Cycling UK Forum

A friend & I biked from Pittsburgh to DC last year on these 2 trails. We did it in 6 leisurely days. We loved the GAP Trail. It has great scenery and the crushed stone surface is quite good. When you pass through Ohiopyle, I urge you to go on a tour of Frank Lloyd Wright's [i]Fallingwater[/i], a true masterpiece. The trail begins/ends at McKeesport, a suburb south of Pittsburgh. There is no easy or safe way at present to get from the trailhead to downtown Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is extremely hilly and there are a limited number of roads around or across some of the hills. Another trail goes from McKeesport to the Pittsburgh airport west of the city. I haven't been on that trail, however.

The C&O Canal is not nearly as smooth as the GAP, and it tends to get muddy after rain. The Western Maryland rail-trail is a nice paved respite for several miles near Hancock, Maryland. The scenery isn't as varied as the GAP Trail, although it's pleasant enough.

We stayed in motels and B&Bs, although it's possible to camp. In the summer, mosquitoes can be awful along some parts of the C&O Canal/Potomac River.

It makes no sense to me to fly or even take the train between NY & DC if you've got a bicycle. These new bus services are great. They're modern, clean, many even have WiFi, and best of all for cyclists, you can usually just ride to the bus and have you bike placed for free in one of the large storage compartments without having to do any packing or dismantling of the bike. Couldn't be simpler. And the buses cost a fraction of the alternative methods of transport. I should make clear, however, that the competitive bus market which exists presently on the NY-DC route is not typical in the USA. It has been very successful thanks to the relatively short distance between the 2 cities, high passenger volume, high tolls on the roads/bridges/tunnels if you drive yourself, expensive pricing of the train, and hassles of flying.

Thanks for the responses, nirakaro and simonhill. They are very helpful. I welcome any others.

The train is surprisingly expensive, and Amtrak doesn't always make bringing bikes easy. I would suggest that you take one of the many inexpensive and reliable buses that now go between Washington and NY. Most of them take bikes for free. I would suggest that you avoid the "Chinatown" buses, as they are not as reliable as the newer bus companies (buses breakdown or don't show up and are sometimes filthy). If you are headed toward downtown Washington, 2 good companies are: BoltBus (www.boltbus.com) and DC2NY (www.dc2ny.com). If you want to reach the nearby Maryland (Bethesda) or Virginia (Arlington) suburbs, I would suggest the excellent Vamoose (www.vamoosebus.com) or Tripper Bus (www.tripperbus.com). At present, these buses cost between $20 and $30 one-way. The trip takes about 4 hours if you avoid certain hours. Basically, the fastest trip will be if you do not depart or arrive during late afternoon. A mid-morning departure time is ideal. Each bus company has its own departure and arrival points, and they tend to be fairly convenient.

I've toured in Sri Lanka and enjoyed it, but I've never been to India. Mr. Pumpy's website as well as a few cyclists I've met have told me that cycling in south India is a saner experience than cycling in the rest of India. There were very few hassles while cycling in Sri Lanka (traffic is fairly sane and touts are few), but I'm somewhat concerned about touring in south India. I'd love to hear comparisons from any cyclists here who have toured in both Sri Lanka and India, as well as any comments about the differences between touring in south India versus the rest of the country. I'm seriously considering going to Kerala and the Ghats for 3-4 weeks in Jan-Feb. Any ideas for finding quieter roads are welcome, too, as it sounds like finding detailed maps is a problem. Thanks.

I found the following on french-language wikipedia:

"Le col ferme en cas de forte chute de neige ou d'éboulement de la montagne. Autrement, le passage reste ouvert toute l'année"

which basically says:

"the pass closes when there's heavy snow or a rock slide. Otherwise, the pass remains open year-round."

I was repeatedly attacked by a magpie on the North Island on the day that I cycled from Raitihi to Wanganui. I was wearing a helmet, but with no face painted on it. Anytime that I glanced upward when I perceived it was divebombing toward me, it would veer away at the last second. Eventually, I got out of its territory and it left me alone.

Keas are fairly rare. They're generally only seen these days in wilderness areas on the South Island, I believe. I met a cyclist whose leather saddle was taped up. She told me that a kea ate a portion of it! I personally saw a kea going after rubber door seals on a car in a parking area at the end of the Routeburn Track on the South Island, as well as attempting to attack a backpack before its owner put the backpack in his car. One night while I was hiking ("tramping" in NZese) the Routeburn Track, a kea was amusing itself in the pre-dawn hours by sliding down the corrugated metal roof of the hut I was sleeping in. It would then fly back up and repeat. Over and over. You've got to admire a bird that would amuse itself like that.

As for cycling, the most memorable parts of the South Island for me were the west coast as well as a brief stretch of road along Queen Charlotte Sound shortly after you leave Picton, the town you arrive at by ferry from Wellington. The Otago Peninsula near Dunedin made for a very nice day trip. If they still permit you to visit the albatross colony and the yellow-eyed penguin colony, I highly recommend both. I did not like biking from Dunedin to Christchurch and hopped on a bus halfway.

I thoroughly enjoyed biking on the North Island, although as others have said, it's more strenuous than the South Island. I liked my route from Rotorua to Wanganui, via Taupo and National Park (an actual place name). Avoid trying to bike from Wanganui to Wellington due to very heavy traffic and uninteresting scenery. The East Cape was fairly nice, too.

I've been to NZ twice, Nov.-Dec the 1st time, Dec-Jan the 2nd time. I definitely had better weather in January (warmer & sunnier), but also more traffic. I would guess that February to early March might be the ideal time from both a weather and traffic standpoint.

The last time I was there, there were unbelievable numbers of German cyclists there. Some backpackers (private hostels) were run by Germans, and in one or two, German was the lingua franca.

The Loire valley has very gentle terrain and a wealth of little roads. With a good map, it's easy to find country lanes which have very little traffic. The weather is drier than Brittany & Normandy, too.

I would be less concerned with the time of day as the route itself. I realize that you're committed to this route, but I found the French Riviera to be generally quite bad for cycling due to heavy traffic, and the Italian Riviera to be positively awful. There are so many better regions in both countries for touring. I believe that many people like the idea of following a shoreline because they wish to avoid hills, but personally, I would much prefer to tackle difficult terrain in exchange for empty roads. There are a few stretches near Marseille which aren't too bad, but Nice to Genoa is overdeveloped with constant traffic.

I wouldn't want to bike from Florida to NY myself. I've done 2 long-distance tours in North America that I would recommend. One was along the Pacific coast from British Columbia to California, the other was in the Rocky Mountains from Denver, Colorado, to Jasper,Alberta. Elsewhere in North America, I've gone on some very nice shorter tours, including a few I suggested in my previous post. But sadly, I would not suggest touring in the "deep South" or along the Atlantic coast south of NY.

If you only have a week, one possibility is to bike from Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) to Washington, DC. There is a trail called GAP (Great Allegheny Passage - http://www.atatrail.org), an old railroad track bed, which is now a trail going from the Pittsburgh suburbs to Cumberland, Maryland. There is also another trail going from the Pittsburgh airport to join up with the GAP Trail. In Cumberland, you can then take the C&O Canal towpath all the way into Washington, DC. Neither trail/path is paved. The GAP trail has a nice crushed stone surface. The C&O Canal towpath isn't as smooth. The GAP Trail has lovely scenery, the C&O Canal somewhat less so. But it's very nice to pedal from Pittsburgh to DC and not worry about traffic.

Other possibilities would be in New England, though I wouldn't advise that region for April. It's easy to put together a nice loop from Boston encompassing Cape Cod (most of which has an excellent paved trail), the islands of Nantucket & Martha's Vineyard, plus Newport & Providence (both in Rhode Island). Take a train between Providence & Boston, and a ferry from Boston to Provincetown on the tip of Cape Cod. I'm not 100% sure the Boston-P'town ferry runs before late May.

Almost anywhere in Vermont is very nice for cycling, but the later in spring, the better.

The Finger Lakes area of western New York state is nice for cycling, though difficult to reach by plane. The Erie Canal towpath might be good, but I'm unfamiliar with it myself.

Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (Amish country) is great for cycling if you carefully select your roads, but I don't think there's enough there for a whole week.

If you want something very challenging, there's the Blue Ridge Parkway, which goes from Virginia to North Carolina along the mountain ridges. It's exhausting.

The attitude of drivers toward cyclists is generally much better in the northeast than in the southern US.

A few years ago, I biked the length of the rail-trail "Le P'tit Train du Nord", which goes from Mont Laurier, which is north of Ottawa, to St. Jerome, a northern suburb of Montreal. It would certainly be a longer distance than riding directly from Ottawa to Montreal, but it would be a lovely route. The trail portion is 200km/125 miles. It was crushed stone when I rode it, but I understand much of it is now paved. The trail cuts right through the Laurentians and is quite scenic. The province of Quebec is developing an extensive network of bike trails called La Route Verte. Most are unpaved.