The United States offers a myriad of opportunities for bicycle tours. This is the first of a multi-part series discussing the various cycling regions in the US. Today’s post will focus on New England Bicycle Tours.

The six states in the Northeast corner of the United States offer some of the best cycling in the country. I feel uniquely qualified to discuss New England Cycling since it is the home of Summer Feet Cycling.

Maine:

Maine has more coastline than California and offers some wonderful cycling. We offer guided Maine Bike Tours and well as Self-Guided Bike Tours. In Maine Acadia National Park is a premier cycling destination. The over 50 miles of carriage roads offer car free cycling through the interior of the park, and the park loop road offers great coastal cycling as well as the opportunity to cycle up Cadillac Mountain the highest point on the eastern seaboard and the 1st place to see the sunrise in North America.

We also offer half day Portland bicycle tours featuring 5 lighthouses

Massachusettes:

Cape Cod and the Islands. The two Famous islands off the coast offer a very different cycling story. Martha’s Vineyard offers great cycling with bike paths around much of the island while Nantucket is too small for much cycling.  On Cape Cod, there is a wonderful rail trail that runs Wellfleet to South Dennis. There is also ferry service from Boston to Provincetown making the ride of Cape easily accessible from Boston.

Western Mass know as the Berkshires offers some great cycling and can easily be combined with cycling in Southern Vermont.

Vermont

Vermont has a great reputation for cycling, although Maine is a much more bicycle friendly state. The Northeast Kingdom offers wonderful mountain biking and the rest of the state offers wonderful cycling if you do not mind climbing. It is best to avoid Route 100 as it is the main North- South road in the state. There are various bike companies offering tours in Vermont, our favorite is POMG Bike Tours of Vermont.

New Hampshire:

New Hampshire offers some stunning and challenging cycling, including the the annual Race up Mt Washington.  the best cycling in New Hampshire is in the White Mountains near Conway and along the Connecticut River Valley in the Western part of the state. Bike the Whites is a group of inns who have put together a nice little self-guided tour.

Rhode Island:

Given it’s small stature Rhode Island is not a hot bed for organized bike touring  but does offer good cycling, particularly in the Narragansett  area. The State has a good bike bike map highlighting bike paths and better roads for ridding.

Connecticut:

From a cyclists perspective Connecticut can be divided into 3 zones. The Metro New York area in Southern Connecticut includes the NYC suburbs like Greenwich, and Darien all the way up to New Haven, The Northern Costal Region including Mystic and Lyme and the Northwestern Corner.  The best ridding is probably in the Northwest near Litchfield and into Southern Massachusettes.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 17th, 2012 at 11:55 am and is filed under Bicycle Tours. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.