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Ride arrows are usually your friend but sometimes they can lead you astray.
I was out for a short ride one day, when I noticed some unfamiliar arrows on the route. I had been wondering where they went for some time, as I had seen them all over, so I decided to follow them and find out where they went. Always nice to add another ride to the repertoire.
Started out on Rangeway road in Billerica, heading North. So far, so good, quiet back roads, went by the place with a dam in Billerica I had been to before. More back road, when I noticed I was crossing 495. At this point it occurred to me that if you start from Billerica and head past 495, you would probably end up in, you guessed it, Lowell.
Now I have nothing against Lowell, it’s a fine city, and the brewhouse is one of my favorite places to sample beer, but I had in mind a somewhat more bucolic ride. But at this point, it was only me and my arrows, since I had no idea where I was, so I decided to press on. I’m pretty sure the ride did in fact start in Lowell, and I got to what looked like the starting place. The arrows continued on, so I figured all I need do is follow them home. That would have been a good plan. If it weren’t for the fact that shortly thereafter there was an intersection with a bunch of cobblestones and no signs of an arrow. So now I was hopelessly adrift in downtown Lowell. So I moved into Donohue Navigational System mode. The theory is, you get to an intersection, always take the bigger road, and eventually you will find one big enough to have signs telling you where you are. This was not as successful as usual. After wandering around pretty much in circles for a while, I saw a sign that promised routes 110 or 3A. Good, I thought, once I get to 110 I’m sure I can find my way home, since depending on which direction I was pointed, I would either end up at my office or in Harvard, both known coordinates. Unfortunately, Rte 110 never materialized and I was afraid I had entered the Lowell triangle. Things were looking grim.
Now being a guy, I don’t normally consider asking for directions unless I’m desperate. After riding around Lowell in circles for awhile I was reaching desperation level. A police cruiser passed and I thought, they’d be a good source of information, but I couldn’t readily chase them down. But being as Lowell is a big city with lots of traffic and red lights, I found them again stopped at a light. They were in the middle lane of traffic, so I had to thread my way through a line of cars until I got next to the driver side window. They looked a bit surprised when I appeared out of nowhere, but fortunately no guns were drawn, and they told me that if I went left, I would end up at the Drum Hill rotary where I could pick up Route 4. Now the Drum Hill Rotary is not for the faint of heart. Even in a car, it’s pretty scary. I suspect it was designed by highway engineers who were closely related to Catbert, the evil Director of Human Resources. They must have thought it was pretty amusing designing a rotary where you have to cross six lanes of circulating traffic to get where you need to go. Which was exactly what I needed to do. Fortunately, there wasn’t too much traffic then so I just pointed myself in the direction I needed to go and charged ahead.
Back on Route 4, and life was good. Now I know how to get to Lowell by bike, I just don’t know how to get back.
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