have worked with the Town on a plan to request some Community Preservation funds to develop a professional master plan for this stretch, as well as adjoining public lands. The plan will guide further investments in the entire corridor over the next several years, most of which are expected to be funded largely by state or Federal sources, with the master plan providing the documentation to support the further funding requests.

In addition to the highway right-of-way issues, several parts of the existing trails in the Tophet Swamp and Katahdin Woods are not suitable for heavy use now, because there would be excessive erosion in wet areas. It is likely that some extensive boardwalks will be needed. Even outside the swamp-and stream areas, the main connecting trail has several patches which hold water during wetter periods. Our current thinking (without the detailed analysis which will be done in the master plan) is to plan for a "connector trail" similar in quality to the Battle Road, of stabilized stone dust 8-12 feet wide, suitable for wheelchairs and bicycles in addition to walkers.

Mudhole on the Katahdin trail

In addition to the connector between the Minuteman Bikeway and the Battle Road, there are trails across several nearby areas of conservation and preserved land (Simonds Brook, Paint Mine & Hennessey’s Field, and Cranberry Hill & Cambridge Reservoir land) which can be linked into a unified trail system connecting nearly all the public lands in Lexington west of I-95/128. These existing trails stretch from Lincoln Street in the south to Grove Street and Turning Mill Road in the north, nearly four miles. Our current thinking for these trails to the north and south of the "Connector" section is to leave them as walking or mountain bike trails, fixing the bridges, clearing brush, establishing signs, and making them more attractive without major construction work. However, the master plan, with plenty of input from Lexington residents during its development, will be the vehicle for establishing these choices.

Of Lexington’s 30,000 residents, I doubt that more than 30 have covered these four miles of beautiful and secluded trails in the course of a day, simply because they are not properly identified, maintained, and publicized. Many people drive great distances to enjoy a similar hike, when they could find it almost at their doorsteps. The West Lexington Greenway project is intended to develop a professional long-term plan for managing this corridor and developing and maintaining the trails in it, to allow many more people to have the opportunity to enjoy this treasure in our back yards.

High stone wall - Cambridge Reservoir trail

The Trail Begins

Trails go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains of the moon.

- adapted from The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkein

"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door. You step into the Trail, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to. Do you realize that this is the very path that goes through Mirkwood, and that if you let it, it might take you to the Lonely Mountain or even worse places?"

- adapted from Frodo's quotation of Bilbo's ruminations, in The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkein

Although Tolkein used the word "Road" instead of "Trail," the roads of Middle-Earth were not inhabited by deadly roaring machines – they were more like the trails where today we travel
to seek enjoyment of each moment, not simply to reach a destination... so I feel justified in using “Trail” in the quotes instead of "Road." Tolkein’s point about the interconnectedness of the world's pathways often springs to mind as I explore the local trails around my adopted hometown of Lexington, Massachusetts.

Many Massachusetts towns have developed collections of “Conservation Lands” under public ownership, which offer miles of trails for the enjoyment of anyone lucky enough to find them. I plan to share information on these trails in this blog.