Touring - New to touring. few questions..

Bikeforums.net is a forum about nothing but bikes. Our community can help you find information about hard-to-find and localized information like bicycle tours, specialties like where in your area to have your recumbent bike serviced, or what are the best bicycle tires and seats for the activities you use your bike for.



PDA

View Full Version : New to touring. few questions..

chomish
09-06-07, 07:20 PM
Hey all....

Im new to bike touring but not cycling. Ive always loved hiking, backpacking, and camping and when i found out about bike touring it was only natural that i would show great interest in it.
I have since went out and bought a Cannondale T2000, and some ortlieb front, back, and Arkel handlebar bags.
I had some time off in October and want to plan my first short tour to get a feel for it.
I live in nyc and wated to take off wite from my front door.
I was looking around and have decided on taking Route 9 straight to around the Canada area of NY.
I wanted to know if anybody else here has traveled these roads and if it would be a good first tour?
Would u consider it easy, intermediate, or hard as far as the hills and such goes. Any other pointers for my first tour would be really appreciative.

Thanx again, and this site is great.....Al..

Chris L
09-06-07, 09:15 PM
I don't know that area, but one thing I will suggest is taking a weekend between now and when you leave to just do an overnight trip to test out your equipment and the whole experience. You'll learn a lot about little things that you will or won't need on the October tour that way, as well as learning just how well certain things will cope.
Takara
09-06-07, 09:57 PM
Transportation Alternatives has a list of tri-state bike organizations (http://www.transalt.org/info/links.html#tri); if you splash around a little in these sites you'll find lots of opinions about Route 9 and alternatives (sorry not to give you more specific links; my NYC biking wiles are starting to get rusty :().

chomish
09-07-07, 10:19 AM
Bump, anybody else have any info on these roads??
Takara
09-07-07, 12:28 PM
You might also drop by A Bicycle Shop in Manhattan on 14th St. between 8th and 9th and chat them up. It's not a touring-centric shop (I can't think of any such thing in NYC), but everyone who works there seems to have been there for decades, and they're much more interested in routes and events than component sets and model years -- a conversation with them on any local cycling topic is always valuable.

And/or just call Transportation Alternatives and talk to a human -- they'll tell you where the turnsheets and other route lore for the area can be had.