So, my buddy and I are planning our first long trip this summer. We've done a couple of one and two night rides, but we are setting aside about eight days for this trip. We have two ideas right now:

1. Do the Adventure Cycling Adirondack Park Loop trip. I bought the map, and it looks like a ton of fun. I've been studying the trip and looking over journals on crazyguyonabike.com.

2. Ride from Brooklyn, NY to Cooperstown to go to the Baseball Hall of Fame. I feel like this would be a fun trip, but I can find ZERO on the internet to help me plan such a trip. I looked over the maps contained in the earlier thread "Port Jervis, NY to Ithaca, any tips?" (Thanks thehugoball), and I am a little concerned by the lack of camping sites on the NY maps, and we would have to go off them anyway to get to Cooperstown.

Both trips are 400-450 miles (we would go off-route at one point on the Great Adventure option).

So my questions are: Are there any web resources to try and plan your own bike tour (finding safer roads, campsites, etc.)? How much easier is it to follow the Great Adventures route than your own? Are there any odd or different things that need to be planned for if we take the Cooperstown trip?

More broadly, which do you prefer - - a trip with a destination (Cooperstown) or a trip for the trip's sake?

Ooooooh. I've been looking at maps recently. That area to the southeast of Cooperstown (Delaware, Ulster, Greene, and Sullivan counties) looks like it would be a fabulous place to explore.

Could you get a lift out to say Middletown? That would get you through a lot of missable suburbia.

Speedo

I always recommend the Adirondacks to anyone. The roads are great, the shoulders are usually huge, the scenery is stunning. Lots of campgrounds, lots of neat things to see, lots of diversions. I've been going up there once or twice a year for over a decade and I still find new stuff every time I go. The AC maps are great, but you don't neccessarily need them, any old map is fine.

+1 for Adirondacks. I don't know the ACA loop. I planned out a trip using a park map and had the ride of a life. Amazing scenery, long stretches with very few cars, great camping. There's a lot to do and see in the park itself. I can't wait to get back.

You're going to get a lot of Adirondack votes because that's what we've ridden - we can't really compare. But Adirondacks are a great bet.

(If you ride up any peaks, make sure to spin in your granny. My last tour to the park left me with a long term knee problem.)

'Dacks for sure. Amazing rides there, incredible scenery, pretty nice road conditions - last time I rode there. Nothing like it. I've ridden in many states and five countries, the Adirondacks is still my favourite all-time destination.

Thanks for the input everyone. I was expecting some good reviews about the Adirondacks, but didn't think that they would be so enthusiastic. We are definitely heading to the Adirondacks this time. We can always do Cooperstown on the next trip.

Speedo - - Thanks for the warning about the suburban lands of Westchester. I hadn't really thought that part through yet.

Where are you starting?

One thing we did was to take the ferry across Lake Champlain, riding around the lake. The fort at the bottom is cool and the restaurants nearby rock.

As for which trip to take? Take both. Pick one for this year and then do the other next year or when time allows. No one here can tell you which trip is the better of the two. The beauty of a tour is in the eye of the beholder-so to speak. Of course, that said, I vote for the Adirondacks.

Trip planning? Well, there is no google bike tour button on the web but google earth or google maps have some pretty good planning tools. For example you can get driving directions from point A to point B, which is pretty basic. However, if you hit the pull down menu you can make it walking directions. This in most cases will pull up back roads etc.

I'm planning a tour to Florida later this year. I've worked my route out as far south as North Carolina just using Google maps. I look for the smallest roads to connect the dots of the route. I then use the point and drag man to get an idea of what the roads look like. Not all areas are photographed at terrain level yet so it's not perfect. Next step is finding campgrounds, so it's off to Woodalls or KOA websites to check them. And so it goes. So far the trip is from just outside Philly SE to Cape May NJ via Mays landing NJ, then over to Lewes Delaware on the ferry, down to Crisfield MD, jump another boat ride to Reedville Va, and well, you get the point.

Everything you need is right in front of you right now, a computer screen and a mouse.