We cycled along the Cape Cod Canal Bikeway in Mid-September 2025 while staying at the Thousand Trails Gateway to Cape Cod RV Park in nearby Rochester, Massachusetts.
We parked the truck at the Buzzards Bay Recreational Area and off-loaded our bikes. Buzzards Bay Recreation Area is the westernmost access point to the Cape Cod Canal Bikeway, a paved service road that runs for 7 miles from here to Scusset Beach at the eastern end of the canal at Cape Cod Bay. The western end of the canal is framed by the dramatic Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge, a vertical lift bridge that carries railroad traffic across the Cape Cod Canal, connecting Cape Cod with the mainland. The bridge was opened in 1935, at which time it was the longest vertical lift span in the world.
The Cape Cod Canal is an artificial waterway connecting Cape Cod Bay in the north to Buzzards Bay in the south and is part of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. The approximately 7.4-mile-long canal traverses the neck of land joining Cape Cod to the state’s mainland. The first excavation began in 1880, however the effort ran out of money after clearing nearly a mile of channel through the Sandwich marshes before shutting down in 1891. In 1909, construction finally restarted with the canal being completed in 1916. Over the following 30-years or so it was gradually increased in width and depth to its current size. The canal is used extensively by recreational and commercial vessels.
A couple of miles along the bikeway we took a short detour through the Bourne Scenic Park Campground to get lunch at the “Grill & More Mediterranean Restaurant”. After a tasty lunch we continued our ride to the eastern end of the bikeway. We parked our bikes and walked out to Scusset Beach, next to a boulder sea wall that forms the eastern entrance to the Cape Cod Canal. After spending a while enjoying the views across Cape Code Bay from the beach and sea wall, we re-traced our way back along the bikeway to our starting point at Buzzards Bay Recreational Park. This was an easy, interesting, and enjoyable bikeway that made a good half-day outing to Cape Cod.
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