Hey, I know that street very well! I went to UW-L. I biked down 16th St a lot.

With lowest per-capita road spending in the nation, winters with multiple freeze/thaw cycles, heavy industrial traffic, and the 2nd and 6th busiest border crossings for truck traffic in the nation, Michigan has a compelling recipe for crappy roads!

The upside is that we have a lot of roadway, so I don't think avoiding the bad stuff is really too hard in most areas, which is at least my experience here in Ann Arbor. I have several appealing routes just outside of town, and many through-town options to get to them, many of which have good surfaces and bike lanes.

In all, Ann Arbor is a nice place to ride, but a recent trip to Boulder, CO, really reminded me that the roads could be so much better! Man, the riding out there is pretty darn good!

Nice! UW-L is my place of employment, so I use that road...a lot. If you haven't been here in a while, there is now a roundabout at Cass and 7th (and it is great fun on a bike).

https://www.google.com/maps/@29.8039...8i6656!5m1!1e3

https://www.google.com/maps/@29.7717...8i6656!5m1!1e3

Do i win?

Great idea for a thread.

Located in NE Ohio.

I don't commute, and my normal pavement rides are on rail trails. But when I do ride on the roads I head out of town on the rail trail and catch one of the intersecting rural roads. This is one place I like to get off the rail trail:

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.4253...2!8i6656?hl=en

Here are a few connecting roads:

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.4327...2!8i6656?hl=en

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.4089...2!8i6656?hl=en

Miles and miles of roads like this out here. I may see a car an hour if I'm lucky. Amish buggies sometimes too.

Steve Z

Google streetview pics don't do it justice but here are a few roads I'm on regularly.

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.7880...7i13312!8i6656

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.7888...7i13312!8i6656

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.8050...!7i3328!8i1664

I'll play. But I have it pretty easy to some of yours.

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4510...7i13312!8i6656

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4560...7i13312!8i6656

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4583...7i13312!8i6656

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.5092...7i13312!8i6656

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.5388...7i13312!8i6656

I agree. I have to choose from crappy, rough, chip sealed roads with potholes or gravel roads with large, loose gravel. I'd choose the roads in those pictures above any day.

BTW, they just chip sealed the street in front of my house. No, I'm not happy. Takes forever for that chat to get pressed down into the roadway, and even then there are still piles of it in spots which are pretty hairy to ride over.

I thought all cyclists knew that you should ride perpendicularly over train tracks (or maybe bunny hop them), but I was wrong:


More info here: Factors influencing single-bicycle crashes at skewed railroad grade crossings - ScienceDirect

That's a weird way of redoing a road

chunky!

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.6907...7i13312!8i6656
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.7320...m4!1sXovvENX1L
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8429...1srlZbhacyAMyR
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9058...4!1stcdJv5Dzml
A few views of the local area, up to about 40 miles from home. Some roads are quite bad but most are in decent shape. The first view is a principal street through Bristol. Nice shoulders with only an occasional parked car blocking the way and both the shoulder and roadway smooth. There are many quiet country roads with little traffic and in Rhode Island, you are never far from the sea. As a boat builder and now riding a bike, I love living here. Motorist are accommodating toward cyclists.

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.2303...7i13312!8i6656

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.2357...7i13312!8i6656

I see people on this road all the time. It's often moderately busy 45 mph most go 55, with cars and many blind turns. Connecticut folk assume people will stop for them. I am not so trusting.

First one is a nice road with a good shoulder on it. The other 3 I can't make them open up correctly. Second one opens up in water.

It's a very nice road that seems to have been done recently. Too bad they weren't able to enlarge it to add shoulders to it.

Ha, I thought my roads were bad. After looking at all these pictures, I see my roads appear "normal". They look like what everyone else is apparently riding.

Yeah, that's why I started this thread. I don't ***** about my road as much as I did before

thanks for the pictures SylvainG! My firiends and I will be riding through Gatineau and Ottawa on a week+ long tour in a few weeks. We'll be staying at the Best Western Gatineau-Ottawa. I've routed us on these same nice looking bike paths!

Cool, don't forget to look at the Cycling in the Capital | National Capital Commission web site. Lots of info on the bike paths you can take while in Ottawa/Gatineau.

Also, on Saturday morning, a section of the Gatineau park road is open for bikes only and on Sunday morning, it's part of the Ottawa River pathway that is open to bikes only. Two nice places to ride.

Oh, don't forget to visit the MosaiCulture on Laurier Street in Gatineau (not the one in Ottawa)!

thanks
We'll be staying in Gatineau on Friday Sept 8. Yes we have the MosaiCulture on our list of things to do, although I wasn't sure if it would still be open Sept 8-9?
We'll be riding over to Ottawa and then to Hawksbury Saturday

MosaiCulture is opened until October so you'll be fine. When will you get in the region? On the previous (long) weekend (August 28th to September 4th), there is also the Hot Air Balloon festival in Gatineau.

Don't miss the Gatineau park, specially if you have mountain bike. The trails are very nice.

I've no idea why only one link opened correctly. Maybe something about quantum uncertainty but I'm not sure.