Originally Posted by
godshammgod
I love getting "lost" on my bike. It's the best way to discover new roads or routes I may have otherwise skipped past. When I used to live at Newton Corner, where it is often very congested and "urban," I did love discovering new ways to cut through that and find quieter roads. Now that I live in Needham it's a bit easier...thankfully!
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
…Even though I've lived here for over 30 years, I always get lost on a new ride. Streets are laid out in a haphazard fashion; many streets, particularly the one you are riding on are not marked; they surreptiously change names; and in rotary intersections it's easy to lose your sense of direction. (I don't have a GPS.)…
When I was growing up in Detroit, around grades 6 to 8, my good friend and I used to also like to go out on our bikes and “get lost,” as well as our intentional rides throughout the neighborhood. Detroit though, is laid out on a rectangular grid system, so we were never really that lost, compared to riding in Boston.
One benefit of cycling around Boston and knowing the back roads, is that occasionally when driving on a freeway if I encounter a traffic jam, I know how to get off and bypass the jam on the local surface roads, while the unaware drivers sit it out.