Take your wheels along on your next vacation – or rent when you get there – and do some of your touring on bicycle-friendly streets and the many bike trails that are being marked out through urban parks and rural countryside.
Before you go, do some research by wheeling your mouse to a few of the many informative sites available on the Web.
www.wsdot.wa.gov/bike
Right here in Washington state there are bike paths and trails all over the place. Look down the page to “Rec. and Touring” to find tips on taking your bike on the Washington State Ferries or aboard Amtrak’s Cascades train to the mountains. Check the link to “Paths and Trails,” where a click on the interactive map will take you to the nearly 200 miles of trails in the Puget Sound area.
www.waba.org/new/paths/index.php
In the other Washington, take a break from the museums and monuments in the District of Columbia and visit the Washington Area Bicyclist Association for guides and maps to the trails in the district and in neighboring Virginia and Baltimore. Going to George Washington’s home at Mount Vernon? There’s a trail that will take you there. Try the Capital Crescent Trail for city scenery, and then hit the countryside on the historic C&O Canal Towpath.
www.minneapolisparks.org/grandrounds/home.htm
In the Upper Midwest, Minneapolis is ringed by the Grand Rounds, a chain of 50 miles of biking and hiking trails that pass some of the city’s greatest lakes, follow the Mississippi River and take you past the historic downtown Milling District. Check out the various sections for photos, and go to “Information Center” for links to other local information for visitors.
www.dcnr.state.pa.us/railtrails
Two wheels also will take you from city out to countryside. Go to the Southeast section of Pennsylvania’s vast Rails-to-Trails system and click on the Schuylkill River trail, which extends from the outskirts of Philadelphia to Valley Forge National Historical Park. For that and many other trails across the state, look for photos and local Web sites with more information. Planning to visit the Pittsburgh area? Check out the 43-mile Youghiogheny River Trail North.
www.railtrails.org
These trails utilizing abandoned railroad beds are available in many parts of the country. The Rails-to-Trails Conservancy has a “Find A Trail” link you can use to locate tracks such as the Grand Canyon Greenway, to use when you visit the canyon, or the Little Econ Greenway near the theme parks at Orlando, Fla.
Roger Petterson, Associated Press
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