Pat Clancy) wrote in message news:<
[email protected]>...
Josef Erbach schreib:
> > I would like to make a two week bicycle tour in the northeast of the USA in July/August 2003.
> > Starting und end point of the trip should be Boston.
> >
> > Who knows a beautiful bike route and can tell me something about this? I want to use campgrounds
> > and to sleep in a tent. Is it possible to rent a bicycle in Boston which is suitable for such a
> > journey? If so, where? The bicycle I look for should have two additional rear panniers and two
> > front panniers.
Pat Clancy responded:
> I don't want to discourage you but you're likely to have a couple of problems. First, I doubt
> you'll find a shop that rents fully outfitted touring bikes.
That's correct. Probably better to bring your own.
> Second, while Boston is an interesting city to visit as a tourist, starting and ending a bike tour
> there will be difficult. The crowded Boston suburbs stretch out many miles in all directions.
> Traffic will be heavy and the roads will not be very attractive. Your first day out and your last
> day back would not be a lot of fun.
That's not correct. The crowded suburbs stretch out many miles to the north and south, along the
coast, due to historical patterns of settlement.
However, if you go west for 20 km you'll see farms. Boston is unusual for a city its size in that
there's surprisingly good cycling within a couple of hours of the city center.
If you head west for 20-30 km, then head north, you'll find delightful rolling country roads with
little traffic.
In planning a route, look for older numbered roads that parallel major interstate highways. These
tend to make good cycling, and have services for travelers.
> Another respondent suggested touring the coast of Maine. That's a good idea. It shouldn't be
> difficult to arrange transportation from Boston to Portland and use that as your base of
> operations. Then you have three primary choices: you can either head west/northwest towards New
> Hampshire and the White Mountains, north into the backwoods of Maine, or northeast up the coast.
The roads directly following the coastline tend to be very busy in the summertime, but that doesn't
mean that they're terrible.
Sheldon "Inland" Brown +-------------------------------------------+
| Good judgment comes from experience, | and experience comes from bad judgment. | --Fred Brook |
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