Students, faculty, alumni and staff came together yesterday for a 106-mile bike ride through Tufts' three campuses as part of the third annual Tufts Century Ride, which was led by Provost and Senior Vice President David Harris.
Participants biked in a figure-eight loop beginning on the Medford/Somerville campus early in the morning, traveling through the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine in Grafton and the edge of the health science campuses in downtown Boston and ending back at the Mayer Campus Center.
The Century Ride event was first held in 2012, and the second version of the event took place this May. Harris said he started the ride as a casual, open outing that gradually expanded to include more and more interested Tufts students and faculty. The first ride in 2012, which included only 30 faculty bikers, spurred a snowball effect on campus.
“The Century Ride is a way to get people together -- faculty, staff, students, alumni -- and explore the whole Tufts area,” Harris said. “Each time we’ve done it, more people have joined and said, ‘Oh wow, I’ve never been here!’ It’s also a fun way to meet with people you might not interact with otherwise, outside the classroom.”
Harris has worked towards the goal of bringing different sectors of the Tufts community together since joining the university in 2012.
“That’s why I’ve done things like office hours and ‘breakfast with the provost,’” he said. “This is just another one of those events. I realized I hadn’t met any faculty yet and wondered if anyone wanted to go on a ride with me. It went from that thought to an annual event.”
Part of this inclusivity was the idea of the actual course, according to Harris. It was designed by consciously integrating a multitude of stopping points wherein anyone could join in or leave the pack whenever he or she pleased. This includes a reception outside of Ballou Hall at the end of the ride.
“Not everyone can do the entire 106 [miles],” Harris said. “It’s not long, it’s not very fast and it’s relatively flat. In the figure-eight path, you don’t have to have much biking experience to do any given part of it, and we keep that in mind.”
Harris also boosted the community aspect of the ride by enlisting the Tufts Cycling Team to volunteer as ride leaders to guide each group, according to Administrative Coordinator in the Office of the Provost Emily Schipper.
“The general idea is to unify the Tufts population, especially with undergraduates,” Noah Epstein, captain of the Tufts Cycling Team, said. “With these big rides, you always need a lot of manpower and experienced riders to help run the event and make sure no one gets into trouble or gets lost.”
Epstein, a junior, said 10 team members rode along this year, many of whom have served each time as a marshall to coordinate riders and volunteers.
The Century Ride was not previously a regular, annual event, but the goal is to have the tradition start this September, according to Harris, who took a brief hiatus running the ride due to a year of scheduling conflicts and trepidation.
“I thought maybe five or 10 people would go -- I had no idea,” he said. “It was a lot of people. What made me even more anxious was the number of people who came up to me in subsequent months and said they wanted to do it next time. If we do this, can we handle it? So I put it off until May.”
Schipper, who has planned the event each time, said it has grown larger every year in numbers and scope.
“Last time, we had 150 register and about 100 participate,” she said. “This time, we [had] 170 registered."
Schipper explained that the greatest concern for the ride was safety, especially with a large group of people. She said the entire course was flagged and she contacted the police departments of the municipalities through which the course ran.
Harris said that he wanted to drive home the message that students should be just as much a part of the ride as faculty, and this year two-thirds of the participants were current undergraduates.
“We have a huge range of experience levels," he said. "If you have a Tufts connection, you’re welcome.”
