I haven't ridden my Jamis for awhile, so I decided to do a farm stand run. I discovered a new place last weekend that seems to have everything I like to buy; a lot of the farms don't have native tomatoes yet because of all of the rain has rotted most of them away. The weather said it would be partly cloudy through noon time and then steady rain/thunderstorms, more severe as the day goes on. So, I left about 9 or a little after. This farm is about 4.5 driving miles away, but again, since I can't ride my bike through the rotary, it's a little over 8 miles. Rush hour seemed to be over, and no nasty car incidents on the way. There's one good sized hill on the way, not too far from where the farm is. Got my blueberries, tomatoes, and peaches and noticed how heavy that amount felt as I started off to go home. It's really only noticeable when I am starting off, though and once I get rolling, it's fine.
West Concord was very busy, with people pulling in and out of parking spaces, so I felt especially on guard. Of course, I missed every light. Was going to stop at the natural foods place, but I got lazy. As I headed into Concord Center, there was a lot of traffic, construction, and cars parked along Main St., before the part where the stores are; there is a summer arts program going on at Concord Academy and it seems to have ratcheted up the number of people getting in and out of cars and crossing the street without looking. As I was in a line of cars going straight, and other cars were merging in from the right, I had my left arm out to signal that I would be turning on the next street, a car turned left in front of me. I knew she was going to do it. It was like she waited until I was really close and then went. This was after an older woman had blown her horn at me, because I was in the the lane, shaking her finger at me! Things were non-eventful after this, but it did start getting dark and raining about 1.5 miles from home. The rain felt good, but I was glad I got home when I did, because now it's pouring.
16.34 miles