The Regular Riding Route

After nearly four days of continuous rain and dreary weather, the sun finally returned to Boston on Thursday afternoon. So I rushed home after work, threw on my bicycling clothes, and headed out on my regular cycling route. I've ridden it so often for so many years, the bike just knows where to go.

The puddles from the past four days hadn't quite disappeared yet...


...and my legs felt a little creaky after the forced rain delay. But that's the great thing about having a route you ride all the time. You instinctively know the best way to pace yourself up every hill, how much to lean into each curve, and the ideal place to drop down to the small gears for challenging climbs or ratchet up to the massive gears for the flats.

Having such familiarity with a route also enables you to notice parts of the landscape that are in a constant state of change, like the flowers on the side of the road...




... and the ebb and flow of the sea ...




Riding a bike, I feel like I'm aware of these things in an almost sixth-sense kind of way. It's different than other outdoor activities like taking a long walk, where you have time to think about what you're seeing. Speeding by on a 21-speed aluminum road bicycle, many details of the ride skip through your mind like a stone on water. Eventually they sink in, but sometimes it's not until later in the day ... sitting at work, having lunch at a cafe, or on the subway ride home. But that's the beauty of a great bike ride -- it keeps unfolding long after it's ended.

A Great Book!

This is one incredible book...


It's lean, passionate, tough-as-nails ... and absolutely intriguing. The Rider is Tim Krabbe's first-person account of the fictional "Tour de Mont Aigoual" amateur race in France. Just look what Krabbe writes in the very beginning as he takes his gear out of his car:

Tourists and locals are watching from the sidewalk cafes. Non-racers. The emptiness of those lives shocks me.

It's all written with that wonderful arrogance! It goes on from there with a kilometer by kilometer account of friends and enemies of the race, flashbacks to Krabbe's "sporting career", and allusions to historic real-life riders Coppi, Anquetil, Merckx, and many others. They all come together in this relentlessly exciting, fascinating page-turner.

Here's the complete bibliographic info...

Krabbe, Tim. The Rider. Bloomsbury USA, New York. 1978.

It's only 150 pages ... perfect for the subway commute or a weekend afternoon. Enjoy!

The Hidden Runway

When your bike-riding territory is an old, semi-urban area like Boston's South Shore, you find yourself pedaling through many layers of past lives and memories. Sometimes the signs are right there for all to see ... like colonial-era mile markers, 300-year-old homes, lighthouses and industrial ruins. And sometimes it's simply old stories that add an invisible, but eerie weightiness to the air.

I had been riding through one of those storied places for years now, thinking that was all that was left, just nostalgic old tales. But on Thursday morning at 5:00 am, I set out to discover a small piece of the story history left behind.

I rode out to Marina Bay in Quincy, Massachusetts ... in search of a runway.

The sunrise was shining brightly as I reached the shore...



I rode down Quincy Shore Drive, turned right onto the East Squantum Street causeway, and then turned left into the upscale Marina Bay development.



I've posted photos from here before. Marina Bay has a small boardwalk, nice restaurants, a music club, and attractive condos. But this is only the uppermost layer of its long history.

I know, for example, that an old airfield used to sit just a few hundred feet from here in the 1920's, out of which Amelia Earhart regularly flew. Marina Bay was also the home of an immense shipbuilding factory during World War I; and later, from 1929-1953, it was the site of the Squantum Naval Air Station.

It's that Naval Air Station period that concerned this morning's ride. Here's an old (public domain) photo of the Station:


Riding through this area many, many times, I never once came across any signs of this gigantic airport. All remnants of it seemed to have quietly sunk into the salt marshes.

But then a few days ago, I looked up Marina Bay on Googlemaps, and I saw something very exciting (for the larger Googlemap click here)...


There amongst the trees -- could it really be ... a runway?! Could I have missed something that obvious for the past 10 years?

Doing further research online, I found out that yes! ... there actually is a public park right next to Marina Bay (Squantum Point Park), and it features a scenic walk along a portion of old Squantum Naval Air Station's Runway 3 -- a tribute to its aviation past!

How could I have ridden by it for so long and not noticed?

In search of an answer, I rode from the Marina Bay boardwalk to Squantum Point Park, just a couple hundred feet away. I've ridden by this park before, and it always looked to me like nothing more than a neglected parking lot, with a few nice views of the harbor at the end.


But then, pedalling along the southwest corner, I came across a gate. It stood in front of a nondescript path that disappeared into thick brush...


I got off my bike, walked through the gate and followed the path around a tight curve. Then ... as if the clouds opened and a great pipe organ began playing full blast ... there it was ...

I was standing on an old, abandoned runway.

In these photos, you can see the runway as a strip of tall grasses and wildflowers, with a paved path running around each side...






The runway was both magical, and strangely surreal, hidden as it was behind an impenetrable wall of thick bushes and craggy trees. The only place the vegetation finally broke was at the far end, where it opened onto a little park with a view of Boston Harbor.




Plaques along the path detailed the runway's story...






As I rode along the path, I was joined by a number of little companions. A playful rabbit jumped out of the bushes, looked at me, hopped back into the underbrush just as I tried to snap a photo, and then reappeared farther down the path a few moments later...


A red-winged blackbird wasn't very happy when I inadvertently startled it. It called out to what must have been the local blackbird squadron, all of whom had a great time angrily squawking at me from the low tree-tops...


And I came across one mildly curious seagull in the park at the end of the runway...


All of the wildlife seemed acutely aware of my presence, as if I was the first visitor to this place in a very long time. Judging by the overgrown bushes and plaques in need of a cleaning, I think they were right.

I spent a good 20 minutes or so on the runway, trying to imagine the old propeller planes nosily taking off, spitting out fire and oil, and then slowly lifting into the air. I thought of the grounds crew making repairs, refueling the planes, and maybe smoking cigarettes on a break. Flight is a beautiful, graceful thing ... but I love the gritty atmosphere of hard work and rock-solid know-how that makes it all possible.

I looked at my watch ... 6:15 am ... time to get back home and get ready to go to work myself. I walked my bike back through the narrow path that led to this special place and slowly re-entered the known world.

But before leaving Squantum Point Park, I took a photo from the end of the parking lot...


Just one more window on this complex, mysterious place called Boston Harbor.

Today's Ride .. and Links!

First a nice opening shot from my 5:30 a.m. ride...


I rode my usual route along the southern part of Boston Harbor, and as always, I passed this mysterious industrial ruin that sits out on a sandbar...


Here's a close-up...


I have no idea what this is, although I've been riding by it for years now. It's some sort of remnant from one of the harbor's many past lives; looking gloomy out there all alone in the gray dawn. Someday I'll figure out its story. But if anyone has thoughts, feel free to let me know!

Now, onto the links. Here are some great bicycling blogs I discovered pedaling around the Internet:

Travels of the Little Red Bike --The awesome title alone makes this blog worth a visit! It's written by a retired air-traffic controller ... about his life, bike riding, and the bicycles he buys along the way. It's really delightful. And if you're like me and enjoy traveling by air, then you'll find the references to commercial aviation an added treat.

The Long Haul -- This blog is a cyclist's record of routes he designs for long-distance rides around Portland, Oregon. I really like the scientific detail with which he presents his maps and terrain charts, and his meticulous ride descriptions. I think most serious cyclists are amateur cartographers at heart. We're proud of our personal paths around town.

Cycler's Life -- This blog is a bicyclist's writings about living car-free in ... surprise ... Portland, Oregon. That has got to be the coolest city in the country! Since I live car-free here in the Boston area, this is something I can definitely relate to (although unlike Joe of Cycler's Life, I don't commute by bike to work ... I take the subway). It's great reading!

All three of these blogs are now on my sidebar. So check them out and enjoy!

The Castle

This morning I decided it was a good day to ride to a castle.

I headed out the door at 6:30 am with the title track from The Decemberists' Hazards of Love album buzzing through my mind. A friend of mine and I saw The Decemberists last Tuesday Night at the Bank of America Pavilion on Boston Harbor. It was a great concert, on a very cold and misty night -- the perfect setting for the Decemberists' dark, character-driven brand of music. Vengeful mariners, legionnaires, forest queens, chimney sweeps ... The Decemberists tell these creaky old characters' stories with rich lyrics and colorful melodies.

So with good tunes still ringing in my ears and mythological figures on my mind, I headed down Furnace Brook Parkway in Quincy, turned onto Adams Street, turned again onto Reservoir Road, and then made a rapid-fire downshift to begin the short, but intensely steep climb up Forbes Hill. It begins so suddenly that when you hit the initial slope it feels like the rotation of the earth has slowed a bit (remember, we're thinking mythologically here...).

The climb up Forbes Hill winds it's way counter-clockwise past big Tudor houses. As the summit nears, the golf course of Furnace Brook Country Club appears on the right...



And then, straight ahead, something mysterious starts taking shape between the trees...


I got off my bike, walked through the small patch of woods, and there it was...


The Castle!




...or a keep. Or a Medieval tower. Or Rapunzel's tower. Or whatever you imagination decides.

In reality, the large field in these photos used to be a reservoir, and the castle is simply a stylized water tower built between 1901-1904. Apparently, civil engineers thought the original metal tower looked pretty bleak. So they simply built a castle around it. Problem solved.

On the ride home, I thought about musicians like The Decemberists, opera composers Verdi and Puccini, and the great storytellers J.R.R. Tolkien and J.K. Rowling ... how they transport us to the Imaginary World in such all-encompassing, complete ways. But we all skirt this world in our daily lives too -- just on a much smaller scale. For example, here are two scenes from my normal morning ride...



Now strictly speaking there's an anchor on the front lawn of the first photo (look closely on the left) and a miniature lighthouse in the second. But is that all they are? Just lawn ornaments? I think they're more than that. In a subtle way, the anchor and lighthouse remind us of the myths and legends of the sea. I mean, really ... why else throw a rusty old anchor on your lawn?! It's all about the powerful images they evoke.

So here's to all the good folks who look at their front lawns and say: "You know, what this really needs is a miniature dragon" or "a pink flamingo" or "a metallic-purple mirror ball". Just like those civil engineers that built the tower on Forbes Hill, they see ordinary things, dream a little, and turn them into castles.

Into the Woods

Yesterday morning, I turned my bike away from the seashore and headed to the Blue Hills Reservation, located just south of Boston. It's a wonderful area of green forests, winding roads, scenic overlooks, and huge boulders...

The main challenge of this ride is a long climb up two connected hills -- called Wampatuck and Chickatawbut -- beginning right at the entrance of the reservation. So as I passed through the park gate, I shifted my bike into its lowest gears, put my hands on the upper part of my handlebars for better leverage, and patiently began the ascent. That's the key to tackling long climbs ... patience. After all, I'm in no hurry. Few things are more magical and mysterious than a ride through the forest...

There are so many amazing old forests in New England. The Great North Woods of New Hampshire and Maine are overwhelming in size and remoteness. The mystical Mohawk Trail State Forest of northwestern Massachusetts is old, very old ... home to 160-f00t-tall white pines towering over 300-year-old hemlocks. And the Green Mountain National Forest is a place of gentle beauty, covering the rolling hills of central Vermont. All of these forests speak in voices uniquely their own.

The Blue Hills Forest is more modest than those big woods. But it still has a remarkable power to calm your mind and take you outside yourself for a while. It certainly made a strong impression on the Native Americans of this area. They called themselves the "People of the Great Hills". Or in Algonquin -- Massachusett.

Those "great hills" are now called the Blue Hills, and this is its forest...


After the long climb up Chickatawbut Hill, the trees give way to the summit ahead...

Here at the top, you can rest, take a drink of water, and admire the view from the overlook. As you probably noticed from the wet pavement, the weather was damp and misty yesterday morning. So the view was pretty obscured. But if you look closely, you can still make out the Boston skyline in the first photo (I brightened it up a bit). Otherwise, the hilltop simply looks as if it descends into the clouds below...

Look familiar? It's the same place I took an earlier photo that is now on my blog title bar!

After spending a few minutes at the summit, I had a choice to make. I could ride down the other side of the hill, continue on a winding road and eventually make my way around Great Blue Hill and into the quaint town of Milton. Or I could simply ride back down the way I came up. I decided on the latter. Always save something for tomorrow ... that's one of my personal bicycling mottos. Today, the summit of Chickatawbut Hill was enough. I would keep Great Blue Hill and Milton for another ride.

I took one last drink from my water bottle, turned the bike around, and began the thrilling descent toward home...