Wachusett and the Bay Circuit

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Princeton

   Princeton sits high in central Massachusetts, in the hills below Mount Wachusett, and it feels farther from Boston than the forty-odd miles of the map. The town is a scattering of old farms, stone walls, white churches and woods, and at around three hundred metres it is cooler than the lowlands, with an early autumn and snow that comes sooner and stays longer. A well-known ski area and a state reservation share the mountain, and in autumn the hillsides are among the brightest in the region.

   Read the complete Princeton write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Princeton is where the day begins. Next is Wachusett Mountain, climbing 310 m.

2. 2. Wachusett Mountain

   Wachusett is the mountain you see from half of central Massachusetts, and it earns the attention by standing alone. Rising to about six hundred metres out of rolling, wooded country, it is a monadnock, a single resistant mass of old rock left standing when the land around it wore down, and its name comes from an Algonquian phrase usually translated as near the mountain. In the summer of 1842 Henry David Thoreau walked here from Concord, and his essay on the trip, A Walk to Wachusett, still reads like the work of a man who loved a day out.

   Read the complete Wachusett Mountain write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   You top out at 610 m here. The road climbs 310 m on the way up to it, steadily. Nothing on this route is higher. Next is Westminster, mostly downhill.

3. 3. Westminster

   Westminster is a hill town with a long main road and a short memory for fuss. It sits on the high ground of north-central Massachusetts, at the foot of Wachusett Mountain, and its villages, ponds and hills have the particular New England look of a place that was farmed hard in the 1800s and has been quietly returning to woodland since. About seven thousand people live here, and the town has a proper common with a white meeting house and a library, as well as a handful of places to eat along Route 2A.

   Read the complete Westminster write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 19 km into the recorded legs you reach Westminster. Next is Clinton.

4. 4. Clinton

   The first thing to know about Clinton is that a lot of it is underwater by design, or rather its neighbours are. Between 1897 and 1908 the state of Massachusetts built the Wachusett Dam across the Nashua River just east of the town, and the reservoir behind it, then among the largest of its kind, drowned much of the old villages of Boylston and West Boylston, including farms, mills and several cemeteries that had to be moved. The water now flows to Boston by aqueduct, and the shoreline is protected woodland.

   Read the complete Clinton write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Clinton, late in the day. Next is Boylston.

5. 5. Boylston

   Planning note

   Finish at Boylston. That is the ride.