New to riding but no one where I live rides road bikes, anyone near the Providence RI area have this problem as well?

Have you looked into the Naragansett Bay Wheelmen at all? They have group rides pretty often and have route maps up on their website. I've never ridden with them, but I think the crowd is pretty heavily skewed towards lycra'd roadies. Providence Bicycle on Branch Ave also sometimes has rides and caters to the road biking set.

If you're interested in learning more about the biking scene in Providence, tune into a bike culture talk / call-in show I co-host on BSR, a student-community non-commercial station. Our show airs every Monday at 9:30 on 88.1fm or bsrlive.com.

The Narragansett Bay Wheelmen have a ride every Sunday and they are well attended, probably around 50 riders each ride in the summer. There are riders of all experience levels and everyone can ride at their own pace, from the hammerheads to the social riders, young and old.

The rides are loosely organized. Everyone meets at the starting point, maps are handed out and off you go on the marked route. It always splits up into various groups and even lone riders as everyone goes at their own pace and you can ride different distances marked out on the ride map.

What kind of ride would you like to do? Are you a carbon speedster, commuter type, tourist etc.? There is also the East Bay Bike Path, a round trip of about 28 miles, flat except for one short hill. You are welcome to PM me and maybe we can do a ride or talk about areas where you can ride. I'm not fast and I'm a C&V guy.

Jebejava is right— the EBP is a great place for casual rides. You can pick it up right over the river in East Providence. There's a ramp over the river by the 195 bridge by India Point Park. It can get pretty crowded on weekend afternoons in the summer though.
Another great option is the Blackstone River Bikeway, which takes you up from Pawtucket to Woonsocket. It runs along the river for a good stretch, passes some nice small falls and old mills. It's a really beautiful pathway.
The Washington Secondary, which you can pick up off of Elmwood / Reservoir in South Providence takes you all the way down into Coventry. You can easily hit the CT state line off of that.
The Blackstone and Washington are both great to include as part of half-century length rides. There's a bounty of nice country roads out in the north and west of the state. As jebejava mentioned, the NBW rides (as well as their website) are a good way to pick up some routes.
We'll probably be doing episodes on Bike Talk focused on each of the main bike paths in the state soon, with reviews, stories, and field recordings. Keep your eyes on bsrlive.com and ears on 88.1 to find out when!

Sounds great. Is there a podcast version available?

Not as of yet, but I'll make a point to set one up for this week. Glad to hear you're interested!

If you miss it live, we do offer streaming archives of all of programming. Our archives are available at bsrlive.com/shows/bike-talk. The program ran for about 6 years in the past until it went on hiatus in 2008, so there's plenty of material, most of dated though. We just rebooted the program three weeks ago.

I began riding with the Wheelmen this spring and agree with all of the above. The club has been around for a long time and has the state well mapped out with all the suitable cycling roads indicated on a map produced, jointly by the club and the Rhode Island DOT, and available for free at any bike shop.

There seems to be a pocket of rural and lightly traveled roads in the Tiverton - Dartmouth area. I live in Bristol and ride there frequently. It is easy to put together a ride of 30 to 100 miles on pleasant country roads and the natives are friendly. PM if you would like to meet up for a ride there.

One nice thing about NBW rides is that if you can't make it on the Sunday of the ride you can follow the painted arrows.

There is a large library of maps on the club web site.

https://www.nbwclub.org/rides/maps-by-geo.html

Using NBW ride routes is an excellent way to find scenic and safe roads.

Ditto for Dartmouth-Westport, Tiverton and Little Compton as well. I live almost on the Dartmouth/Westport line - You can P-mail me for routes or to get together sometime - but the Wheelman have lots of info. I just signed up this year - but to late to register for the Sept. Century - sold out, as usual.

Yes, I live in Tiverton and the area through Little Compton and Westport has some great riding. Nice to be close to the ocean without the cars you'd get in South County.

Seems to be a lot of great roads all over the state.