Customer Reviews

BEST BIKE PATHS OF THE SOUTHWEST : Safe, Scenic and Traffic-Free Bicycling

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book covers bike paths and routes in several cities in Arizona (14 routes), Southern California (6 routes), Northern California (26 routes), Nevada (2 routes) and Utah (8 routes). There are no maps of the routes but the author does a pretty good job of describing them. The descriptions are pretty detailed including such things as places to park, restroom locations, places to eat, level of difficulty, and condition of pavement.

This book seems to be written with the casual cyclist in mind. If you're looking for a route where you can "hammer" out 40 miles at a fast pace then this book is not for you. If you're looking for a place to enjoy a leisurely weekend ride with friends or children, then this book was designed with you in mind, For example, in their level of difficulty ranking the authors consider a 3-mile route with rolling hills to be "challenging."

The only negative comment I have about the book was that it was written about 5 years ago so some of these routes may have changed over the years. For most of the routes, the author does provide a phone number to call to get more information about the route. If you're traveling to a new area and plan to ride one of these routes you may want to call ahead of time to make sure the route or bike path still exists or has not changed.

This book is an excellent resource for safe bike paths throughout the Southwest. The detailed maps, directions for best parking, and stops along the bike paths make this book an ideal resource for those who take their bikes with them on vacation!

An important element of the book is the traffic-free bike path focus. This is perfect for families with children and others who don't wish to share the road with cars!

The book was published in 1996 and with the extensive construction in new bike paths that occurred in metropolitan Phoenix and Tucson since that time, it is very much out-of-date.

Also, since when is northern (and southern for that matter) California in the southwestern US?