Cycling in Cape Cod's Provincetown
The Sand Dunes, Beaches and Forests of the Province Lands Bike Trail
Pedal through an otherworldly, windswept landscape of rolling sand dunes, vast beaches and breezy forests on P-town's paved Province Lands Bike Trail.
Provincetown, Mass., 116 miles southeast of Boston on Cape Cod’s coiled tip, explodes with visitors every summer, for good reason: Between the beaches and whale-watching, the art and diversity, the restaurants, clubs and drag queens, there’s truly a little something for everyone. And for the adventurous ecologist meets beach bum in all of us, there’s biking through sand dunes.
Nine-tenths of P-town, as it’s locally called, has been protected by the Cape Cod National Seashore since 1961, and within that land are immense, 5,000-year-old sand dunes and more than 30 miles of splendid beaches. The dunes, their beaches and the ever-changing light that illuminates them have inspired artists, writers, scientists and tourists for years. Fortunately, the Province Lands Bike Trail, a paved path for bikers, hikers and rollerbladers, loops around and through this extraordinary terrain, making it the best way to experience it in the space of a few hours.
Bikes can be rented seasonally at Nelson’s Bike Shop (43 Race Point Rd.; 508-487-8849), located near one of the trail’s entrances. Payment is due at ride’s end, so you don’t need to decide up front how much time you’d like for the eight miles of trail. A good thing, according to the shopkeeper, as some people return within 20 minutes, having given up after the first heart-pumping hill.
But the unusual beauty of the trail, which is rated as “moderately difficult" for its frequent undulations, will convince you to push ahead. The first leg, reached from the shop by a quick ride on asphalt, dips into the cool shadows of a hardwood beech forest, where the rumbling of car engines gives way to the steady hum of crickets. A standing reminder of a once-wooded Cape Cod, the low-lying trees boldly stake out their territory in defiance of the monster sand dunes encroaching just beyond.
The first glimpse of those dunes, following a climb out of the shade, is a memorable one – an abrupt environmental shift to desert-like sun and blinding white sand. Windswept into soaring hills and graceful valleys, the dunes’ monotonous canvas is painted by bursts of seaside goldenrod and bushes of rose hips, and anchored in place by sturdy scrub pines and crowning clumps of hairy beach-grass. As Henry David Thoreau concludes in Cape Cod (1865), “Thus Cape Cod is anchored to the heavens, as it were, by myriad little cables of beach-grass, and, if they should fail, would become a total wreck, and erelong go to the bottom.”
Thoreau might have been dramatic, but so is the terrain of the Province Lands Bike Trail. Although its hills demand some effort, it’s a relatively short course with some lovely built-in rest stops. The west-facing beach at Herring Cove is known for its long and diverse sands, sheltered waters and dazzling sunsets, while the northern Race Point Beach is wilder and more spectacular (near here, you can also bike to the Province Lands Visitor Center, a worthwhile detour for its 360-degree observation deck).
If you’re lucky, Race Point Beach will give you more to marvel at than just the crashing sea: It’s only a few miles south of Stellwagen Bank, a prime summer feeding ground for various species of whales, dolphins and seals. The majestic mammals somehow fit right in with the ravenous dunes, shadowy forests and vast beaches of Provincetown’s Province Lands.
