Great Lakes - Cycling Vacation ideas...

Hey all,

My fiance and I are thinking about doing a metro park tour with our bikes. Driving to different bike trails in the great lakes region. We live in Cuyahoga Falls, OH right now. There are TONS of trails around us, but we think it would be fun to travel and ride different parks. Like I said, we live in Ohio and we are not the richest folk lol....so what are some good parks with good trails (nothing hardcore..not planning on jumping or doin anything crazy), that we can travel too? We want somewhat challenging trails with great scenery. Any ideas?

Thanks,

Tony

Start close to home and hit the Little Miami in Xenia.

http://www.miamivalleytrails.org/station.htm

Start close to home and hit the Little Miami in Xenia.

http://www.miamivalleytrails.org/station.htm

thanks for the quick response and suggestions!! :D

keep em coming!

Tony

http://www.atatrail.org/ !!

You don't live that far away from Pittsburgh, so this ~320 mile trail will offer a great trail for a nice multi day touring vacation on bike.

Something a little more rugged.

http://www.wvstateparks.com/northbendrailtrail/descriptions.html

http://www.atatrail.org/ !!

You don't live that far away from Pittsburgh, so this ~320 mile trail will offer a great trail for a nice multi day touring vacation on bike.

thanks!! yeah, we are only a couple hours from Pitt.

Tony

Most of my suggestions might be too far away to be good choices, but here they are in any event.
1) Ride the first trail ever built:http://www.elroy-sparta-trail.com/ The Sparta Elroy Bike Trail. Scenic part of Wisconsin with rolling hills, Amish Country, Wisconsin Dells, and FLW Talsien Studio within easy reach. There are many connecting trails as well including the 400 and the Great River Trail.

2) Mesabi Trail, http://www.mesabitrail.com/maps/ not a rail to trail. Built on Iron Ore Minning Road. The trail is not always straight and flat and you get to see where the steel processed in Ohio factories came from.

3) More to be found in this book: http://bikeverywhere.com/store/?product_id=9 Minnesota/Wisconsin Bicycle Vacation Guide.

Scot

cool cool, great ideas so far!!!

Tony

kal-Haven Trail In michigan from kalamazoo to south haven is about 32 miles long

I believe that some amtrak trains have bicycle carriage, and some trains also offer week passes. One trip on my list, if possible, is to take the train up and down the west coast of america with my wife. Two bags each, our bikes, stay in hostels and B&Bs, ride around the towns and into the country. Hop on the train and move to another town. Do this for like 2 weeks.

The Virginia Creeper Trail (http://www.vacreepertrail.us/) is great, following a mountain stream with many bridges. You can pay for a shuttle to the top, but try riding up yourself, then down. It's 1500 feet in 15 miles one way from Damascus, or 33 miles from Abingdon. There's a gravel and dirt surface.

It's at Damascus, Va (map (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=damascus+va&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=36.642161,43.945313&ie=UTF8&ll=36.634953,-81.788578&spn=0.072594,0.085831&z=13&iwloc=addr))

try this for rides around Ohio, www.ohiocycling.info (http://www.ohiocycling.info) go to rider resourses and then look for the ODOT link. pick the region you want and it will open maps to the availiable trails in that area. The site is being reworked so some of the features aren't working right now.

Another area to go to that has lots of interesting trails is the DC area, I have done the W&OD out of Leesburg.

There is a bike path on Lake Michigan running from South Haven to near Grand Haven. That's a pretty nice vacation.. Up in the Keweenaw Peninsula in Michigan' UP is pretty special too.