My wife is spending the year in Cambridge, MA. I'm visiting for a week, and so there was a great opportunity for some easy wins for my "coffee shops I haven't been to before" theme. The only problem: I don't have a bike here. I do, however, have a membership to the Bluebikes bike share sytem. For my Sunday coffeeneuring excursion, I looked at the bike share system map and picked the station that was as away as possible:
It looked like the station at the terminus of the Red Line in Mattapan would qualify. Next I had to find a coffee shop in the vicinity. A quick search didn't look too promising, but after zooming out a bit I found a place called
Flat Black Coffee. Unfortunately, it was 1.7 miles from the Bluebikes station. But there seemed to be a trail along the Neponset River connecting the two, and so I decided to make it a multimodal coffeeneuring experience.
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#badhairday-euring |
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Best road section: South Road on the outer perimeter of the Harvard Arboretum |
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My intermediate destination: Bluebikes station in Mattapan |
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Neponset River trail |
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Fall colors are still in their early stages |
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Dorchester-Milton Lower Mills Industrial District |
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Daily Brew at Flat Black -- I somehow wasn't in the mood for anything more fancy |
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Lots of beans waiting to be roasted at Flat Black |
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Neponset River trail near its estuary |
Instead of walking back to Mattapan, I continued along the river and picked up a bike another 1.5 miles east. From there, I biked toward the ocean and then roughly headed north back home, with a bunch of intermediate stops: Flipping bikes several times; bathroom stop at Pope John Paul II park; guac burger at By Chloe; buy new tube for Nicole's Brommie at Broadway Bicycle School; beer at Lamplighter Brewing. At the end of the ride, I was pretty pooped. 30-ish miles on a bike share bike is hard work!
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JFK Presidential Library |
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Crust Lightning Bolt sighting in front of Broadway Bicycle School. First time I've seen it in real-life, and man, is it nice! |
Stats: 11 separate Bluebikes rentals, for a total of about 30 miles
Coffee: Flat Black daily brew
Weather: Excellent fall weather!