Category Archives: Cycling New England

cycling, Cycling New England, Personal Diary, photos

Cycling New England: 18

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There are times when I think Google Maps is just trolling me. Why else would the gods of Mountain View, California decide that my route from the Roslindale section of Boston to my hotel in West Greenwich, Rhode Island would take me on a circuitous route through the most decayed, industrial section of Providence, Rhode Island only to deposit me at a crossroads where Franklin Roosevelt is eclipsed by Robert Taft, author of the most anti-working class piece of legislation in American history?

http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1667.html

But Google Maps had a plan, and it was a good one. The gods of Mountain View, California sent me down all nineteen miles of the Washington Secondary Trail, a paved bike, pedestrian, and horse path that starts in Providence, and takes you all the way to rural, southwestern Rhode Island without having to dodge a single pothole or SUV

http://www.dot.ri.gov/community/bikeri

The Washington Secondary Trail isn’t perfect. Roots of trees growing under the concrete can make for a bumpy ride. There are at least ten dog walkers for every cyclist so you often have to take it slow. But by God that was the most stress free twenty miles I’ve ever ridden.

cycling, Cycling New England, photos

Cycling New England: 11

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No cycling today. I spent the day sitting out the rain in a Motel 6 in an industrial wasteland in Chicopee, Massachusetts. There is literally a mountain of dirt across from my hotel. Last night when I was lost in the rain I sung the Hallelujah Chorus when I saw the Motel 6 sign. Now my room is stuffy. The landscape is worse than New Jersey. People are yelling at one another on the balcony, and I’m eager to hit the road. I shouldn’t have cheaped out on lodging.

Note: Springfield Massachusetts drivers are Olympic level assholes who may be worse than Jersey drivers.

cycling, Cycling New England, photos

Cycling New England: 9

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I knew the dark plaque was a World War 1 memorial even before I read it. The small town of Lee, Massachusetts sent dozens of young men (probably the whole graduating class of the high school) in 1918 to defend British and French imperialism against German imperialism. There are monuments like this in every town in New Jersey. Westfield (the posh New Jersey suburb not the run down little city in Massachusetts) has a magnificent World War 1 memorial that dominates the center of town.

What you won’t see in New Jersey is the reverse (fading white) side, a Civil War monument. While dozens of young men from Lee, Massachusetts filled the ranks of the Union Army, the same either cannot be said of most places in New Jersey or has been flushed down the memory hole.  Massachusetts and Ohio were the backbone of the abolitionist movement. New Jersey (which split the vote in 1860 between Lincoln and Steven Douglas) was luke warm about the whole affair, a true swing state. If you look up a town in New Jersey and find out it was founded in 1861 or 1864, that means it was a copperhead town that didn’t want to pay taxes to support Mr. Lincoln’s Army.

cycling, Cycling New England, Personal Diary, photos

Cycling New England: 8

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Since I cycled through the rain all day and only brought two changes of clothes, I stopped several times at laundromats to change into my dry clothes and wash and dry the wet, filthy ones I was wearing. This place, near Pittsfield, was the most interesting. This man, who looks like the generic shady Caucasian male from a true crime series, broke the change machine and stole 300 dollars worth of quarters. They haven’t caught him yet. I find it odd. A man desperate enough to smash a change machine can’t be very mobile. He’s not going to jump on a private plane and flee the country. I suppose he’s either dead, in prison for another crime, or submerged in the marginal community of Herman Melville’s old town.

Maybe he signed aboard a whaling ship.