Narragansett is where Rhode Island's south coast stops being a drive and starts being a habit. The town sits on a knuckle of land between Narragansett Bay and the open Atlantic, and the ocean here is the real thing: long gray rollers that arrive from Spain with nothing in between. Ocean Road, Route 1A, hugs the shoreline past the seawall, Scarborough Beach and a string of big shingled summer houses, and on a calm morning it is as pleasant a start to a coast ride as New England offers.
The landmark everybody photographs is the Towers, a pair of stone arches that straddle the road. They are what survived of the Narragansett Pier Casino, a grand resort building designed by McKim, Mead and White in the 1880s that burned in 1900. The arches were left standing, which tells you something about how people here feel about a good ruin. Rhode Island's gilded-age summer crowd once came to this stretch of shore by steamer and train, and the town has been a beach town ever since, with surfers in wetsuits out past the wall even in autumn.
For riding, the point is the pace. Route 1A is slow, with beach traffic, joggers and the occasional stop sign that arrives sooner than you expect, so treat it as a warm-up rather than a speed test. Go early on a summer weekend or choose September, when the water is still warm, the parking lots are half empty and the light has gone golden. South toward Point Judith the land flattens into salt marsh and fishing docks, and the Galilee harbor, where the Block Island ferries leave, is the place for clam cakes and a bowl of chowder. Rhode Island chowder is often clear-brothed, which surprises visitors who expect cream.
Narragansett itself is large enough to have fuel, coffee and everything else you need, and Wakefield-Peacedale a few minutes inland has more supermarkets and stations if you want a choice. Gilbert Stuart, the painter whose portrait of Washington became the image on the dollar bill, was born just up the bay in Saunderstown, and his birthplace is a small museum if you like a detour. The weather is the only real hazard: sea fog can roll in without warning, turning a sunny start into damp visor and cold hands within a few miles.