We let Gemini decide our bike route (100 miles of ebiking conclusion)
We had fallen way behind in our goal to ebike 100 miles during the summer, and to make matters worse, we had just gotten ourselves stuck in a thunderstorm, attempting to haul 130lb of ebike through the Wompatuck wilderness. We were losing hope of ever accomplishing this goal, but we got a renewed glimmer when the storms subsided and brought in perfect late summer weather. We needed to take advantage while it lasted.
Relinquishing control
Making our own decisions about where to bike in Wompatuck didn't work out, and so on August 20, we enlisted the help of our new friend, Gemini. Gemini is Google's AI assistant, who has been surprisingly useful during work-related brainstorming sessions and even once showed me empathy. We know, we know...
Nevertheless, we set up a conversation with Gemini to get directions for a bike ride through Wompatuck, before realizing that it would just defer to Google Maps. Instead, we let it randomly decide our direction whenever we got to an intersection. We made the rule to only use paved roads, unless we felt ballsy and wanted to try some dirt paths, which we did do...once.
If you've ever played a version of this game, you know that randomly generated directions often leave you going in some semblance of a circle. That's what happened to us. We immediately entered the primitive campground loop and ended up moseying around there for several miles. At one point, we passed a ranger and heard her ask, "Do you want a trail map?!" We weren't sure if she was talking to us or the people she was with, but come to think of it, we probably did look a little lost. "Not lost, ma'am! Just controlled by robots!"
Finally, after passing the same intersection many, many times, we got the direction to head out the back exit of the campground. We were ready for true adventure!
The road across from this exit is a good one. It leads to Aaron River Reservoir, one of our favorite places in the park. Left or right wouldn't be bad either because the main road could take us anywhere. I asked Gemini, who told us to take a right. That's when I asked Anthony if we should include the turn into the Transfer Station.
Ah, the transfer station. The home for our home the day the lightning-stricken trees got evicted from my parents' premises.
The transfer station parking lot actually connects to the Aaron River Reservoir Road on the other side, so taking this turn would give us one more chance at riding towards some beautiful water views. We included it in our next choice, and Gemini chose it. We turned left into the parking lot, which was quite busy compared to how we left it two years before.
We crossed our fingers that the reservoir would be our next stop, but we're not that lucky. Gemini took us back to the main road, and then once again, through the gate and back to the campground.
Thankfully, we weren't there for long, before back through the gate we went.
This time, we were told to take the road to the reservoir, but then we got sidetracked off a different road. We didn't mind; it would take us to the other side of the park, where we used to ride back when we lived in the area. There would be lots of good choices for directions.
But did Gemini take us in any of those good directions? Why, no. We looped around a few areas, but then ended up back on the road we just came from. The only way to salvage this bike ride would be to get a "left" that would finally take us down to Aaron River Reservoir.
Gemini delivered! We had finally come to a scenic area determined by pure randomness.
You'd think we would quit while we're ahead, but we needed more miles, and so we let Gemini take us back up to the same road we had already taken twice, toward the northern part of the park. From there, we did a couple more turns before ending up at the main road, which took us back to the campground. On our way back to our loop, we spotted a mother deer and her fawn. Gemini couldn't take credit for this sight; we had already finished our randomization for the day.
Learning surprising geography about our local parks
After leaving our decisions up to technology for a day, we were ready to return to our own route planning. One of our favorite things about Wompatuck is that it lies adjacent to two other parks, which you can easily access by bike. Our maiden voyage with our ebikes two years ago took us out of Wompatuck and over to Weir River Farm and Turkey Hill, two conservation areas owned by the Massachusetts Trustees of Reservations. I have a long, loving history with Turkey Hill and look forward to visiting whenever I return home. We chose to do a "sandwich ride," aka a bike ride with a hike in the middle. These combinations became a nice way to make strides in both of our 100 miles challenges while also switching up which muscles we were using. The top of Turkey Hill offers views of Hingham Bay and the Boston skyline. We chose a beautiful day to take a ride up there.
During our hike, we came to a road crossing that piqued my curiosity. I don't know why it never had before; we crossed this road nearly every time we hiked at Turkey Hill. This time, I checked the map to see which road it was, and turns out, it was Whitney Spur. This was fascinating to us because Whitney Spur is a rail trail that leads out of Wompatuck and out to route 3A, a main road that runs along the South Shore. We had biked Whitney Spur many times, once even tacking on an ice cream trip to nearby JJ's creamery (will bike for ice cream!), but for some reason we always pictured the spur traveling through Wompatuck and Wompatuck only.
After our hike, we decided to grab our ebikes and see if we could find a bike-friendly path that would lead us down to the spur. We found one that was a little treacherous, but nothing compared to our scary thunderstorm day. It was downhill most of the way and started as gravel, before becoming dirt. Taking the trail uphill would probably be more difficult, but downhill was very doable.
Finding this path means that we technically discovered a way to bike from Wompatuck to Turkey Hill without leaving recreation areas at all. If we ever want to attempt the uphill climb, we could avoid all public roads. We just fear that this might be the more dangerous option, as the roads we typically take are not at all busy. Even still, we now know that we can form a loop with our bike ride, taking roads on the way up to Turkey Hill, and taking the gravel/dirt path down to Whitney Spur on the way back. Finding new avenues like this is invigorating. It teaches us that we still have so much to learn about these parks that we used to visit so often.
Speaking of learning more, we were feeling adventurous as we returned to Wompatuck and decided to find the old Naval Ammunition Annex. Turkey Hill houses the old Nike Radar Building, which we have seen many times, and we've also hiked past some old military bunkers in Wompatuck, but we had never actually been over to the annex. Now, it's less of an annex and more of a concrete canvas of sorts. Also, "RIP sense?" Hard truths being told here at Wompatuck.
This bike ride landed us close to 72 miles, and finally we felt like our goal was within reach. We didn't plan on completing all 100 miles in Wompatuck because our camping reservation would be ending in just a few days, but we had the momentum now. We hit our goal during a 13-mile ride the morning before we checked out.
Overall thoughts
We definitely made a mistake by not frontloading some miles, but once we put the pedal to the pavement, we were able to get a lot accomplished. We didn't have any bike breakdowns, and neither of us fell, even on those rough forested paths. The challenge did exactly what it was supposed to, which was force us to get on our bikes more this summer. Only, like the hiking challenge, we seem to underestimate just how brutal these challenges can be in the summer heat. We really lucked out at Wompatuck because the weather turned and we got to take full advantage of the park. It was a little crazy, actually. When we arrived, the temperatures were hot and the ground was wet from constant rain and condensation. Then on the day we left, the temperatures had cooled, the air had dried, and the leaves had started falling, covering the roads. The sun cast a warm glow through the tree branches, and squirrels began gathering acorns. We felt like we biked our way from summer into fall.
Fallen leaves on our final bike ride
Would we do this challenge again? We're not opposed to it, especially in a year where we forgo the hiking challenge. Two challenges in the same summer was quite the undertaking. But, we hold to the feeling we always get when these challenges are over. We had tons of experiences we wouldn't have had otherwise, and we're proud of pushing ourselves, but we wish we could have chosen our recreational activities freely instead of feeling constantly forced to either hike or bike. While we appreciate the discipline this creates, summertime shouldn't be too much about the discipline. Those are our thoughts now, at least. Who knows how we'll feel next summer, when we're ripe and fresh and forgetting that soon the temperatures will be in the 90s! God speed, future Nicole and Anthony. God speed.
