River’s Edge park is city’s summer hotspot

Open space and trails overlooking the Blackstone River draw walkers, runners and riders from around the valley

WOONSOCKET – The hot weather was back in the city this week but that wasn’t keeping River’s Edge Recreation Complex regulars from making good use of the expansive area of Blackstone River open space.

Abutting a section of the Blackstone River Bikeway running in from Lincoln, the city park drew a number of walkers, runners, bicyclists and even long boarders braving temperatures rising into the 90s on Wednesday. And it was even a good day to walk the dog or play fetch as John Marsella and his black Labrador Zena were found doing on a grassy lawn near the park’s office building and former concession stand.

Marsella, a social studies teacher at the high school and past football and baseball coach, said he occasionally walks the bike path with his wife but was just out to toss a tennis ball to Zena on Wednesday afternoon. “I throw the ball and she chases it,” Marsella said of the aging Lab’s attempts at exercise with short runs for the ball and a few rest stops. The park is a beautiful spot in the city, Marsella said and one that usually is not too, too busy for those stopping in to enjoy it.

Some like Courtney, a runner from Woonsocket, were putting in hard workouts in the heat while carrying along water bottles or music players.

Cali Francesconi of Lincoln walked into the River’s Edge field area from Lincoln and then turned around at the park’s parking lot off Davison Avenue and headed back to Lincoln.

Robert King of East Providence, a former Attleboro resident, stopped in to try out a new long board he had purchased from Yocaher in California and received in the mail earlier in the day.

Unlike a shorter board, the Yocaher was intended for long distance riding, King explained. “It’s long and fast and it’s all meant for cruising, no tricks, nothing fancy, just cruising around hitting nice hills,” he said after stopping on the bike path.

As for why he had headed into to Woonsocket from Lincoln, King listed the natural setting of River’s Edge with its overlook on the Blackstone River.

“Look around, it’s beautiful,” he said. “And people are nice,” he added. Some do get a little leering of a skateboard rolling past but most are “very accepting,” he said. With the sport requiring a bit of physical effort to get moving, King said he was feeling it.

“I came out here with my buddy but he couldn’t take it and he went back,” King said of Wednesday’s warm and near breezeless conditions.

There were also bicyclists wearing brightly-colored cycling outfits on the path, some appearing as if they were making their own bid to win a stage of the Tour de France and others just riding along easily while chatting and keeping cool.

Chris Gambardella, North Providence, said the local bike path was his regular workout route given that there were “no people on phones in cars,” to be concerned about.

He was riding a custom-assembled Williams Cycling Aeros frame bike and training for upcoming fundraising events and group rides. “I’m racing the clock right now,” Gambardella said while wearing a jersey from the Rhode Island MS 150 ride put on by the Rhode Island chapter of the Multiple Sclerosis Society as an annual benefit ride in June.

Gambardella, who tries to put in about 100 miles of riding a week, was the top fundraiser for the 2016 MS 150 ride.

Even with the heat, midweek was a good time to get out on the bike path, he noted. “This whole thing is beautiful,” he said. “It is flat and it’s great because I get a solid 20 miles in, and because it’s flat you can go flat out,” he said. Leaving from Lincoln and making the turn around in Woonsocket, Gambardella said he can complete the route in just over an hour of riding. “On weekends, it is a little crowded but not as crowded as East Bay,” Gambardella said while referring to another of the state’s bike paths heading south from Providence. The concession stand at River’s Edge operates only for occasional special events and soccer, but Gambardella said he carries along enough snacks and water to make it through his circuit trips nonetheless.

He has the time to keep active given his specialty work as one of the few tennis racquet stringers around and his other work as a music teacher for Quincy College.

“I am the go to guy for racquet stringing in the state,” Gambardella said while explaining how he works at night sometimes allowing him daytime hours to train. Gambardella said he knew of the wooden Bancroft tennis racquets that were once staples in the sport but didn’t know they had been made at a Bancroft plant off Social Street in the city. “I haven’t seen a wood racquet in a solid 15 years,” Gambardella said.

The rider’s current round of training is for an upcoming MS ride in New Hampshire, a 60-miler in August, and then the Flattest Century in the East, a 100-mile bike ride put on by the Narragansett Bay Wheelmen out of UMass Dartmouth in early September.

As a bicycle rider, Gambardella said he has been following the current edition of the Tour de France that ends in Paris on Sunday.

This year’s edition of the three- week long, multi-stage race-- running through lowlands and mountains of France and its neighbors-has not had been as competitive as some Tours of the past due to the loss this year’s big names early on, he noted.

“Once they lost Peter Sagan, it was like unhh, and that was the 4th or 5th stage,” he said of one popular rider. Chris Froome is currently leading as the holder of the best overall time, the yellow jersey honor, and Gambardella said he believes Froome “will take it.

“I dvr it every day and there a lot of fast forwarding when I watch it at night, but it is still an interesting sport,” he said. “And there is no suffering like it in any other sport on the planet,” he said of the long demanding rides and potential for accidents.

Of course a sport is always more interesting when you participate in it yourself and Gambardella said he is not really a watcher. “I’m into the stuff that I do,” he said. ”I’d rather actually do it, so since I’m doing it, I’m interested it,” he said of bicycling.