Ride 13: Massachusetts
The Bay State
State: Massachusetts (#13)
Area: Bahstahn
Route: A loop around the city connecting parts of the Boston Marathon route, Revolutionary War sites, Paul Revere’s midnight ride, the city’s many colleges, and downtown
Final Mileage: 54.14
Date: July 23, 2022
Throughout the first three years of this project, we’ve made more progress than either of us likely could have imagined, given our increasingly busy professional and personal lives. The congestion of states along the East Coast had made it relatively easy for us to knock out 12 of them between June 2019 and June 2022. Essentially, we’ve been averaging four rides a year.
However, 2022 presented a new set of realities for us: as summer approached, not only had we completed just one state so far this year (North Carolina), but we didn’t have much more time before Alex left the DMV area to start the next chapter of his life with Mary Kate in Springfield, IL. So, we decided to try our first twofer! After briefly flirting with Ohio and Indiana (as we considered moving Alex to Illinois via a road trip), we opted instead to return to New England and do the neighboring states of Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
There were two slightly complicating factors for this trip. First, we decided to take four days (Friday through Monday) to do it—two for travel and two for riding. We figured we could split up the rides with a rest day in between, but we realized a tad too late that unless we wanted to do the second one and drive home on the same day (Monday), we would have to do the rides on back-to-back days and use the bookend days for travel. The second factor wasn’t foreseeable at the time we planned the rides but was perhaps just as daunting: as in much of the rest of the country, New England was set to be battered by scorching temperatures all weekend. So, not only would we be riding (at least) 100 miles in just two days, but we’d be doing it as temps were set to reach nearly 100 degrees.
Still, there was plenty to look forward to on this trip, starting with Beantown. Michael had been anxiously awaiting this ride for some time: he had worked with a native Bostonian (and close friend) to develop a ride that included some of the area’s coolest sights, such as parts of the Boston Marathon route, Revolutionary War sites, the path of Paul Revere’s midnight ride, the city’s many colleges, downtown, and more.
First, though, the trip started with a stop at the historic Fenway Park, home to the Red Sox baseball team, on Friday night. The game against the visiting Toronto Blue Jays didn’t start until 7:10 pm, and we had hit the road from Baltimore at 9:30 am, which we figured would give us plenty of time. What we didn’t anticipate was headache-inducing traffic nearly the whole way up.
For most of the trip, our ETA for the hotel in Foxborough—a suburban area outside of the city that is home to the Evil Empire—was 6:45. From there, it was still another hour or so to the stadium via public transit. At one point in the drive, we considered giving up and just selling our tickets. But we ultimately held on to them, hoping to at least see the inside of the park and part of the game, even if only a couple innings.
Fortunately for us (but almost no one else), the game we were about to attend would become one of the most lopsided—and, therefore, most entertaining—games in MLB history. By the time we got to the stadium at around 7:50, the Blue Jays had already scored several runs, extending the first couple of innings. This meant that the game was only entering the third inning by the time we arrived, giving us of time to see plenty of action—including a rare inside-the-park grand-slam.
After Toronto went up 15–3 early in the fifth inning, we decided we’d had our fill of fun and headed back to the hotel so we could wake up early and start the ride in cooler weather. We meandered around the concourse on our way out to take in a bit more of the stadium. This only took about 10 minutes, but during that time, the Jays scored 10 more runs, leaving the game at a ridiculous score of 25–3 as we exited.
We returned to the hotel, got a good night’s sleep, and then set sail early the next morning for our starting point: an elementary school parking lot just east of the suburban community of Wellesley—and right along the marathon route!
On this hottest of hot days, we kicked off our ride at 7:45, working our best to cruise through as much of it as possible before the temps reached the 90s. We began by heading west to the town of Natick—taking the marathon route in reverse.
We then turned north toward the historic towns of Lexington and Concord, home to two of the battles that kickstarted the American Revolutionary War. The route between these towns—and an eastward extension toward Arlington, MA—also included stretches of Paul Revere’s midnight ride.
By the time we reached Lexington, we were nearly 30 miles into the ride, which we felt great about, given that it was only a little after 10:00. However, the heat was already bearing down on us, and we still had about 25 miles to go.1 After briefly stopping at a local park for some sustenance, we hopped on a nearby trail and hit our fastest stretch of the ride over the next seven miles en route to Cambridge. There, we stopped for a few minutes to take in the surroundings of the nation’s oldest institution of higher learning, Harvard University, as well as the nearby Harvard Square.
From there, we began our journey into the heart of Boston, crossing the Harvard Bridge near MIT over the Charles River and connecting with an adjacent bike path.
We stayed here for a few miles before veering over to Beacon Street and the picturesque Boston Public Garden.
At this point, we were approaching the afternoon, and with the sun closing in on its highest point of the day, we just wanted to be done. So we headed to our final stretch of the ride, in pursuit of Beacon Street to take us home (or, at least, back to the car).
As we approached the 50-mile mark, we saw what we thought had to have been a mirage but turned out to be a miracle: a local nonprofit had set up water stations in a parking lot for anyone doing outdoor activities that day.
This helped carry us through the final few miles, bringing to an end our 13th ride and putting us over 25% of the way to 50 states. We rewarded ourselves with a night on the town, traversing the Quincy Market in Faneuil Hall, scoping out Paul Revere’s House and the North Church near Little Italy, and finishing the evening at Trillium Brewing’s outdoor garden near the city harbor.
This completed our first full New England day. We’ll follow up soon with the other half of the trip—the Rhode Island ride—but for now, we hope you enjoyed following along on this one. In all, we loved our time in Boston, and we discovered plenty there that may bring us back for more rides in the future.
We can blame Michael for constructing a route that was closer to 54 miles in total…