Restaurants – Breakfast & Lunch (Some may also do an informal dinner)   (All located within 5 minutes from hotel. These are useful if you are coming in early or staying extra days.)

Marty’s – small café next to hotels on Jackson Rd, closed Sundays

Ruby’s Donuts – the name says it all, the place to go for donuts  (3 minutes from hotel)

Karyn’s Kitchen – local sit-down with full breakfast & lunch menu  (3 minutes)

Tiny’s Diner – popular classic New England diner 

Pleasant Café – in the nearby town of Ayer    

Markoh’s on Main – in Ayer. Good bar food, often has low-key music Thursday or Friday

Pizza Bella Devens – short walk from hotels – UNFORTUNATELY, CLOSED FOR VACATION

Devens Pizza and Deli – (3 minutes from hotel)

Parthenon Pizza, Verona’s Pizza, Cottage Pizza, all in Ayer

Shirley House of Pizza – Shirley village 

Subway – in Ayer center

McDonald’s, Wendy’s – 5 minutes from hotel, go out Barnum Rd.

Restaurants – Dinner  (all located within 5 minutes from hotel unless otherwise noted)

Bandoleros Mexican Grill – Mexican. Walking distance from the hotels

Woo Jung – Korean. Authentic

Osawa – Asian. Best Sushi for many miles around; reservations needed on Friday

Siam Pepper – Thai. In nearby, Harvard. Low key family run, inexpensive good quality

Bull Run  – Traditional American. Good atmosphere in a 1700’s tavern building, music on Friday, Reservations recommended;  ETR lunch is here on Saturday  (10 minutes)

Lucia’s Tavola – Italian. Upscale good quality, reservations recommended

Gibbett Hill Grill – Country American. Upscale good quality & atmosphere, local sourced menu, Reservations recommended  (15 minutes from hotel)

Forge & Vine – Upscale tavern, good quality plus bar food  (15 minutes)

Filho’s Cucina – Full menu mainly Italian, buy wine in attached wine shop and bring it in; very limited seating (inside & out) but neat little place (15 minutes)

Mural in the Bull Run Restaurant

Fresh Ayer Sports, 3 minutes from hotel;  interesting shop that shares space with “Hawks Nest Disc Golf” (!!!)  His tiny shop is crammed with bikes that you have to wade your way through, but if you need an obscure odd-ball part then he just might have it. You don’t see many like this so worth a short visit. In the same plaza with Ruby’s donuts so here’s your one-stop shopping.

The nearest hardware store is Moore’s in Ayer center. They have a complete hardware selection.

Route Access

• Click here to go to the RideWithGPS “Event”, which is a list of all of the routes giving you direct access to download or “pin” them individually to get them on your GPS.
• Click here to download a zip file containing all of the TCX files. If you want to get ALL of the routes onto your GPS, this is the easiest way. This only works on a computer – not on a phone or tablet. Open up the zip file, extract the TCX files to a temporary folder and:
  • If you have a Garmin, copy the TCX files to the /Garmin/Newfiles folder on the GPS.
  • If you have a Hammerhead, go to your dashboard, click Routes, Add and select all of the TCX files.
• If you want to navigate with your phone, click here to open the Event inside of the RideWithGPS app. You can then select the route you want and click on the Navigate button.

Note that we WILL NOT be printing cue sheets. If you want to print a cue sheet, open the route, click on “More” (top left), click “Print Cuesheet”, and then print the cuesheet webpage that opened up.

Potholes & Patches

While we would like to say that there is new pavement on all of our routes, we really can’t. Last winter was pretty hard on the roads around Devens. While we did our best in trying to avoid bad roads, there just aren’t a lot of options in places. Please be aware and keep your eyes on the road. For those of you that may want to paceline, you should to be very selective about which roads you do this on and make sure everyone calls out the holes.

Route Summary

First of all, Devens is not a town, but a “regional enterprise zone”.  Very few people actually understand what that means, but read on!

Originally the area was Camp Stevens, occupied as training ground for Union soldiers in the Civil War. At that time it was part of the town of Groton, but the town of Ayer developed into a town in 1871 as a major centrally-located railroad junction for all of New England (mainly because there is no north-south rail connection in Boston).

Its current namesake was Charles Devens, a lawyer who practiced in Ayer.  He served as a Union general during the Civil War, getting wounded several times during battles at Ball’s Bluff, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg. His troops were the first to occupy Richmond in 1865.  After the war he served as a superior court judge, later as US Attorney General under President Hayes.

The training area expanded to include parts of neighboring towns of Harvard and Shirley and operated as Camp Devens during WWI, later designated as Fort Devens (US Army). The Fort’s siting was due to Ayer’s location as a major railroad hub, and by early 20^th century a hub of the state’s developing road network. The base served as a major training and departing point during WWII. It continued as a training area for ground troops, paratroopers, and intelligence through the 1980’s including for the Kuwait conflict in 1990. It was officially closed in 1996, as part of the general Armed Forces consolidation. However some parcels were retained by the federal military for use as the Devens Reserve Forces Training Area, then was reactivated at a much smaller scale as Fort Devens in 2007.

After the Army base closed, some parcels were transferred to various agencies including the Federal Bureau of Prisons (established a federal prisons medical facility), Shriver Job Corps, Massachusetts National Guard, and Massachusetts Veterans. Most land was bought by the Massachusetts Development Agency, a quasi-public development authority that has converted Devens to a residential and business community. Devens operates as its own area but is technically still part of the towns of Ayer, Shirley, and Harvard.

Many of the existing military buildings have been renovated or reconstructed, for housing developments and a wide range of businesses. Businesses now include the hotel where you are staying, restaurants, a golf course, two disc golf courses, extensive pharmaceutical manufacturing, a movie production studio, and its location lends itself to being a trucking and rail distribution center.  The sports fields regularly host regional events in soccer, softball, lacrosse, and cyclocross. It is truly a success story and model for conversion of outdated government property for local benefit!

This is a very historic area of New England. Lots of really old stuff… Here are a few ideas of things to do in the area if you have time…

Fort Devens Museum – you could spend a few hours here, particularly if you are interested in military history. It is also very close to the hotels. Note that it is only open on Tuesdays and Fridays.

The Butterfly Place – Butterfly garden. (25 minutes away)

Fruitlands Museum – Art museum with beautiful views. (15 minutes away)

Visit Concord Massachusetts – the Minute Man National Historical Park, Concord Museum, de Cordova Sculpture Park and Garden, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery and Walden Pond State Reservation. Note that at the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, you can visit Authors Ridge where you will find the graves of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and others.

You can go hiking on the Shirley conservation land. They offer a very nice trail network; small marked parking areas on Robb’s Hill Rd in Lunenburg or Center Rd in Shirley, both 10 minutes from hotels). Trail map at every trail junction!

Farandnear Reservation, on Center Rd in Shirley, owned by MA Trustees of Reservations is a nice place for well-maintained trails including a cranberry bog. 

Wachusett Mountain summit is reached via a trail network with several trailheads, with 700’ elevation gain from any of them. Also has an auto road if you want to bike it. Maps available and don’t miss the bird display in the visitor center at base of the auto road.

There is also mountain biking in the area. The Shirley conservation trails extend into the Lunenburg Town Forest network. There is excellent riding with interesting geological features. Easy technicality on the old cart roads, easy-moderate difficulty on cart road and numerous single-track (parking across from 500 Burrage St or 150 Robb’s Hill Rd in Lunenburg or around 100 Center Rd in Shirley).  Trail map at every trail junction!  (5-10 minutes from hotel)

Billiards upstairs from Markoh’s on Main in Ayer, nice establishment

Bowling (candlepin) on road to Harvard, near Rte 2 junction (10 minutes)

Thank you to the MANY PEOPLE who contributed home baked goods to our rest stop. It made it extra special! Here are some of the recipes:

Sarah Crass was at the Rest Stop. She wrote the book “white house bake” and brought Abraham Lincoln’s favorite cookie, “Young Abe’s Gingerbread Men”. 

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We understand that plans change (although we’ll be heartbroken not to have you at our rally!).

If you need to cancel attendance at ETR please notify us at the easterntandemrally@gmail.com as soon as you can. Be sure you get a confirmation that we have received your cancellation.

Cancellation prior to July 1: 100% refund minus a $15 handling fee per person
No refunds after June 30.

Note that you will also need to cancel your hotel reservation. We believe that you will be able to cancel your hotel reservation up to 48 hours before the rally without penalty.