it's bike trip season, and if you're thinking of riding one of the great long distance car free paths in north america, you might find useful information at

https://bicycletouringoncarfreepaths....g/Welcome.html


a non-commercial website on where the paths are, their setting in nature and history, and where to find food, water, camping and lodging along the way.

covered in detail are the Mickelson Trail, P'tit Train du Nord, Great Allegheny Passage, C&O Canal, Pine Creek Trail/Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania, the Greenbrier River Trail, and the Carriage Roads of Acadia National Park.

and if you ride the paths this season, we hope you'll use the Riders Suggestion pages on each trip to tell other touring cyclists (including ourselves) your favorite places to eat, sleep, and get ice cream and beer, so we can better plan our own trips.

jeff

Nice site! I didn't know there were so many within a days drive of DC.

They sure left out a few very nice car free touring trails:
The Cowboy Trail in Nebraska
Elroy Sparta Trail, 400 Trail, and LaCrosse River Trail in Wisconsin.

the good news is, there are a lot of great car free paths that aren't on the site yet, good news because it means we have an increasing number of great paths to ride.

the bad news is, there are a lot of great car free paths that aren't on the site yet, bad news because some of us don't know about them to plan trips to ride them.

the writeups on

https://bicycletouringoncarfreepaths....g/Welcome.html

are informational rather than experiential. the hope is bicyclists can get the information we need to plan our trips, and have more fun with them.

and those of us with too much time on our hands doing the path write-ups hope there may be some other people who have too much time on their hands, and may be willing to write up and send in pictures of paths that aren't on this site yet. we credit photos and text.

we also hope folks who ride the paths that are already covered on the site will use the Riders Suggestion pages to tell us about their favorite places to eat and stay, and what to do and look for, along the way.

jeff

Cool idea for a site. Are you incorporating unpaved paths as well? I know the C&O isn't paved, but it would be great if there were also a section that included rarely-used forest/fire roads and that kind of thing. I'd imagine the West in particular has a lot.

of the paths on https://bicycletouringoncarfreepaths....g/Welcome.html

only the silver comet/chief ladiga, and a portion of the p'tit train du nord, are paved. the rest of them are unpaved. the unpaved surfaces on some of the paths make for really easy riding, such as the unpaved portion of the p'tit train du nord; other paths require more attention to the road as you ride.

great idea to add forest and fire roads. if anybody has any suggestions, please send them to:

bicycletouringoncarfreepaths@gmail.com

thanks, jeff