Photo by Lester Smith
A bicycle tourist from Waltham, Mass., hangs some laundry on a makeshift clothesline before supper during an organized tour of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York. About 150 cyclists camped overnight between the SHS tennis courts and the ball field.
The big group of bicycle tourists who rode through Suffield at the start of August were riding with Cycle Massachusetts, which calls itself “The Friendliest Rides in the East.” The semi-commercial business manages a variety of tour lengths each year, providing transportation for camping gear, a detailed route sheet, well-stocked rest stops, a campsite, and dinner and breakfast each day. And, of course, T-shirts.
This year about 150 riders started a tour on Monday morning at Nichols College in Dudley, Mass., just north of Thompson, Conn. After 46 miles, they arrived in small bunches in Suffield in time for lunch. (This reporter was alerted when he encountered several riders at Highland Park Market and learned they were staying the night at Suffield High.)
At the campsite between the tennis courts and the ball fields, most of the riders or small groups recovered their numbered luggage from the Cycle Mass truck and set up their tents. Others, though not a majority, had hired an agency called Comfy Campers to provide their tents, set them up, and take them down in the morning. These identical, tan tents were lined up in neat rows like an army camp, unlike the comfortable disarray of the majority.
The riders had access to the school showers as well as port-a-potties near their tents. Dinner (delicious!) was cooked and served by Peppercorn Caterers of Westfield on the high school front terrace and enjoyed in the school Commons. After dinner and a few announcements about tour matters, tour director Bruce Lederer introduced the local town historian, who told the riders a bit about Suffield and that unexpected plant they had seen blossoming in roadside fields here.
Welcome rain overnight probably didn’t much affect the group’s morning departure for Great Barrington, 50 miles out in the Massachusetts Berkshires. The following day was to be an 81-mile circle tour through parts of New York and back to Great Barrington. Thursday’s schedule was a 58-mile ride to Wilbraham, near Springfield, then 41 miles on Friday back to Dudley.
The group’s website is already announcing their 2017 schedule, which again includes a stop in Suffield. School business manager Bill Hoff advises that the tour company is paying $1,750 for this year’s visit.