Minuteman Road Club

Welcome.
Do the kids race cyclocross?

Housing suggestion. Go to google maps and type in 01748. That postal code will center the map on a location 30 minutes from Boston and 50 min from PVD. Right on the highway that forms the outer loop around metro Boston and just south of the main east west highway getting you in and out of Boston.
The roads in the area especially westward are great for training. There are several great areas for mountain biking close by. Consider towns in that general area as being bike friendly.

Welcome again.

an hour from boston at what time of day?

rush hour (~7:30-9) from anywhere on 128 to parked downtown can be an hour or more (to figure a commute time), its only ~15 miles. however, at 7pm on a weeknight its generally possible to get downtown from the 495 belt in about an hour.

the mass pike (i-90) seems to be a magic snow dividing line, if that is important to you. generally north of the pike will be snowier (and colder) than south. heading west on the pike, outside 128 will be 3-5 degrees (f) cooler than downtown (and outside 495 cooler yet). this is
generally only important in the winter.

providence traffic has its own choke points since it is split east/ west by the harbor. i remember too much about its traffic flow other than 195 and 95 are generally bad.

--roger

Ron was too modest to mention that his son, Manny, went to the cross Worlds in Belgium this past winter.

Minuteman road club has a sponsor program in place to provide a modest level of support for junior riders.

You could do worse than to hook up with Ron and his kids.

Holly,

Last summer, I moved to New England after 20+ years in Arizona and having never been to New England before. I'm an outside sales rep, so your 1 hour criteria to BOS and PVD were also important to me. I'm also a 40 year-old competitive cyclist, so location was important from that perspective. So I understand your dilemna.

My first piece of advise: find a really good realtor that you like and trust. I did, and it paid dividends. I would recommend her, if you're interested. She's in Woburn MA, and she listened to our lifestyle needs and found a location and house that we love. If you don't like your realtor, if they don't listen to you , or they spend more time telling you what you want rather than listening...dump them and find a good one.

I bought in Marlborough, which is right near the I-90 and I-495. Without traffic, it's 45 minutes to Boston, Providence or Manchester NH. I cover Rhode Island to Maine, and I'm delighted with my location from a commute perspective.

Furthermore, I'm delighted with my location from a Road Biking perspective. I can roll out of my driveway, pass through 4 stop signs, and be on backroads for miles and miles of endless pavement with relatively little traffic. There are regular MRC group rides that are within riding distance of my house, and some that I need to drive to. Relative to Arizona, the road riding is really safe and pleasant. The roads are full of pot-holes, but the drivers are typically courteous and patient, which is completely opposite of what I'm used to.

From a Mountain Biking perspective, I'm disappointed. There's just nothing that compares to the quality of what I'm used to in Arizona and the West, which is 100's of miles of continuous, beautiful single track. I'll be exploring the area in depth this summer looking for Utopia, though.

I'm looking forward to Cross season, though.

Good Luck,
Doug Kennedy

Holly,
Doug lives two towns north of me (I'm in Hopkinton).
The same basic area that I described above.

Doug,
we need to do some off road rides. I can show you some good spots.

I wish I grew up in Holland...
Welcome Holly and cool cycling family!

(Doug, you LEFT Arizona? For northeast winters??? )

WOW
I'm not sure where to begin.
I too wish I had grown up in a program like that.

It just isn't that structured here. I'm no expert on junior racing. I just sent an email to the administrator for the New England Bike Racing Association. I'm sure she can give us some useful info.

If it helps, my boys attend St. Michael School in Hudson, MA which is in the same general area as what others are suggesting. We've very happy with it and I'd be glad to talk to you about it. The school is not restricted to the town of Hudson though so any nearby town would still make it possible to go there. Best of luck with your transition.

I can't add much to the discussion above concerning racing programs, but I do work with a native dutchman. He's been in the US for 5 years and travels home regularly. I could get you in touch with him if you'd like.

I've lost track of whether someone suggested this, but you may want to contact Toby Stanton at Hot Tubes: http://www.hottubes.com/TeamWebSite/Welcome.html. Hot Tubes is a very strong junior development program with a fairly long history. Toby seems to do a wonderful job with that group. At a minimum, he will be well suited to help you find the right fit for the boys. Toby is located about 30 minutes west of the 495 belt.

Hi Anerican cycling is a grassroots sport and everything comes together at the club level. Clubs receive sponsorship from bike shops and other vendors. I used to race with CCB, the club you probably were referring to in Marblehead. CCB have grown many national champtions and I know for a fact that they do sponsor promising junior riders and do a good job of bringing them along, primairly in road. For example, CCB produced Tyler Hamilton who was a top Tour rider in Europe. But CCB is not really an organized junior program. There is another club up that way, ECV (essex County velo) that has procduced lots of good cyclocross riders at the national and world level. They do a very good job of training on a partocular cyclocross track each week and the kids would have the advanatge of training with the likes of Tim Johnson and Jesse Anthony, both have raced with top European teams and gone to the Worlds.

But I would say that Hot Tobes is the best place to start. They have a well orgainized junior program. They train together and a training camp in Solvang, California in the spring. They race in Europe early in the summer and do the big regional races here. They do the National Championships as well. They have produced some great riders, like Jon Page, who got second at World Cross Champs in 2007, a big step for American cross.

You'll find that Boston is a relatively small city (laround 600,000 people), but New England is unique in that there are hundereds of small towns and the whole metro area is about 6 million. Mosat of the people live outside the city in these "bedroom" communities. The most established towns are on Boston's North shore (Marblehead, Beverly, Hamilton, etc., and South shore (Hingham, Cohasset, Situate, etc, and then the suburbs to the west of Boston -- Newton, Wellesely, Weston, Lincoln, Concord, Sudbury, etc., etc. Those towns are very pricey due to their proximity to Boston (30 to 40 min commute). IN the last 15 years, demand for housing has pushed development out past Rt 495. Housing is a little less costly, but you can find some really nice towns and houses.

If, indeed, you hook up with Hot Tubes -- they are located in Shirley, MA. One really beautiful town located right next to Shirley is Harvard, MA. It is God's country for cycing!! Harvard is a "dry" town. They don't sell booze. The school system is one of the best in the state, and I think you would find you might not need a parochial school, though there are several in the area. Some of the top school systems in the area are: Newton, Wellesely, Weston, Harvard, Sudbury,Hopkinton, Acton. These schools send just about 98% of grads to lots of top colleges.

i am guessing that you may have missed lake sunappee, and the nebc kids only crits. one thing to note is that the category for kids is typically called 'juniors' stateside, rather than 'youth'.

--roger

Holly,

The link I sent you was to a national series of junior races. Those are the bigger events.
Lots of local races still have junior categories.

The best place to find a fairly complete schedule is at: http://www.BikeReg.com

Hover but don't click on Road Races in the top left and location choices will appear in a drop down window.

You can select a location to narrow the event search: Northeast can then be narrowed to New England.

Just to underline what Bruce said about Harvard, MA - it has some of the best scenery, cycling, and community around. A lot of our club members live in the area (including myself), and most of us with families. A nice (slower) pace of life than outside of the immediate area surrounding Boston. Relative close proximity and easy access to Boston Logan airport, as well as Manchester, NH airport (about 1 hour). Wonderful apple orchards and horse farms too. Great school system. On the running side, Harvard also produced Lynn Jennings, a former olympian, and some tremendous high school and collegiate runners. It plays host to 3 road races a year (5k, 5 mile, and 10 mile), as well as a training series in the summer.

Gary

'nebc' is another (north) eastern massachusetts bike club. they host a kids only race day, i think it is in july. it would be in (eastern) massachusetts somewhere, so i figured it was not in your list.

--roger