Barrettscv 

Let you know if you plan to visit. I'll show you around. It was 77f this past weekend. No need to wait until summer to enjoy cycling.

berner

The area around Narragansett Bay also provides fine cycling, in my experience so far, for up to 70 miles away so generally, a 140 mile diameter circle. I find it surprising that the crowded East coast has farm land and sparsely traveled roads. As one who is/was a yacht builder with a strong attraction to the littoral, I love being near water and the views of islands, light houses and the wildlife that is inevitably attracted to water, just as I am.

Cassave

Wildwood;

You're absolutely right.
The left coast is a cycling backwater. Particularly LA. The Santa Monica mountains floating in that awful blue coastal haze above Malibu, with all the twisty canyon roads is a dismal place to ride a bike.
A lot of pros train there but if they weren't getting paid? No way.
And the mountains above Pasadena, every bit as bad. And the LA sun, nothing fades a nice paint job quicker.

Wildwood 

Even worse is that Monterey Bay - up to Santa Cruz - you have to go inland to catch the sun before finishing at the beach as the fog lifts. And the Santa Cruz Mt redwood roads must be avoided. Hwy 1 north toward Davenport or Half Moon Bay = Treacherous with a 15mph tailwind all the way home, in the afternoon sun. and the fresh fruit stands just jump out at you. and kayaking @ the Elkhorn Slough. And hiking Pinnacles before snake season....... and the fresh food stands jump out at you. Artichoke Capital of the World, coming 'n goin. No fun or cycling there.

Edit: my limited experience says these places should be avoided ---- Paso Robles to Cambria + coastal area, and North of San Francisco. And never ride @ Tahoe.

Cassave

D'accord.
Unfortunately I've got to put up with some of those Paso Robles junk miles in a few weeks. On a cranky old vintage bike no less.

rydabent

Lincoln Ne has 130 miles of hard surface trails all over the city. We have a great bike club that holds two main rides in the spring and fall. There are weekly rides of all types from slow family rides to century rides most every week. Lately there are gravel grinder rides too. In addition the Great Plains Trails Network holds a yearly ride.

If that isnt enough, there is also a great recumbent club that holds monthly rides in Omaha. There are more clubs to ride with in Omaha of course.

asmac

OK... I live in a mostly snakeless area and this freaks me out. What are the snakes and when is snake season? My brother-in-law lives in Paseo Robles and I want to choose visit dates carefully!

alathIN

Carmel Indiana: Northside Indy suburb, with a local ordnance that every new construction has to include a multiuse path. Can get just about anywhere safely on a bike. One major rails-trails MUP goes straight to downtown Indy.

Indianapolis: Very mixed. Downtown has a lot of bike paths. The Monon trail is a major north-south rails-trails MUP that takes a lot of traffic and has some nice green space and scenery. There are also a couple of other greenways, like Fall Creek and the Canal Towpath. Much of your east-west travel will be on roads with 18" of "bike lane" marked off to the side; in a couple of very inconvenient places, these abruptly end and leave you riding in the midst of 45 mph traffic that can't see you due to bends and trees. There are large parts of town with no safe places to cycle at all. So, overall, you can definitely find a lot of good places to ride especially if you do not have a particular destination in mind. If you do have a destination, it may be super bike-friendly, or totally bike-hostile, or somewhere in between. It's pretty easy to get from Indy out into farm country, especially to the Northwest. Lots of places to get out on low traffic rural roads and enjoy a ride.

Jim from Boston

Well, all subsequent descriptions of cities, posts #24 to 33, have still been posted to this thread, and I have been linking them to my master touring thread. That's fine with me, but by posting directly on the Touring Forum, the thread there will continue to be bumped and may attract more listings, FWIW. (But maybe just this is the crowd you want to write to .)


I've also been adding links from other Forums, as I encounter them. Since only I can edit the master Touring thread, if you have any links to good descriptions of cycling in other cities to add, let me know by PM or otherwise on this thread.

Thanks for your participation.

CrankyOne

We live in several cities throughout a typical year. Such is the life of a semi retired journalist.

Shoreview, MN: Shoreview have side paths or MUPs along almost every non-residential road. This was the key thing that attracted us to build here. Our retirement health plan is to stay active and avoid meds and hospitals. The best way to stay active is riding our bikes for all of our local transportation and Shoreview allows this all year. My wife has never been comfortable riding on the road with fast traffic so this has been a great place for us. Even in the middle of winter we can't ride the 2 miles to lunch without seeing numerous others walking or riding themselves. It's a truly great place and getting better each year.

Marco Island, FL: We spend a portion of winter here. Similar to Shoreview, we chose Marco because we can safely and comfortably ride bicycles for nearly all of our on-island transportation. It's not unusual for us to not use a car for a week or more. There are only a very few places that my wife won't ride and then a couple of more where she'll ride but isn't very comfortable. Even so we are considering moving to either Sanibel or Naples. Marco seemed to be going in the right direction to be more bike and pedestrian friendly but recently seem to be moving back towards preferring cars and traffic. Sanibel is much more bike and pedestrian friendly and has much less traffic than Marco but lacks good places to eat. Naples have a lot of great places to eat but biking there is not as safe and comfortable as Marco or Sanibel.

New York City, NY: We have a flat in NY (actually in DUMBO) for visiting our offspring who all seem to like it there. My son and I will ride Citibikes all over Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens but the rest of the crew will mostly only ride in Brooklyn Bridge Park, West side Manhattan Greenway, and a very few other places for short distances. Things were really improving for a while, stagnated for a bit, but now seem to be moving forward again so hopefully everyone will be able to ride more and more.

Netherlands: We started in Utrecht, then Amsterdam, now Groningen. Needless to say we all bike everywhere here. Everyone regardless of gender, age or ability is comfortable riding everywhere. It's fun to have friends from the U.S. or UK visit, enjoy riding bicycles instead of driving, and then go home to push for similar infrastructure where they live.

bikemig 

Des Moines Iowa has a really fine system of bike paths.

ArcGIS Web Application

There is a pretty strong constituency supporting the trail system and it is expanding. My basic training ride is a 20-30 mile out and back with rolling hills, water views, plenty of tree cover, a fair amount of wild life, and, usually, few humans.

It is an older city so there are plenty of smaller roads to ride on as well. I commute all winter on smaller urban roads that have light traffic. I enjoy the winter riding; it's a great time to explore the MUPs as well.

I've lived all over the US and a number of different cities in Europe. I've done my share of traffic jamming in big cities. I'm glad I no longer need to do that. The city also has a vibrant downtown with access to the arts, music, pubs, and a really great farmer's market in the summer.

Mountain Mitch

Rossland, British Columbia; a proud 'city' of nearly 3,000 people. We are the (one of the many) mountain biking capital of the world! But seriously, we have over 200 kms. of great, authorized and maintained single track mountain biking trails, including the 36 km. (one way) Seven Summit Trail.

Not many area roads cater to road bikers. Steep mountain climbs in all directions and little or nothing in the way of bike lanes. Considering how remote we are many of our roads are surprisingly busy. However with a little local knowledge there are a few great quiet road rides not too far away. And riding the mountains will either kill you or get you fit quickly.

peterws

Lancaster England. A city in miieature, university, and all the drivel that entails. Good shops, and. . . The Hill. Goes to Fell top, takes an hour thirty all the way. Heres a vid part way, when Im pushed for time. Just love being in the middle of traffic. . hope this works!

https://youtu.be/hB4VD86mx5U

Biker395 

lol.

For recreational cycling, SoCal rocks. Oodles of great terrain, great weather, and good roads.

For commuter cycling, it could be so much better. LA is more or less flat, has suitable weather 95% of the time, and has horrendous traffic issues. Bicycles could and should be a big part of the solution. The city is trying, and is making some headway. But progress is slow. The car culture and all that goes with it is very much alive here.

Personally, I love cars, but they are waaay overused hereabouts. They don't even see the irony in sitting in bumper to bumper traffic in their newly purchased $45,000 500 HP sports car. Ad agencies are very good at selling the dream and hiding the reality.

I was up in those crappy Santa Monicas yesterday. Oy, did it suck.

locolobo13 

I live in Phoenix. The last few years have seen improvement in bike lanes. Central Phoenix is fairly easy to get around in. At least for me.

There is a pretty extensive multi user trail system along our irrigation canals. My experience is mostly with the Grand Canal and the Arizona Canal. As to the Grand Canal it is difficult to get across town during heavy traffic. But it is doable. The reason is the canal hits major traffic arteries away from the intersections. You either have to wait for a break in traffic or work your way to an intersection 1/4 mi away sometimes. The Arizona Canal has underpasses at the majors. Well, on the west side.

As to weather, it's a "dry heat". Seriously though you get used to it. Just make sure you drink plenty of water. And there are plenty of convenience and grocery stores where you can get another cold one. Water or ...

When this thread started I got to thinking. So I started a blog describing some of my weekend rides. The pix are kinda blah. The blog is here

https://www.bikeforums.net/blogger-s-...etro-area.html

molten

"uneducated drivers" --- that be for an additional 2 threads: (1) topic "uneducated drivers" alone, (2) topic related to the area. Drivers in "San Diego" area -- if visited long enuff there: are more "uneducated" than many know about.