Introduction
This is a total urban experience bike ride using bikes, boats, and buses. I ride through the city to catch a commuter boat over to Nantasket Beach. At the end of the trip I catch a bus for the last two miles. The first two videos cover the first 8 miles from my house to the waterfront where I catch the boat. It’s a very cool ride through the city almost all of it on a bike path. Hope you enjoy this!
Nantasket Beach is an awesome day trip from Boston by bicycle and commuter boat. It’s located in Hull, MA and is about 1 hour by commuter boat. The commuter boat is a public transit service with multiple runs daily.
I need to ride my bike the 8 miles or so from my house in the Roslindale section of Boston down the Pierre Lallemont bike trail to Copley Square and then through the city to Boston Harbor. I need to catch the 8am boat to Hull. Though I cross a lot of streets I don’t spend much time riding on them.
If you are interested in some city biking then check out these 2 videos. It’s about a 50 minute ride compressed to about 18 minutes in 2 sections.
This next video takes us from Roxbury Crossing down to Long Wharf on Boston Harbor.
The commuter boat is located on the north side of Long Wharf and not the south sides as all the other boats. The Marriot Long Wharf is on the right. The boat will arrive at the gangway on the right as well.
The boat arrives with the morning commuters coming to work in Boston. The boat has bicycle racks in the front that you can lock into. No one is allowed to ride in the front of the boat.
It’s an awesome boat ride out of Boston Harbor to Hull. Lots of sights. Lots of history. All the islands out here are part of a park. You take the boat to George’s Island (not this boat) and from there you can take a free water taxi to other islands. Here’s the boat ride video.
Castle Island is a busy port on Boston Harbor. Here you can see “the castle” which is Fort Independence. Edgar Allen Poe was stationed here for a number of years around 1830. Here he learned of a legend of two soldiers who fought a duel over gambling debts. The legend had it that the winner was so disliked that the friends of the loser sealed him into a vault. It is, in fact, a legend. Poe turned this into his work “Cask of Amontillado” and made the setting an Italian village.
Another interesting harbor island is Spectacle Island. So named because the island looks like a pair of spectacles from above. This island has a long history of various uses. For the last 50 years of the 1900’s it was a dump. It generated so much methane gas that it would catch fire and burn for years.
Using soil excavated from The Big Dig Spectacle Island was capped off and turned into an awesome park. Because if was a dump it’s an excellent source for sea glass. Check this out for the sea glass.
It’s about a 4 mile ride into Nantasket Beach. Hull is a nice seaside community. I’d call it working class. There was a time when Nantasket Beach was quite the destination with an amusement park and many “beach” style restaurants. That’s mostly gone now and the area has been building back for about 20 years now. I like it. I like the blend of the old and the new. There’s a positive energy there that fun to feed off.
Not much beach at high tide.
Here’s a quick little video tour of Nantasket Beach and then I return to catch the boat back to Boston.
After arriving back in Boston I still have a good ride back home. About 8 miles. To mix it up a little and see some new scenery I ride along Commercial Street in the north end over to Boston Garden. At the Museum of Science I catch the Charles River bike path to the Mass Ave bridge. That’s where the filming ends there. To describe it though I follow Mass Ave back to Mass Ave station on the Orange Line where I get back on the Pierre Lallemont Bike Path to Forest Hills Station. There it’s my lucky day as I catch the #50 bus for the final 2 miles back to home.
Here’s the video.