WORCESTER, MA — By foot, boat, iron horse and organic horse, millions have traveled the roughly 50 miles along the Blackstone River between Worcester and Providence. But how many have done it by bike?

Probably quite a lot. But as far as I can tell, not many people have written about the experience, at least not since 2019.

On a recent chilly, concrete-gray Monday morning, I pointed my secondhand 10-speed bike southeast and rode 50.06 miles from my house in Worcester to Burnside Park in downtown Providence.

This ride has been a personal goal ever since I set foot several years ago on the Blackstone River Bikeway, which is a partially complete 48-mile path beginning at the Blackstone Heritage Corridor Visitor Center in Worcester and ending at India Point in Providence.

My only motivation for taking the ride was to see if I could do it. I have a low-to-medium amount of experience as a cyclist, but I love to see new places from the seat of a bike. A ride tracing the Blackstone River just seemed like a good adventure.

And between zooming across hilly southern Worcester County, seeing HP Lovecraft's grave and even an unfortunate run-in with a pickup truck in Rhode Island, the ride proved to be an incredibly big adventure. I was most surprised to discover an entire unseen place right in my backyard. I’ve driven between Worcester and Providence many times on back roads and highways. But seeing the Blackstone — called Kittacuck by people who lived here long before me — morph slowly from a shallow brook in Worcester to a mighty, capital R river in Rhode Island is not something you can do from a car. Riding along the river gives you context for why these two cities exist at all.

Near Worcester, the Blackstone is hidden behind buildings and highways, but it’s very much alive — and I found that the bikeway that follows part of its course may bring it back to the fore.

My ride started with a steep dive down Belmont Street into Lincoln Square. It was about 40 degrees and windy, and the chilly air stung my face and knuckles as I braced for the hours of riding ahead.

Riding through downtown Worcester is tricky. Big intersections like Lincoln Square and Kelley Square are obstacles between the few bike lanes that exist. To get to the Blackstone River Bikeway near McKeon Road, I typically take Major Taylor Boulevard (I like the namesake, and it’s usually not busy) to Green Street, to Quinsigamond Avenue, to Cambridge Street and down McKeon Road to the beginning of the boardwalk across from the Holy Cross sports fields.

It's here that you'll begin a 3-1/2 mile jaunt along Worcester's section of the bikeway. The non-motorized trail passes the visitor center off McKeon Road before snaking behind Walmart and then mostly along the river. At its beginning, the river is narrow and only a few inches deep in spots. A good place to stop is the bridge over the Worcester Flood Diversion Channel, a T-shaped intersection that often smells like laundry detergent, but offers a good look at a baby river.

Before you can get your heart rate up, the pathway ends near a Route 146 off-ramp in Millbury. The Worcester to Millbury stretch is your last off-street travel until nearly the Rhode Island border.

The toughest part of the journey begins near Millbury’s charming downtown, where you catch Route 122A and head down a hill, make a left at Dunkin’ and then a slight right southeast toward Grafton. At this point, you're mostly leaving the river behind in favor of wide roads with generous shoulders — but watch for debris, including road kill.

In South Grafton, you make a quick right onto Route 122 proper. Soon you enter the village of Rockdale. Although officially in Northbridge, it was built for workers at the Whitin mills almost 200 years ago. There's still a factory there along the Blackstone that's home to the Polyfoam Corp. There's also a historic district full of 19th Century tenement homes (still occupied today) centered around Taft Street. It's a worthwhile detour off Route 122.

The road gets more dangerous near Uxbridge. There are a few shopping plazas with wide driveways, and a narrower shoulder forces you to choose between either riding over sewer grates or sharing the road with big trucks and speeding cars.

And although I love Uxbridge, it's a bad place to ride a bike. Locals park in the bike lanes, creating a dangerous obstacle course of car doors and vehicles trying to pass you as you weave into traffic.

You can take a slight detour by heading east to the Blackstone River and Canal Heritage State Park, where there’s a dirt path along the water. It’s probably not suitable for riding, but it’s a nice break from busy Route 122.

In downtown Uxbridge, you have to squeeze into traffic to cross two busy intersections at Route 16. Then it's a narrow ride down 122 with parked cars to your right. I used the full lane to avoid getting doored, and I could feel all the cars behind me trying to speed up to 40 mph.

But if you make it through downtown Uxbridge, you're mostly home free. It's less than a mile to Route 146A, which is wide and recently repaved. Keep sharp though because you have to cross two Route 146 highway ramps.

Your time on Route 146A is pretty short before you jump back on the bikeway near Adams Street in Uxbridge. This is where the ride gets good.

At this point, reentering the Blackstone path in Uxbridge is like entering a warm house on a snowy day. The wide, smooth, car-free pavement draws you down a corridor of mature trees and feels so comfortable compared to the busy roads.

With no one in front of me as far as I could see, I zipped down the path behind homes and through hilly forests, crushing acorns under my tires as I went.

Two former rail bridges cross the Blackstone along the way, with the Triad Bridge offering a peek toward the Blackstone Gorge and plenty of foliage.

The path enters downtown Blackstone (the town) along a former elevated rail bed, giving you a high view of all the homes and businesses below. I regret not stopping at Walker's Pub, a cozy-looking bar in a weathered building with an incredibly inviting Bud Light sign hanging over the entrance.

MassDOT completed the 3-1/2 mile section between Uxbridge and Blackstone in 2018, and they did a superior job, but it’s not complete. The trail ends abruptly within sight of the Rhode Island border and a connection to the trail in that state. MassDOT is working on a 1/2-mile connection to Roosevelt Park in Blackstone for a more direct link to Woonsocket.

But until MassDOT's work is done, you have to take Canal Street. You access the road from the bikeway parking lot in Blackstone where it follows the old Blackstone canal into an industrial area in Woonsocket.

Even though you’re mostly on the road in Woonsocket, it’s a nice ride. It's a dense little city built on hills overlooking the river. You pass a Buddhist temple next to a neighborhood bar along River Street before rounding a bend where you return to a river that’s suddenly very wide. The river curves around downtown with a dramatic waterfall as the centerpiece.

A short bike path starts near the Ye Olde English Fish & Chips restaurant — but it gets kind of confusing from there.

A 14-mile stretch of the bikeway starts on the east side of Woonsocket at the River's Edge park. But getting there from the downtown business district requires crossing a dense, hilly residential neighborhood with unclear signage. I got lost the first time I crossed it, and then ended up on busy Hamlet Road with no safe place to ride.

I've experienced some nice bike paths in my life: the Charles River, parts of the Mass Central Rail Trail, the Manhan in Northampton, or the long Green River Trail near where I previously lived in Seattle.

But the Blackstone trail between Woonsocket and Cumberland is possibly the finest I've ever seen.

The path follows the banks of the Blackstone closely, offering frequent views of the powerful river and several ripping waterfalls. The Blackstone is a completely different river in Rhode Island, similar to how the Charles starts as a muddy swamp near Milford and exits to the sea in Boston as practically the Mississippi. That’s of course because rivers pick up tributaries, brooks and streams as they flow, growing stronger by each mile.

Farther south, the path cuts across a sliver of land between the river and the old canal towpath, whose banks remain symmetrical, offering a strange contrast to the jagged trees and rocks all around.

In Lincoln at the Blackstone River State Park, the path crosses from the east to west bank of the river, passing under the hulking Route 116 bridge and the historic Captain Wilbur Kelly House. I took advantage of the weekday emptiness of the trail to go fast as the first few golden leaves of autumn fell around me.

Near the end of the path in Cumberland, the trail splits in two. Take the left to cross the Blackstone over a bridge that offers one of the best waterfall views of the entire ride.

Unless you plan to hit a local restaurant (there’s a shopping plaza nearby), the bridge in Cumberland is a great place to stop and have a snack or something to drink. There's some tough, but scenic riding ahead.

I like both Central Falls and Pawtucket. Like Woonsocket, they are pleasingly dense cities that mix bars, restaurants, homes, factories and little stores in a way that you don't see many places. The Valley Falls Heritage Park in Central Falls is worth a visit, and so is El Paso Restaurant.

But the ride hit an unpleasant snag in Central Falls when a driver hit me. I escaped with a few scrapes and a damaged bike chain. But I’d like to use the incident to appeal directly to drivers about safety and mortality.

It was about noon, and the sky was still gray. As I was riding down Samoset Street, a green Toyota Tacoma rolled through a stop sign at Hunt Street as I was crossing the intersection. I could see the driver looking at his passenger as he continued to roll toward me.

I yelled and put my arm out as if I would be able to stop the truck. It wasn’t going more than 2 mph, but its force felt like a jolt of electricity into my arm. It knocked me flat off my bike and onto the pavement faster than my brain could process what was happening. My first thought was to get up before another car or the Tacoma squashed me.

The passenger emerged from the truck to see if I was OK. I got up and started yelling, demanding that they watch out. The passenger apologized, but I just wanted to get away from the situation ASAP.

For drivers, I’m sure it’s annoying to see people jaywalking, using a crosswalk while looking at a phone, or riding a bike slowly in the road. But know that the drivers ultimately bear all the responsibility for safety. Drivers are the ones in control of 3,000-pound speed machines, and a vehicle will always defeat the human body.

When I left for the ride, my last thought before I said goodbye to my wife was, "This might be the last time I see you." Out on the road, I’m constantly thinking about a driver who's reading a text crushing me, [TW: death] just like this.

The unfortunate reality is that we’ve built a nation solely for driving cars. Any other use of road space is seen as illegal or an intrusion, and that’s maybe partly why the Toyota Tacoma driver wasn’t looking out for cyclists. Drivers die on the roads too, but not like pedestrians and other unprotected road users, whose bodies get smashed and flung through the air by multi-ton vehicles. The roads belong to all users, not just the ones burning gas and diesel.

I dusted off, reattached my bike chain, and got on my way. Shaken, but not deterred from completing the ride.

You'll ride through Pawtucket's busy, pockmarked streets, passing the historic Samuel Slater mill and the famous Apex pyramid. It's here that you leave the Blackstone behind. The river ends at Pawtucket Falls in a merge with the Seekonk River at sea level.

And that means Providence is near.

After twisting through residential neighborhoods in Pawtucket, you’ll head down Pleasant Street and then jog west up Alfred Stone Road, which edges along Swan Point Cemetery. I stopped here to visit HP Lovecraft's grave because it's October, but the whole place is worth a look for its countless monuments and ancient trees.

I was lucky to visit Providence while the Hope Street Temporary Trail was open. The Providence Streets Coalition and other organizations sponsored and built the two-way protected lane for pedestrians, bikers, joggers and anyone else. It was only in place for a week, but the mile-long temporary trail made the ride down the excellent Hope Street commercial district safer and more enjoyable. Some business owners were pissed about it because, yes, they had to remove a few parking spots.

Coming from Worcester, I was surprised at Providence’s willingness to run such an experiment. Could you imagine closing off a mile of parking along Park Avenue or Shrewsbury Street, even for just a week? City Hall would be in flames.

But it gels with my sense that Providence is generally a pretty good place to ride a bike. I saw protected bike lanes downtown, and I actually felt comfortable riding in “sharrow” lanes because the streets didn't feel built for speed like in Worcester. Belmont Street has sharrows, but I just can’t trust the drivers there. And that’s another thing: I think Providence’s drivers are a little more accustomed to dealing with bikes on the road. No one told me to get back on the sidewalk, which has happened in Worcester. Come to think of it, I rarely see any bike riders in Worcester, even though they are out there.

I mixed in with traffic as I rode along the buzzing Thayer Street commercial strip near Brown University, a universe away from Main Street in front of Clark University. The road was relatively narrow, so I didn’t feel pressure to speed up for drivers.

The final mile or so along Angell Street into downtown Providence was similar, with relatively slow traffic, although I was riding on a Monday afternoon when it was no doubt lighter. I felt safe riding in Providence for the first time since the Central Falls mishap.

My last stop was in front of the Providence Art Club, where I stopped to take a photo of the river-like swath of road and city in front of me. Then I started looking for a place to get a sandwich — and that Bud Light I had been thinking about since Blackstone.

I hope I’ve shown that an average person with no special bicycling skills (my average speed was a pretty slow 12 mph) can ride the imperfect bike route that connects the second and third-largest cities in New England.

But there’s a future where kids, families and anyone else could do this ride on a whim, and do it very safely.

For many years, there’s been a plan to build a full bikeway along the Blackstone between the two cities. There’s obviously a huge gap between Millbury and Uxbridge, plus a few more in Rhode Island, and it’s going to be difficult to bridge those. There’s a patchwork of public and private land in Worcester County hugging the river that would have to be sorted out.

Completing the 18 missing miles from Millbury to Uxbridge will also be expensive. The 3.7-mile section between Uxbridge and Blackstone completed in 2018 cost almost $13 million; the planned ½-mile link from Blackstone to Woonsocket could cost $9.2 million. But the state and federal governments spend billions on road projects all the time. MassDOT is getting ready to spend almost $2 billion on the Allston Mutimodal Project, and no one has ever had a good time driving that stretch of the Mass Pike, unlike this bike path.

Devon Kurtz, executive director of the Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor, told me this week U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern is a big fan of the project, which could help tap into Uncle Sam’s wallet. He’s also hoping state Sens. Michael Moore, D-Worcester, and Ryan Fattman, R-Sutton, can bring help from state government: Massachusetts is sitting on nearly $4 billion after a budget surplus and federal pandemic stimulus infusions.

It's also possible for individual towns and private businesses along the Blackstone to build pieces of the trail. The owner of the Walmart plaza in Worcester built that section, Kurtz said.

What the bikeway really needs, Kurtz says, is for local people to take notice of the potential and to get excited about it.

“It’s going to take convincing the powers that be that it's worthwhile,” he said. “It’s not undoable.”

A completed pathway between Worcester and Providence would be an awesome recreation and tourism asset. But it would also return the Blackstone River to its roots.

People have used the river to travel and for commerce for thousands of years: before settlers arrived, through the American Revolution and into the Industrial Revolution. A completed bikeway would be a modern take on that history; instead of canal barges and mishoon canoes, it would be rollerblades, New Balance 847s and secondhand 10-speed bikes.

To make it happen, you have to take the ride.

Notes on the ride: Go slowly if this is your first time. I booked a hotel in Providence as part of a vacation so I didn’t have to ride back the same day. If you don’t bike back, you’ll need a ride, unless you want to take the T to South Station and then another train back to Worcester. Obviously, wear a helmet, but also wear some type of face covering. When I finished the ride, I spent about 6 hours sneezing because of all the allergens and dust I inhaled. Make sure your phone is charged because you’ll probably need to reference a maps app many times. Don't think so much about enjoying a Bud Light that you miss the sights.

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