If wishes were bicycles, beggars would ride

[KenYoungblood]

My wife and I are trying to decide on a two+ week tour this summer, preferably in North America. But we are getting stymied at every turn. I've toured most of the US and some of Canada over the last 30 years, but road conditions have surely changed. We are looking for quiet bicycling, scenic visions and quaint cultural bumpings for a tour in early August. We turn to our bicycling community for guidance. Have at it. What do you recommend?

[ptaylor]

Ken.

Have you checked the National Bicycle Route Network?
Any of the routes will give you quiet bicycling (at least by North American standards). Of course the "scenic visions and quaint cultural bumpings" will vary a lot, from monotonous straight roads through corn fields with the August corn so high you can't see over it, to the solitude of the Eric Canal Towpath, to the splendor of crossing the Rocky Mountains.

Paul

[FredHiltz]

Hi Ken,

This Vermont chauvinist will put in a word for the Adventure Cycling Green Mountain Loop. It's about the right length for two weeks, allowing some time beyond just riding for quaint cultural bumpings (love that phrase!).

Terrain, difficulty, scenery, and culture all vary a lot. This is true in the West too, but there the distances are much longer. Start in the oh-so-cool culture of the hip college town Burlington--theater, art galleries, gourmet restaurants--and head to the poor Northeast Kingdom to meet some woodchucks (northern rednecks). They are all interesting.

The road network in these older parts of the U.S. is dense enough to offer quiet back roads almost everywhere. Adventure Cycling found some good ones on this route, almost exactly what I would have chosen with my local experience. It is no accident that organized cycle touring in the U.S. began in Vermont.

Fred

[ptaylor]

I can echo Fred that Vermont is a leading destination for cycle tourists. I have ridden through the Green Mountains and found them beautiful, and (for a 65- year-old) challenging, and a study in New England culture.

This Green Mountains Loop of 373 miles (601 km) might be just what you are looking for.

Paul

[KenYoungblood]

Hey, guys, thanks. But please include the central Adirondacks in your loop. Stupendous network of backcountry pavement with just the right rise and fall. Yes, Vermont is great...I lived in the Adirondacks and took my college bicycle tour leadership classes across Champlain many a time. So I am still questing.

[FredHiltz]

Agreed. I've had several excellent tours in the central ADK. It would be easy to extend the NY part of the Green Mountain Loop, perhaps linking with Northern Tier, through there.

Fred