As we pedal towards the city, its about time that we cross over and experience the heart of Bostons summer scene, the Esplanade, but in order to do so well have to head over the Mass Ave Bridge.
The Massachusetts Avenue Bridge, or Mass Ave Bridge to locals, is the longest bridge that crosses the Charles River, and is a little less than a half mile long. It offers one of the best panoramic views of the citylooking out towards downtown and the Salt and Pepper Bridge and also back towards the Fenway and Back Bay Regions of the city.
This bridge handles a major flow of Boston traffic everyday, and spans four lanes wide with an additional two built in bike lanes, and a pedestrian sidewalk. Its walkways are most frequented by MIT students who use this outlet to get to and from their campus and into the city, and although there have been many MIT students who have passed over this bridge, only one has been immortalized in local legend because of his rather peculiar commute on this bridge one evening.
If you take a closer look as you bike across the bridge, youll notice that on both sidewalks, the length of the bridge is measured in a peculiar fashionby painted hash-marks on the sidewalk marked as a Smoots. As legend has it, Oliver Smoot, the shortest Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity pledge in 1958, was carried end over end one evening from one end of the Mass Ave bridge to the other by his fraternity brothers. They marked off each smoot-length, and determined that the bridge was 364.4 Smoots long, plus or minus an ear. Nowadays pedestrians can see the bridge marked by the 10 smoot-lengths, which the fraternity still repaints twice a year.
Once you get to smoot-length 364.4 and land in Boston, you might also notice a commemorative plaque that honors the escape stunt that Harry Houdini performed off of the bridge in 1908, and near the Houdini plaque, you will find a ramp that will guide you from this iconic bridge and down to the rivers edgewhere we shall continue on our journey to the Esplanade.
p.s. to review the Boston by Bikeroute thus far, click here for part 1 and here for part 2. To check out Part 4, The Esplanade, click here.Link through for other Budget Travel Suggestions click here, or toexplore the city by foot, click here.
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