Did 31 not so great miles. The beautiful sunny day never materialized, so we headed out at around 2:00 or so. Concord is overrun with tourists here for Patriot's Day festivities, so i was on guard about weirdo drivers as we rode through the center of town. It was actually, OK, though. It was 53 when we left, cloudy, and there seemed to be a headwind no matter which way I was riding.
We did a 12 mile loop around Hanscom AFB and when we were turning onto the main road that leads in and out of the airport, I heard a loud volley of gunshots! There was a battle reenactment going on there, tons of cars, police everywhere, but we managed to get through with no issues. Then we rode back to Concord, to Great Brook Farm, taking a more direct route than usual. Steve felt tired and his back hurt. I tried pulling for a while, but then my back hurt! We stopped and i ate a Clif bar. Then we rode back home, taking a route that is mostly uphill, but not really a big grade. Just lots of rolling 5% hills. My quads were aching and then my bike started rattling. We stopped twice and figured out it was probably the bottle cage. It was extremely annoying, but got it fixed partially. Finally, we got to Strawberry Hill Rd., grateful to be going down. Of course, then we finish with the climb up our street, but I managed to maintain 7.5-8 mph up the 15% part of my driveway...