Late Sunday night, Kevin, a colleague who is a bicyclist, completed the Midnight Ride.
It’s an event that started a few years ago when one guy suggested to some fellow bikers that they bike the Boston Marathon route the night before the big event.
Stacey Leasca of the Los Angeles Times has the story.
“For the last six years, the Midnight Marathon Bike Ride has covered the Boston Marathon course the night before the race, as a way for more Bostonians to take part.
” ‘It was a way for me, who is not a runner, to connect with Boston, to connect with all this marathon energy,’ said Greg Hum, the ride’s originator.
“Although the Boston Athletic Assn., which oversees the Boston Marathon, has never officially sanctioned the ride, it has become a celebrated tradition to help kick off Marathon Monday.
“The night before the 2013 race, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Assn. even provided riders with a special commuter train to get them to the start of the route.
“This year, however, race officials and the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency asked that the ride be canceled, and the MBTA did not offer its Midnight Marathon train. …
“But the Midnight Marathon had momentum that he and the agencies could not derail.
“Once word spread that there would be no train from downtown Boston to the starting line, riders began organizing carpools, vans, trucks and even a few buses via social media to help get them to the start.”
Kevin said Hum really wasn’t an organizer, just a guy whose idea grew, and he didn’t know any way to call it off. So it happened. There were people cheering along the route, even that late. Kevin got home at 2 a.m., exhilarated. His toddler woke him bright and early on Patriots Day, the day closely associated with another midnight ride.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
Now, this is a marathon I could imagine completing! I’m glad they did it in spite of everything.
People love to be part of the Marathon whatever way they can. I have only watched a couple times, but the best was when Erik (Suzanne’s husband) ran. What an esprit in the crowd!
Ooooh. I would love to do this in a future year! How cool. Reminds me of a weekly crowd-sized bike ride I joined all over Shanghai one night during my last visit there.
It’s worth your life to bike in Shanghai, although I guess there is strength in numbers. I was only there once. You sound like you go more often.
I went twice when dear friends lived there. Now they are back in NYC; so I can visit them via bus and ride bikes in Manhattan (and Central Park!) I LOVED biking in Shanghai. A lot of folks of all ages still ride bikes, and the overall pace is much slower (with no speeding, lycra-clad daredevils to surprise one from behind) than here in Boston. And there are still many bike-pedaled delivery vehicles, transporting produce or recycled cardboard or cages of chickens around town…
I mostly saw people biking in heavy traffic where I was, no helmets. I would have liked to see what you saw.