40 mile rides... Where do you discover new rides?
 

Hey All.

Just wondering where anyone searches to discover great rides in the US?

I'm not one to ride on dangerous, super fast roads, so finding good routes that are also safe is my goal!
Thanks!

Start here:
Traillink

The US is a BIG place... I would start 'Local'... LOL!
I would start by checking for a Bike map for your area. Sant Barbara County has such a map, available both online and paper at many locations in our area.
I believe the are a number of maps for the Greater Hell-A area... Quite possible many other bike friendly cities/areas have same.
Also go ask your local LBS's
Check for local bike clubs, organizations...
go to a close bike route, wait for a rider to come by, one who looks like they know where they're goin,,, you can ask them or follow them at 30 - 40 yds for half the distance you want to ride....
At that point you should know that 'return' route...
The internet has a ton resources...

As an aside... To Mods, if BF doesn't already have a repository, it would be worthwhile to have a 'Forum' or obvious location for BF members to post/place/note Bike Maps ! for anywhere in the world. ... seems an obvious and important asset ...
Ride On
Yuri

If you happen to live in N California I could show you numerous such rides.

From this, and the general tone of the question, I'm guessing you want either an off-road (probably paved) trail, or a network of quiet suburban streets.

@cyclezen's suggestion is the obvious place to start looking. Of course, not all bike trails or multi-use paths (MUPs) are 20-40 miles long. And few suburbs are that big, either. You can look on places for Strava to find out where cyclists in your area like to ride, as well.

Otherwise, go ride around your neighborhood, or somewhere you've thought would be a good place to ride a bike. After a while you can extend your rides, and you may find interesting ways to extend a shorter ride into a longer one.

Strava and RWGPS

Strava heatmap - google it. Then plan your routes with RideWithGPS. You can use the Satellite view to see what the road looks like. You could drive your route first if you wanted to, or just ride it. I have hundreds of local routes on low traffic roads saved in RWGPS. I often drive for 30' or so to get to where I want to start my ride.

I live in a rural area so do route planning on Google Earth for back road gravel rides.

Everyone has their own sensitivity to traffic, road surface, terrain, remoteness, willingness to travel to the start, point-to-point vs loop, etc. So it's hard.

Strava global heatmap tells you where people ride, but more importantly where they don't ride (don't go there). Generally the heavier the line the safer, but not necessarily so.

I use RWGPS and Strava, but ultimately just go ride.

Join a local cycling club. The club I joined rides a different route every Saturday and Sunday. Rides start from different places, flat, hilly and in between.

To be clear there are three ways to use Strava:

One is the global heat map, it is awesome and I use it all the time. It is now on the phone app under maps so I use it even more.

Second is when you see other riders on a Strava segment you did, look at their full route and see how they connected things together. I learned a lot doing this (for example I found where the local cycling clubs go). Some riders go on streets too dangerous for me so you need to take it with a grain of salt.

Third is they have a route suggestion feature. I have found this (as well as Komoot route planning) is not a good way to plan routes as they often put you on dangerous streets. I do use Komoot a lot for route planning, but I always am having to add a bunch of extra points to get the route off of certain bad streets.

Initially I will simply open a mapping app/tool of the area I want to ride, and them zoom in, and also look at the satellite view. The suggestions about using Strava (or other fitness mapping apps), as suggested above will work too. But you need to have an account (on Strava)…which is free of charge…but the Heat Map function requires a premium account that does have a charge. After looking at the map and finding a place that I want to ride…if I’m not real familiar with the area/roads…I may go drive them to see how accommodating they are for bikes. And by “accommodating” I don’t mean just the street/road surface, but the surroundings too. There have been a couple times that I didn’t follow-up with a drive there and found myself rolling through neighborhoods where a guy on a traditional road bike, in spandex clothing, didn’t really fit in with the general urban ambiance of the area.

Dan

The app version might be premium-only but the web version is still free: https://www.strava.com/heatmap

Larger clubs usually have a list of rides with difficulty ratings. You can usually find them on their website.

Great suggestion... Traillink seems to have just about every trail listed!

All great ideas! In fact, I just followed someone the other day because I wasn't sure I was on the right route... got me to where I was going :)

And I've done a lot of internet research... it's just hard to know what is accurate, so I'd prefer to take the advice of people who actually ride!

Thanks, interesting idea for going off-road a bit!

Appreciate that but I'm in So Cal :)

There are so many places to ride in So Cal depending on the type of riding and time of day you want to ride. For 40 mile ride during traffic times you will run into traffic but those same roads during the day can be pretty quiet. Best bet is to find a local bike shop and ask there.

Also the Regional ride calendar in the forums may help

https://www.bikeforums.net/southern-...rides-com.html

It does!!! YAY! I didn’t realize that. I thought it was completely part of the premium subscription all along. I use the online version a lot and never knew that. Thanks.

Dan

cpl yrs ago I discovered unpaved rail trails. they are great for racking up miles away from cars. they usually have parking & the trails go on for many miles. so all you have to do is pick a starting point that is convenient, ride as far as you want, then turn around. just be sure you know where you started! ;-)

paved trails are cool too
https://www.neighborhoods.com/blog/1...ern-california

https://www.california.com/coolest-b...rn-california/

https://www.railstotrails.org/trailb...in-california/

https://www.traillink.com/stateactivity/ca-bike-trails/

Usually I have done only one really long ride a week - on Sunday! Big difference in traffic on a Sunday. During the week I have some shorter rides which don't go anywhere particular, but for one reason or another are fairly low traffic. I can ride those moderate or all-out according to what I need. My Sunday group ride is The Church of the 700.

If possible, start local.
If you are not in a large city you be should be able to plot a couple of different routes from your doorstep or a nearby spot like a park or ball field.
If you have a car, first drive the routes looking for roads with a decent amount of shoulder whenever possible.
Also, try to stay off the roads during peak traffic times. Makes a huge difference where I live in NJ.
Lastly, if you are lucky enough to be able to find a couple of relatively safe local routes I would suggest sticking with them even if they may seem boring after awhile.
You are definitely safer on roads where you get to know nuances such as potholes and traffic patterns.
I don’t know about anyone else, but where I live and ride I can point out damn near every intersection or parking lot that for whatever reason, drivers tend to do irrational or unexpected things.
Good luck :thumb:

since you're in socal, i'd hit the https://www.bikeforums.net/southern-...nia-today.html

lots of great info. depending on exactly where you're located and how far you're willing to, at least occasionally, go in said pursuit, there's more
than a few of us willing to assist with reccs.