aquateen

A friend of mine and I are toying around with the idea of doing this over a few days but have never done long distance cycling before. How does one begin to plan out a trip like this?

derath

Has he ridden long distances? Ie, does he/she have a relatively good idea of whether they are up to the task?

Second would be picking a route. The Northeast forum would be good for that.

Then it is figuring out when to do it. It is only 140 miles roughly. Probably a bit more picking a bike-safe route. It could be done in one day with the proper training.

-D

aquateen

we both do roughly 20 mile routes daily right now and we'd definitely need to train for it. i was just wondering how i could choose routes for something like this

derath

Like I said, best bet would be the NE forum. All of us have a good bit of experience with the various sections of the route.

I could probably get you to Baltimore. There are several people who know baltimore very well who could get you through the city. From Balt to near philly there are plenty of secondary roads to take. The in Philly there are plenty of people who know the ins and outs of that city.

Where roughly would you be starting from?

-D

akropp

aquateen and i will be starting from downtown silver spring most likely

derath

What is your traffic cycling comfort? I am assuming it is pretty decent if you are doing any serious riding in and around DC.

-D

zencentury

Check out https://www.adventurecycling.org/land...FSBMGgodViSJew

akropp

derath, we're both quite comfortable with traffic cycling. i commute to work in dc via my bike and aquateen frequently bikes in and around the city

cat0020

Why not ride the Allegheny trail from Washington DC to Pittsbugh, PA first.
No traffic, trains station at the beginning and end, with B and B along the way.
You could even plan your route on the website below:

https://www.yockatomac.org/

akropp

thats certainly an option but since both of us have road bikes without the hybrid tires i'm not sure we really want to attempt that. perhaps a good first start is just to ride from dc to baltimore and back. could someone point us in the right direction of a good route to take?

derath

Again,

Head over to the Northeast forum. Find the "where are the MD people's" thread and say hi. There are a bunch of knowledgable people there. 2 in particular "The Human Car" and "Balto Charlie" will likely jump in. I believe both are car free in Baltimore. And one of them (I forget which) biked from Baltimore to DC for the fireworks this year and posted their route. If you ask I am sure they would post it again.

Not to say the LD forum isnt also a good place. But I would say this forum is better for the more general LD questions. The Northeast forum is going to be better to get real route information from people who live and bike where you do.

-D

maxine

Definitely check out the Northeast forum. And here's a link to some DC-Baltimore routes from the Bike Washington Web site.

https://www.bikewashington.org/routes/dc2balt/index.htm

akropp

thanks everyone, will do!

NoRacer

+1 to Bike Washington for a "reverse invasion route" to Baltimore's Inner Harbor, then you can use parts of these routes to get from the harbor to the northeast side of Baltimore and beyond:

**Warning** Routeslip.com is -very, very, very- slow loading. Be patient.

Use the portion of this map that starts at the Inner Harbor to get to Essex:
https://www.routeslip.com/routes/14643

Use this map to get from Essex to across the Susquehanna River:
https://www.bikeradar.com/routes/?bpa...d-via-Delaware

Once you've crossed the river, you have the option to follow US1 to Philly or US40. (I think US1 is the better choice to avoid Wilmington, DE)

There's a bridge on US40 that crosses the Susquehanna River, but no bikes are allowed on it.

royb

I'm looking to bike from Philly to DC as well but have a single speed bike. I already biked 80 miles in NYC on a single speed, but I wonder how the terrain is between Philly to DC. I wouldn't want to run into hilly areas.

Cheers!

jhaddad8

How many days are you going to spread your ride over? You might also check out the touring thread. I started in north jersey and continued from Philly to DC with a cousin last spring. We did almost all of our navigation using google maps. That was also probably the least nice biking area of our trip. Also check out the east coast greenway.

jhaddad8

Should have added, we d I'd ~50 miles a day and did almost no pretrip training.

davidmikesell

I did dc to philly in may. I followed the adventure cycling map to a T and it was beautiful. It's the atlantic route, and dc to philadelphia is in the richmond to conshohocken section.