PHOTOS: Boston’s 2023 Bike To Work Day

It was a perfect spring day in New England for Bike To Work Day, and in Boston, hundreds of riders from all over the region met up in convoys from cities all over the region and convened for a festival in City Hall Plaza before work Friday morning.

The convoy riding in from Centre Street in Jamaica Plain included several families carrying young kids in Dutch-style cargo bikes. One of them was Eric Herot, a dad who works from home but wanted to come out to join his neighbors for the ride.

"I actually work from home, so this is a recreational ride for me, although I do always like to show up and support it and make sure that other bicyclists who want to do it are in a group that makes them feel safer," Herot told StreetsblogMASS.

We also met Joan Trueblood, a Jamaica Plain retiree who used to use the city's Bluebikes bikesharing system to commute to her former job in Copley Square.

"I'm retired, but I just love this ride," said Trueblood. "I'm very much in favor of promoting bicycle commuting and recreation. It's a win-win-win."

Between 7:30 and 8:45 a.m., convoys of riders coming in from Mattapan, Brookline, Cambridge, Malden, Chelsea, and other cities across the region arrived in City Hall Plaza in waves, while City of Boston Transportation Department staff welcomed them with cowbells and cheers.

The event also gave us a chance to appreciate the newly-renovated City Hall Plaza, which formally opened on a bitterly cold winter day last November, but is now bursting with greenery from newly-planted trees and gardens (and thanks to the new plaza's accessible design, it's now a much easier place for people to wheel their bikes around).