Sunday, April 26, 2009

Blackstone River Bike Path


Went a'biking on a nearby bike path. It's part of the Blackstone River Bikeway and is supposed to eventually link Providence to Worcester. I live in Woonsocket and headed south on the path. I was pleasantly surprised to discover it is now fully paved to connect to the path in Cumberland, which I'm pretty sure goes all the way to Central Falls.

Since the path runs along the Blackstone River and it was an unusually hot day for late April (temps in the 80s), the bugs were out in force. At one point after going through a particularly thick cloud of bugs, my arms were coated with bugs. I was tempted to cue up the Whale Song app (link opens iTunes) on my iPhone and bike along with my mouth open to get my day's fill of protein. Mmmmm.... bugs.

I ended up riding about 15 miles round trip. I would have gone further had it not been for the approaching dusk and my lack of forethought in regards to bringing a light. The fully paved portion of the path is 10 miles, so taking into account the 1 mile ride to get to the beginning of the path from my condo, I now have a decent nearby place to go for a 22 mile biking. And, since the path goes under Rt 295 and is linked up with the rest stop there (provided you don't mind adding an extra 1 mile round trip detour on a very pleasant uphill ride overlooking a scenic part of the river) you can even stop at a Dunkin' Donuts and Baskin Robbins midway through the trip without ever having to ride on a road.