Interesting... "Bike facilities" have never been a factor in picking a route for me other than more often than not I avoid them where possible. I am curious, do many of you guys actually seek out bike paths when on tour? Do others, like me more often avoid them?

I guess if you live somewhere that has good bike facilities, it is different. My experience on the other hand has been that most of the bike paths I have seen on tour were much less desirable than the road that paralleled them.

There area few places I have toured where they were nice. Some bike lanes in a very few select towns were nice. The trail system near Frisco CO and Breckenridge CO was awesome. These were not the rule though.

Most places though we much preferred the regular roads. Many places the surfaces were poor on the bike paths either because they were lousy to start with or because they were not maintained. For example the bike path east of Hoosier Pass (in and near Alma maybe?) which had broken concrete and heaved up seams that required that we slow way down or constantly try to bunny hop a loaded bike.

In many cases they were poorly designed and as a result much more trouble to ride on than the roads. In some places they were nice but overcrowded with either various modes of users or in the case of the Virginia Creeper Trail just tons of clueless folks on rental bikes.

Some bike friendly cities have great facilities, but I have no desire for much of my tour to be in cities.