Tour de Boston

As a native of Massachusetts I hardly, if ever, do anything “touristy”; it’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just I don’t think to. So when the opportunity to take part in a bike tour with Urban Adventours and BostonNightLife.TV came up, I jumped on it.

We met Sam, our tour guide at Landry’s Bicycles at 890 Comm Ave in Boston. It was one of those non-seasonal summer nights we’ve been having and it felt like early October. Perfect weather for a 10-mile bike tour. I randomly bike to the gym or around Watertown but I am a far cry from an avid biker. I had no idea what to wear! I rocked my UNLV hoodie and gym pants along with my JanSport backpack to hold my wallet and cell phone. Since the tour was at 7:30pm and it was getting dark I had to wear my glasses so I didn’t crash into anything. I looked like the biggest geek (which you can see from the photos taken).

We got going at 7:30ish and headed for Fenway (thankfully there wasn’t a game). We peddled up through Lansdowne Street, stopped for a photo op, and then proceeded towards the Christian Science Plaza. I have never heard of the Christian Science Plaza let alone ever been there until Wednesday. It was a really nice area. Two churches, a reflecting pool and a lot of open space and room for us to bike our way through. Since Doug and I were both natives of Massachusetts and live in the Boston-area, Sam didn’t go into too much tourist-information detail on a lot of the places we stopped at. He was very informative though when we did have questions. He told us that when the John Hancock building was built all the windows fell out. It had something to do with the material the windows were made out of and not taking the right measurements; when the doors opened they were testing the air conditioning and the reaction of hot and cold air caused the windows to actually shrink, hence causing them to ALL fall out.

We received a basic tour of Boston stopping at Copley, Boston Common, Downtown Crossing, the Garden and lastly cruising along the Charles River passing the hatch shell (and noticing for the first time ever that there are Gondola rides on the Charles).

Our tour was about an hour but they do have longer tours that cover a lot more terrain. The offer City View tours, Funway to Fenway, Paul Revere Ride to Freedom, Greening the Greenway, Tour de Boston and Sunday Cycle. We got a little taste of each tour. Normally their tours take place during the day, but the chance to bike Boston at night was awesome. Seeing things you would not have probably noticed on your own or during the day made Boston seem new again to a couple of veteran city-dwellers.

Eco-friendly Urban Adventours offers people the chance to tour Boston the “green” way. Their bio-diesel bike delivery truck runs on recycled vegetable oil from Boston’s North End. Their tours which offer an original perspective of Boston and not just the tourist stops are offered 7 days a week, at 10am and 2pm and average 2-3 hours in length. Anyone from 3 to 93 is welcome and encouraged to ride.

For those you aren’t interested in a tour but still want to bike Boston on their own, Urban Adventours offers 24-hour bike rentals just call 800-979-3370 to make reservations.