Ride Leader: Ted Shwartz
Start location: 145 Llyod Ave, Providence, RI (On-Street parking.)
Start time: 7:00 AM
Distance: 200k
Accreditation: ACP
Time limit: 13.5 hours
Lights/reflective gear: Required
Route/Cue Sheet: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/49919785
Registration: Via BikerReg (Note: Active RUSA Membership Required)
Please arrived by 06:45 to allow extra time to sign paper waiver at the morning of the event during check-in. Please make sure to check in with Ted before starting the ride, otherwise, you will be listed as DNS!
Controls:
Mile 16 – DD in Swansea (right side of road)
Mile 51.8 – Audubon in Westport (right side of road)
Mile 61.2 – Scuttlebutt (not a control – but a treat, left side of road)
Mile 66 – Fort Rodman (left side of bike path)
Mile 78.5 – Ned’s Lighthouse
Mile 101 – DD in Berkely (right side of road)
History:
Traditionally I host the NER Bays and Bridges 200k from my home in Providence during the spring. Sadly, the Rhode Island Bridge and Turnpike Authority outlawed riding the Mount Hope Bridge and this ride is no more. This year I am offering a replacement ride in its place.
NER Bikes and Dikes 200k 2025
This ride has more bridges, hurricane dikes, whale vertebrae, lighthouses, coastal bike paths, civil war forts, a very impressive windmill construction and staging site, a monument to an Indian solder in the revolutionary war than your typical brevet. There is one section of abandoned road, call it gravel after 20 more years of neglect. It’s rideable, but stay out of the puddles that hide deep potholes. There will be an alternate route around this section should any velomobiles attend the ride.
The ride is flattish by NER standards, but I can promise you wind, while you overlook Narragansett Bay, Buzzards Bay
The views on this ride are fantastic, Elizabethan Islands, Cape Cod and glimpses of Martha’s Vineyard. This is a great ride to take photographs on.
Parking:
Parking is available on the street in my neighborhood. Please do not lean your bicycles on my neighbors house or fence.
Background of this ride:
I was born in New Bedford, and have spent the majority of my life in Dartmouth and Providence. There is a lot of natural beauty in these areas, and on these roads. This ride has some of my favorite places and views culled from 50 years of riding here
Route Description:
The route takes riders down Narragansett Bay crossing inland through the towns of Warren, Swansea and Somerset before crossing over the Taunton River to the city of Fall River. Fall River is not the most scenic of cities, but it has a killer hill, President Ave.
After climbing the big hill of the day around mile 25, the ride circles the North Watuppa Pond, traversing the Freetown State Forest, Southeastern Mass Bio Reserve and Watuppa Reservation. Around mile 33, on the right side you will see a monument to Daniel (Prince) Page, a Pocasset Wampanoag Revolutionary War Hero. The monument is usually surrounded by Quohaug Shells, remember those Quahaug Shells, and think good thoughts about Daniel Page, otherwise you may be cursed with a flat from those other Quahaug Shells, dropped by Sea Gulls, on this ride.
Leaving Fall River you will ride the length of Westport to the beaches along Buzzards Bay, where you will see the Elizabethan Islands. At mile 51.5 is Control #2) at the Audubon Sanctuary. If you look on the stone wall you will see the vertebrae of a whale. They wash up on the shores of Southeastern Massachusetts every now and then.
You will cross a causeway, across Padanaram Harbor at mile 61. There is a coffee/breakfast spot called “Scuttlebutt” at 10A Bridge St, Dartmouth. My nephew Jacob is a partner there. Show them your token, and there will be a surprise for you there.
The first hurricane dike is at mile 63.3. Go up the ramp on the right, and ride on the top of the dike. If you look to the sea, on the right hand side, you will see the the coastline of Dartmouth that I spent 30 years living on.
Continue on the hurricane dike for almost a mile, then descend to the road. Another mile will bring you to the Saulnier Memorial Bike Trail. This trail goes around the end of New Bedford, and by Fort Rodman (Control #3) before returning to the road along New Bedford Harbor. You will see the length of the Elizabethan Island chain, Falmouth, Woods Hole and poking through the holes, Martha’s Vineyard.
At mile 67.9 you will climb up to the second hurricane dike, overlooking New Bedford harbor, Fairhaven and the Hurricane Barrier Doors. The path down from the Hurricane Dike will bring you by the construction and staging site of the Vineyard Wind Project. It’s an impressive site.
Next you will traverse though New Bedford, past the port, and up to the New Bedford-Fairhaven Bridge to Pope’s Island. We then work our way to Mattapoisett via the Phoenix Bike Path and then the elevated Mattapoisett Bike Path finally reaching the Mattapoisett Docks, and then on to the Ned’s Point Lighthouse (another control).
You then head inland returning to Providence through the rural towns of Rochester (farms and cranberry bogs), Lakeville (lots of reservoirs), Berkely, Dighton, Rehoboth, Seekonk, East Providence and then returning to Providence via the Henderson Bridge.