Last month, cyclist Dominic Galiano biked 100 miles in a day, a feat cycling enthusiasts call “a century.” It was his first time accomplishing such a benchmark.
But he didn’t ride his route for the miles. Rather, he went the distance in order to visit every Market Basket grocery location across the North Shore.
“Not easy, but it was really satisfying,” Galiano, 25, said in a recent interview.
Galiano and friend Paolo De Guzman, said the 100-mile day was only a taste of their “Market Basket World Tour.”
The friends from Somerville have a goal of cycling to as many Market Basket locations as possible, ultimately visiting all 90 locations across New England.
Galiano and De Guzman make a purchase at each store, in order to have a receipt as evidence of their visit. De Guzman buys $1 packages of sour gummy worms, and Galiano said he loves to comb through the discount racks at the back of the store, hunting for deals.
The two Boston transplants chose Market Basket to anchor their journeys not because they like pedaling through shopping center parking lots, but because they say they’ve found the grocer’s locations provide a sampling of the culture of New England towns in a way that few other locations do.
“Market Basket has a ‘townie’ feel to it, like, the real people of Massachusetts come here to shop,” De Guzman said.
They said their trek was a great way to explore towns along the Merrimack River and bike through local street fairs full of locals running weekend errands.
“There were a lot of cities I had never seen before. I’d never been up there, so it was cool seeing cities I thought were suburban that have a lot going for them,” Galiano said.
The 100-mile day on June 6 was part of a longer route in which De Guzman and Galiano visited 36 Market Basket locations over a three-day weekend. They biked to every North Shore location plus a few across the New Hampshire border.
The pair said they decided to launch their Market Basket “world tour” after they biked from Kingston to the Market Basket in Bourne last summer.
“While trying to come up with more routes to go on rides for, we had the funny idea of trying to hit as many Market Baskets as possible, and it kind of spiraled from there,” De Guzman, 26, said.
The pair said they’re not the type of cyclists who prioritize competition and efficiency. Rather, they just want to have fun and enjoy their quirky project.
“I feel like my friends and I are in a subgroup that’s a little uncommon, we’re not interested in being the fastest, preparing for any races, or breaking any records,” Galiano, 25, said.
De Guzman said he was inspired by Cambridge cycling enthusiast Adam Bigelow, who tried to bike to every Dunkin’ in Boston in a single day last year in June.
“I wanted to do something similar because my version of Dunkin’ is Market Basket,” he said.
De Guzman, who is Canadian, said he became drawn to Market Basket’s “homey” atmosphere when he moved to Massachusetts from Toronto in 2024.
“It’s more down to earth; it’s not trying to be flashy,” said De Guzman, who grew up in Calgary.
Galiano, who spent his teenage and college years in San Antonio and Austin, Texas, said he likes Market Basket’s affordability, especially considering the high cost of living in Boston.
“Moving here from Texas, I was obviously concerned about everything costing a lot more,” Galiano said. “I was pretty pleasantly shocked by Market Basket.”
Over last winter, the pair spent hours planning their “world tour” routes and hit the road last month.
Over three days in June, they cycled about 200 miles. On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, friends joined for small portions of the overall route, De Guzman said.
On June 5, the group departed from the Somerville Market Basket and biked through Chelsea, Revere, Lynn, Salem, Danvers, Middleton, and Gloucester, visiting a total of eight stores and purchasing an item at each.
When they finally complete their pilgrimage, De Guzman said, they’ll display all 90 Market Basket receipts on a big poster.
On Saturday, June 6, they rode to stores in Rowley, Newburyport, Haverhill, Plaistow, Methuen, Lawrence, and Salem, N.H. That day alone they visited 20 Market Baskets and traveled 100 miles.
“We were fueled by eating so much food from all the Market Baskets, so we had a ton of energy,” Galiano said.
They were planning to camp Saturday night, but ended up stumbling across a Buddhist temple in Lowell, where they met monks who let them sleep inside.
“So we had a little bit of shelter from a small spat of rain that night, so we were very thankful,” De Guzman said.
For the final leg of the trip, they went to seven Market Basket locations in Tewksbury and Lowell, finishing at the Somerville Market Basket where they began their journey two days prior.
A group of friends surprised them at their neighborhood store, welcoming them back home on Sunday.
Sophie Openshaw, who first met De Guzman at the Allston Rat Race last year, said she was among the “Somervillian” crew waiting in the parking lot. She said she knew the pair relied almost exclusively on gummy worm calories to power their pedals.
“They were like, ‘Screw it, we’re just going to keep eating sour candy and send it,’” Openshaw, 24, said.
Next, De Guzman and Galiano plan to head west to Worcester over two days, hitting seven grocery stores. After that, they’ll bike across the South Shore and into Providence along a route that will allow them to visit 11 grocery stores in two days.
They decided against cycling to every single Market Basket in New England, because a couple stores are “too remote,” according to De Guzman.
They said they want to be able to visit four or five Market Baskets over a single day of cycling. When that’s not an option, the pair will road-trip.
“It’s less about distance and more about feasibility,” De Guzman said. “Getting to a few Market Baskets on our map would take 100-plus miles on main roads, which wouldn’t be so fun.”
“I’d say we’re not purists,” Galiano said.
Claire Thornton can be reached at claire.thornton@globe.com. Follow Claire on X @claire_thornto.