Marshaling at Harbor to the Bay

On September 15th, eleven of us took part in an annual MIT cycling tradition – volunteering at Harbor to the Bay! Harbor to the Bay is a charity ride in which participants ride 125 miles from Boston to Provincetown to raise money for local HIV/AIDS organizations. As marshals, we stand at intersections along the route to direct and cheer on riders. This means that we wake up extra early to ride out to our marshaling spots (between 62 and 114 miles into the route) before the participants arrive. Once all the participants pass us, we continue on our way to Provincetown, picking up the other MIT marshals as we go. We really enjoy volunteering at this ride, as it allows us to participate in a well-supported ride along beautiful roads and paths on Cape Cod, while also supporting a great cause.

Guillaume describes his experience:

“I was very excited about this ride: Harbor To the Bay was my first long ride with the MIT team, but also my first experience volunteering for the cycling community. One can easily imagine how frustrated I was when, 10 meters before the start I got a flat after rolling on a tiny shard of glass. Since my rim+tire combination makes it *extremely* hard to change a tube, I really thought I woke up so early (3:50 am) for nothing. But thanks to our road captain and his unprecedented dexterity with tire-levers and 30 minutes of hard work, we were on our way (~1h ahead before the regular riders).

Enjoying lunch near Sagamore bridge.

The first part of the ride was very dark and misty but when the sun rose we enjoyed very nice weather. We stopped near Sagamore Bridge for lunch. I was genuinely amazed by the work done by the organizers. The volunteers were very enthusiastic and helpful and the amount of food, drinks and snacks was way beyond my expectations. Our stomachs and back pockets full of food, we resumed our journey towards the Cape, gradually leaving some of us at their marshaling points. Around 12:15pm, Berk and I reached our intersection located at the top of a hill only 8 miles from the finish line. We spent more than 4 hours cheering and directing the exhausted, yet smiling participants (We even got our hands on a cow bell at some point !). We regrouped with the rest of the team after the sag wagon passed us.

Relaxing at a pit stop about 90 miles into the ride.

Sadly the last miles did not go as smoothly as we expected. Since we were approaching the Ptown town line the pace increased and Aditya touched the wheel of Daniel after a car slowed down in front of us. Fortunately, even though the crash was impressive and I barely dodged it, he seemed to be fine and the only mechanical issue was the rear wheel popped out. At the finish line we got a lot of pizza and a nice group picture. However it was not enough to compensate for all the calories we lost, so we ended up having a second dinner while we were waiting for the ferry. As soon as we boarded almost everyone fell asleep, probably dreaming about the next edition.”

Provincetown at last!