when you're not sure where to go ride, where do you go? what's your "old-faithful" ride that is always a good idea? and why is that ride so dependable?

for me, it's a paved trail, a short drive from home, I can ride 2 hrs easy, it's safe, near services, including rest rooms & food afterwards, has some visually & socially pleasing highlights

On an afternoon ride the hang gliders may be landing along the way to Issaquah.
Closest city to reach from home.
Least hilly route.
About 20 miles.
Can handle the terrain with the vintage gearing on most of my bikes.
And there is more to look at.

When I lived in another place, it was a 10 mile ride around town. There were several routes you could take from table flat up to 'gentle' rollers. The ride was through a bunch of neighborhoods and included the town square. The people there were super cool and patient about bike riders, and aside from that the town wide speed limit was never above 35. I totally miss living there is nothing else for that aspect.
Where I live now, the best and easiest places to ride are a local park with a walking/biking trail and the golf cart paths in Peachtree City. I do it far less than I should simply due to the load up the truck and go aspect.

My favorite weekday AM ride is a 25 mile out-and-back along Lake Michigan. The turnaround point is a peninsula that juts out into the lake and has a fantastic view of the Chicago skyline. I'm typically out there as the sun is coming up over the lake. I love this route because 95% of it is on an off-street paved trail that is very busy on weekends, but at 5-6am on a weekday is usually pretty empty. I only have to navigate a few blocks of city riding to get to it.

I've seen so many amazing lakefront sunrises while riding this route. Here's on I took recently:

Evanston to Fort Sheridan via Sheridan Road. Pretty much a quick 30-miler on a decent road. Essentially, the gateway to all rides north of Chicago.

Wicker Park to Ft Sheridan is one of my favorite weekend morning rides. It's a great road and amazing to see all the cyclists and group rides that are on that route.

Also, a lot of exotic/vintage sports cars and motorcycles - if you're into that.

I guess a common solo ride for me is a18-25mi 50/50 route of paved roads getting out of town, then gravel roads, then paved roads once back in town.
It's some rolling climbing on the paved roads, then a handful of good climbs on gravel as I go in and out of a river valley, and then it's flat for a bit and a steady incline to end.

I do it a good bit since it gets my heart moving with a lot of short steep climbs that are 7-12% grade, it's short enough to be done in 60-80min depending on the exact route and traffic, and half of it is on dead quiet roads with views of a river valley.

Gravel bike is used.

I am lucky to have some singletrack MTB trails and some gravel trails very close to home. I don't don't even have to drive to get there, I can leave home on my bike. It's been my go-to places for many years all year round. Some of my favorite rides there have been during winter. Sometimes I just don't feel like driving out of town to get a ride, so I it's nice to have something close to home.

From my front door a 28 mile mix of: city streets; a closed-to-traffic road through a park along a river; unpaved, a closed-to-traffic road through a nice, wooded area along a large creek, relatively quiet roads; paved bike path, and unpaved canal path.

And where I live (west of Chicago), the Ill. Prairie Path and Great Western Trail "loop" makes for a very nice ride and I can go as far as I want, or not. The big crowds of 2020 are gone and things are much more back to normal now.

If only the sun wasn't setting so soon after work! But yeah that happens in October....

Probably my most common, easiest ride is an out and back from our place, through our neighborhood, to a connector trail, then out our city/county trail to where it joins our 239 mile long state park trail system. That out and back route is just over 17 miles and at my typical trail speed it usually ends up just over an hour.

Once I get there, if I have the time and energy, I’ll also do an additional bit in one direction or the other on the state trail. The state trail is wider and flatter and a great place to do some intervals, if I’m inspired to do that, too.

Otto

24 mile ride from my subdivision through a light industrial area where I almost always get caught by a train. Pop up onto a dedicated path on the MS River levee then around Audubon Zoo. Onto a split bike pedestrian path/loop, where I marvel at how oblivious people are to the markings. Around 4 times, nice yoga pants, then back to the levee, back to the train track, where I get caught, then home. I don't love it, but it's about the best I can do on a weekday afternoon.

My go to ride is my trike. It is the most easy relaxing way to ride the trails in town that there is.

Neighborhood streets over the ridge, a blast down the hill (watching out for cracking pavement!), then a country road paralleling the highway but far enough away I only get snippets of road noise. I can return the same way, or cross the railroad tracks (four times!) and take a bit busier set of roads home, with some extra scenery.

There's also an almost deserted road to a nature preserve the other side of the university. Is it worth the traffic, and how to get home, are the questions I ask when I think about that one.

I have several "go to" loops that begin and end at my door. I can't tell you how long they are, or even my average speed. I chose them for the convenient access, variations in terrain and views, and time-to-ride. I have a 1/2 hour ride that my wife and I do frequently at pace for a workout. There's a 45-minute loop that has some substantial climbing in it. And then there is a 1 hour ride with climbing and some straight fairly traffic free stretches in it. It's pretty to add a 30-minute out-and-back along one roadway if I feel like it.

Of course, there are other variations that can be added or subtracted. I don't have that much time to be on a bike, so must fit in small blocks of time for it. Works out okay for now. After retirement, I expect to explore the Texas hill country more freely.

Yeah - the Prairie Path is great! When my sister still lived in Chicago, we used to do the "Big Triangle" (Wheaton/Elgin/Aurora) on the path. Beautiful along the Fox River in fall. Rode from Oak Park to my Dad's house in Crystal Lake on the Prairie Path once. Fun!

When I lived in Rogers Park, decades ago, I'd ride north to Northwestern and then add whatever else. It was always pleasant.

Two go-to's! Both loops have nice water views and 700 to 1,100 feet of gain.

An about 15 mile loop from home to Golden Gardens Park on Puget Sound with variations on the way home.

23 mile loop along the Ship Canal, through Discovery Park, along Magnolia Bluff (really, Capt Vancouver did not know Madrone trees back then) and then through Myrtle Edwards Park, and home via Seattle Center and the Space Needle.

Two of my favorites minutes away

https://www.interurbantrail.com/
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...e2aTzxpS-uiF0a

I don't really have one, there are 4 standard 2hr routes (each with variations to keep things more interesting, but all timing out at about 2 hr) that I take from my driveway. One of those routes can sometimes have some traffic, so maybe not that one on a holiday get-away Friday. Then another set of 3 hr, 4 hr and up routes (normally incorporating some portion of the 2 hr routes), up to 100 mi. If I'm riding the tandem with my wife, I can adjust the routes to a slightly lower speed (this is becoming less of a necessity as my wife's cycling fitness improves).

I'm spoiled, there are a lot of nice cycling roads near me.

When my wife and I want a quick, convenient route, we have one pretty good option, a rectangular loop of 9.5 miles. It starts and ends right out our driveway, as we live about midway along one of the rectangle's long sides. This is the only part of the ride that's on a road. The other long side and both short ends are paved MUPs.

At one end of the rectangle, there is pretty scenery, especially at sunset. At the opposite end, there are lots trees and a pond. The long sides take us through residential neighborhoods and farm fields. There are no commercial, industrial, or urban areas.

The route sits on a slight incline, not steep, but just enough slope to make it interesting. We can choose how we want to take the incline by riding the loop clockwise or counter-clockwise: descent at the beginning and end of the ride with climbing in the middle, or climbing at the start and end with descent in the middle.

We ride this quite often, and I've also walked and jogged all or part of it many times. It is one of my favorite things about the place where we live.



Edit: Looking at the map, I realize it's technically more of a parallelogram, with slightly curved ends.

Depends on how many miles I’m looking to bag. 90% of my rides (when not driving to the start point) go through Concord Center, up Monument st and by Ponyhenge.

I have a couple routes I fall back on. For weeknight rides up to about an hour and a half, I stitch together various roads and backroads in Woodside and Portola Valley. I can add or subtract a couple miles based on which I choose, but for most of the summer I was doing one particular 25 mile route, which I used to compare my embarrassingly large collection of bikes. All these routes start on the same road, at one or another parking place, based on the wind that day - when it's not too windy, I park 4 miles farther north.

Weekend rides are 3+ hours, riding from home. I have a 55 mile route that is my standard, and which includes the weeknight route(s), but adds at both ends, and I can add another 10 or more to the route easily.

I don't mind riding the same routes over and over. Familiarity breeds content.

Unfortunately I don't have one now, but my go-to ride was in Jerusalem when we were posted there a couple years ago. I'd usually ride it a couple times a week in the morning before I started my telework job.

I started from our apartment downtown, followed an actual bike path towards the western edge of the city, rode on a tiny bit of gravel, and then did some big climbs to the Kennedy Memorial with nice flowy roads, great views, wonderful smelling pine trees, a water fountain, and a bathroom. Then I'd turn around and take a different route home which went through a small, mixed neighborhood, and then back downtown. The road was always in great shape and usually not busy. 21 miles with 1,675ft of climbing. After getting home and showering, I'd walk over to my favorite shawarma place for lunch.