BOLDFACERS

Wheels of Choice

"I ride our Specialized Globe hybrids the most since they are our primary rental bike. They are great for getting around Boston with their 700c wheels, durable design, and 24 speeds. The hybrid Globes are perfect for the city, and are so popular they are now launching a whole Globe line to meet the needs of our favorite customers, the urban commuter,” says Urban AdvenTours Founder Andrew Prescott. "But my favorite bike has got to be my fixed-gear Specialized Langster. There is a ton of hype and trendiness surrounding 'fixies', but having this type of bike to whiz around the city on is truly a lot of fun."

http://www.specialized.com/us/en/bc/home.jsp

Okay, so you have the bike. Now what?

"Our shop carries a good amount of accessories, mostly targeted to city commuters. It's our mission to get more people on bikes so we carry items that make it easy to commute by bike. There are other great shops around the city that target other needs too," says Urban AdvenTours Founder Andrew Prescott. "Kip from Cambridge Bicycle carries some great gear, catering to fans of fixed gear and track bikes. Landry's Bicycles is one of the most well stocked shops in the region and whenever we can’t help someone out, Landry’s is the first place we send them."

http://www.cambridgebicycle.com/

http://www.landrys.com/

Ride into the sunset

"We added a new tour this year. The Bikes@Night tour cruises into the Seaport and Waterfront districts. It's an interesting mash up of old industrial areas and lots of new green buildings such as the Manulife Building, Artists for Humanity, and the Children's Museum,” says Urban AdvenTours Founder Andrew Prescott. "It's really great for riding because there are few cars, but good streets to get up to speed on and plenty of things to see. It's the kind of area that most people wouldn't normally wander around on foot, but it an awesome part of the city to push some gears through."

www.urbanadventours.com

Entrepreneur

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He's got legs and he knows how to use them. But Andy Prescott also has brains - wicked smaht as they say in these parts - and figured out a way to turn his grease monkey habits into a grown-up business. A life-long cyclist, Andy says he's spent almost as much time on a bicycle as Lance Armstrong and while he leaves the Tour de France to the big boys, Andrew has created a Tour de Boston - Urban AdvenTours.

Prescott’s company offers several different tours that take riders (up to 30 to a group) all over most of the usual Boston stops—Fenway Park, the Esplanade, Trinity Church, the North End, you know the list—but groups can tailor-make routes, too, and rent bikes to explore on their own.

Boston, Prescott agrees, is a beautiful city for walking, but he’s trying to make it a fantastic city for biking. And that’s a challenge. Because it’s such an old city, many of the streets are narrow and don’t run on grid systems. Think trying to drive through the Financial District; now think about doing it with fenders, no bumpers and only two thin wheels. When it comes to biker friendliness, Boston, says Prescott, rates a C, but it’s getting better. He’s been on city task forces to improve bicycle awareness, pow-wowed with Mayor Menino, and will preach the power of the pedals to anyone who listens.

Got a bicycle with a boo-boo? Andy and his staff also love to repair bikes, and they’ll fix up used bikes and sell rentals at the end of the season in AdvenTours Atlantic Avenue office. He’s also set up a bike-sharing effort that works kind of like Zipcar. All spokes on the wheel in the effort to create not just the ride of your lifetime, but a way of life.

Urban AdvenTours - Boston Bicycle Tours and Rentals

103 Atlantic Ave

Boston

Office (617) 233-7595

Reservations: (800) 979-3370

www.urbanadventours.com