On Sunday, October 11, the roads that loop through Boston's largest park will belong to bicycles. Circuit Drive, the ring of pavement that winds through Franklin Park, will close to cars from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., and the city is inviting anyone with a set of wheels — or without one — to come ride it.
Ride & Chill, announced by Mayor Michelle Wu's office and organized with the Boston Parks and Recreation Department, is built around three group rides that fan out from the Shattuck Picnic Area near the park's Forest Hills entrance. The longest is a 9-mile route that leaves the park entirely and threads through the surrounding neighborhoods of Roxbury, Dorchester, and Jamaica Plain. A middle option covers 2.5 miles inside the park, aimed at families. And a half-mile loop is reserved for beginners and balance-bikers — the youngest riders, still figuring out how to stay upright.
The point, according to the city, is that nobody needs experience to show up. "We wanted to make sure everyone could enjoy a beautiful ride through the park, regardless of whether they have many years of experience or if they're a beginner just getting started," said Chris Osgood, the city's Interim Chief of Streets.
For those without a bike, a complimentary borrowing station opens at 8 a.m. on the day of the event, stocked with a limited number of standard bicycles handed out first-come, first-served. Riders who want one are asked to register for a ticket that includes a rental. Bluebikes credits will also be available on site, and children can contribute artwork for a limited-edition community Bluebikes wrap — a small piece of the city's bike-share fleet decorated by the kids who ride it.
After the rides, the day settles into a festival at the Shattuck Picnic Area, with free bike programming, a "bike town" skills course, dance and fitness classes, a bike repair clinic, a local DJ, a live band, and food vendors. The event is sponsored by Wayfair and title sponsor Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, with additional support from the Conine Family Foundation.
"Our goal is for every Boston family to be connected to health, wellness, and community," Wu said in a statement. "Ride and Chill will bring people together for a day of biking, fitness, music and community, with programming for residents of all ages."
Sarah Iselin, president and CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, framed the day around the season as much as the sport. "Franklin Park is especially beautiful this time of year," she said, "and Ride & Chill turns this beautiful open space into an enjoyable opportunity for families to get outside and get moving."
The setting is the story as much as the ride. Franklin Park is the largest green space in Boston and the anchor of Frederick Law Olmsted's Emerald Necklace, the chain of parks and waterways the landscape architect began designing for the city in the late 1870s. Olmsted — already famous for New York's Central Park — laid out Franklin Park as what he called a "country park," a deliberately rural escape from industrial urban life, with a wooded Wilderness, the pastoral Playstead, and Scarboro Pond arranged to feel almost untouched. The park opened in 1885, named for Benjamin Franklin, and over the following century accumulated the trappings of a modern city park: a golf course, athletic fields, and the Franklin Park Zoo.
Its roads have always been part of the design. Olmsted's plan wove carriage drives through the landscape, and Circuit Drive remains the spine of the park — which is why closing it to cars, even for a morning, changes the character of the place. The park's six miles of roads and fifteen miles of pedestrian and bridle paths make it, in the words of the Franklin Park Coalition, a place where children can "learn to ride a bike with no traffic or automobile interference." Ride & Chill takes that idea and scales it up to the whole park for a day.
The festival grounds at Shattuck are themselves newly reimagined. The Shattuck Picnic Grove, also known as Ellicottdale, is one of the park's most heavily used gathering spots — a long-standing site for family reunions, Juneteenth celebrations, picnics, and tennis lessons. Under the Franklin Park Action Plan, the city's strategic roadmap for the park developed with the Franklin Park Coalition and neighborhood residents, Shattuck has been identified as a "magnet destination" for active and passive recreation. Community meetings through 2024 and 2025 shaped a renovation that expands the tennis area from two courts to five and adds a drinking fountain, benches, a practice wall, bike racks, a community bulletin board, picnic tables, a BlueBikes station, and space for temporary bathrooms. The grove around the courts is being updated with new grills, picnic tables, shade structures, bike racks, and new trees.
In other words, the bike racks and the BlueBikes station being installed at Shattuck are not incidental to Ride & Chill — they are the infrastructure the event is meant to celebrate. The city is using a free Sunday to show residents what the park is becoming, and to hand a first bike ride to people who have never had one.
Getting there is part of the pitch. The Shattuck Picnic Area sits near the Forest Hills and Shattuck Hospital entrance to the park, roughly a five-minute bike ride from the Forest Hills Orange Line station via the Arborway bike paths — a route designed so that a family without a car can reach a car-free park without one.
Registration is encouraged in advance to help the city plan, particularly for anyone hoping to borrow a bicycle, though the event itself is free and open to all. Full schedule details are posted on the city's calendar at boston.gov/calendar/ride-and-chill-franklin-park.