Coffeeneuring 2018: To the Limits of Bike Share

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.

#badhairday-euring

Best road section: South Road on the outer perimeter of the Harvard Arboretum

My intermediate destination: Bluebikes station in Mattapan

Neponset River trail

Fall colors are still in their early stages

Dorchester-Milton Lower Mills Industrial District

Daily Brew at Flat Black -- I somehow wasn't in the mood for anything more fancy

Lots of beans waiting to be roasted at Flat Black

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!

JFK Presidential Library

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!

Coffeeneuring 2018: Season Opener at the Mall

The 2018 Coffeneuring season has started! I usually try to get an early ride in, and so I decided to ride to Hilldale Mall this morning. I generally hate going to malls, even supposedly nicer and more urban ones like Hilldale, but a new branch of Crescendo Espresso Bar had opened there a couple days ago. I'm a big fan of Crescendo and their pour-overs, and the mall was close enough to squeeze in a ride before work, while also sticking to my theme-within-a-theme: Only get coffee at shops that I haven't been to before, #coffeeoutside in new locations, or doing the "Home Coffee Shop" thing.

Distance: 9.6 km / 6 mi
Coffee: A pour-over with a light roast from Ethiopia (I think this one)
Weather: Not much above freezing. I'm not ready for that yet.
Other observations: Spotted some turkeys in Shorewood Hills; outdoor music in malls is really horrible; Crescendo staff is still pretty new to all of it; I really need a new front chainring; I look stupid wearing the coffeeneuring bandana