PHOTOS: Boston’s 2023 Bike To Work Day

12:33 PM EDT on May 19, 2023

A crowd of people in bikes pedals through a wide brick plaza. In the center, wearing a black helmet and blue hoodie, is Boston Mayor Michelle Wu. — Mayor Michelle Wu, who was riding in from Roslindale, arrives in City Hall Plaza for Bike to Work Day on May 19, 2023.

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.

A crowd of bike riders gathers in a parking lot beneath a 7-11 sign. Several of the people are riding Dutch-style cargo bikes with large front-mounted boxes in which their children are sitting to come along for the ride. — The Jamaica Plain Bike to Work Day convoy, which included several families with kids, gathers in the 7-11 parking lot near South Huntington Avenue and Centre Street at 7 a.m. on the morning of May 19, 2023.

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.

A man wearing salmon-colored pants and an orange jacket pedals a white Dutch-style cargo bike along a bike lane next to a parked car. His young son, visible only from the white bike helmet he's wearing, is sitting in the cargo bucket in front of him. — Eric Herot of Jamaica Plain pedals down Columbus Avenue in the South End.

"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."

A woman wearing a teal jacket, purple backpack, a baseball cap, and a purple bike helmet pedals a Bluebike down the street next to a row of parked cars. — Joan Trueblood, a retiree from Jamaica Plain, pedals down Columbus Avenue in the South End for Bike to Work Day.

A crowd of over 100 people, many of whom are walking with their bicycles, gathers in a large brick-paved plaza. In the distance are the skyscrapers of downtown Boston. — The Bike To Work Day crowd in City Hall Plaza at 8:30 a.m. on the morning of May 19, 2023.

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).