Last week's impulse to orderly civic virtue gave way to this week's curiousity, so I rode out the Northern Strand Community Trail to see how the newly-surfaced Revere section at Rumney Marsh is turning out, for a 26-mile ride through Arlington, Medford, Malden, Everett, Revere, and Saugus, on a mix of pavement and gravel.

Riding to the Northen Strand through Medford was a pleasure as always, with a nice hill-climb and descent on High Street, the agreeable bustle of Medford Center, and a quick stop at the stupa to pay my respects. Some event seemed to be in progress there, so I didn't linger.


Reached the Northern Strand at Bell Rock Cemetery, Malden's old burying ground.


Usually, I take the Northern Strand N here, but it occurred to me that I'd never ridden the Everett section, so I detoured S to see it.



Reached the end, turned around, and promised myself to return and do some exploring some time, then proceeded back through Malden, headed for Revere. Along the way, came upon a dandy mural celebrating Bike to the Sea, and a scene of some major demolition of an industrial site.




Reached the Revere section of the Northern Strand soon enough, noting that Malden and Revere have created a good connection between the two, no small trick in the tangle of busy intersections where they meet. It soon became apparent that while the Revere section is still considered a construction site until the crossing at Salem street gets striped, the trail surface itself is finished. It's a mixture of compacted soil and recycled asphalt (read, gravel of one of the better sorts), and rode well with the Compass 26" x 1.75" tires I was running today, certainly a vast improvement over the railroad ballast and mud that it replaces. See the Bike to the Sea pages for more background. And Rumney Marsh, which the Revere trail borders, was as lovely as ever.








While the Revere section isn't formally open yet, people are finding it, and riding or walking it. Unfortunately, there's a story that some motorcyclists crashed the party, and did some damage to the trail surface. The trail is now posted against that. I noticed what looked like a motorcycle training class (or license exam) in progress in a lot a block from the Revere trailhead, and encountered a pleasant-enough young man riding a Suzuki motocross bike on the crushed-asphalt Saugus section of the trail, so this seems plausible. It reminds me of a section of the Minuteman that had been a dirt-bikers' heaven before that was paved, and that got some of that traffic off and on for years after. It's just a couple more edges in the Fully-Connected Graph of Complaint, I guess.

I rode out the Saugus section and admired the familiar beauty of the Saugus River tidal flats, stopped to have a little lunch, and continued as far as the Lynn line, then rewound the tape (omitting Everett this time, and getting a little random in the Medford back streets) and rode home.


Along the Malden section of the trail, I had a short chat with a couple on road bikes, who wanted to know how far the trail ran. I found that the first answer, "to the Lynn line", was too simple, because it wasn't clear how their 23mm tires would fare on either the Revere or Saugus trail surfaces, and I explained that the last two sections were gravel, not pavement. With that caveat, this new Revere segment is a wonderful development, and the imminent ribbon-cutting should be a jolly occasion.

rod