Short Bike Rides in and around Philadelphia, 3rd [Paperback]

Ann Lembo (Author), Joe Surkiewicz (Author)

Book Description

Series: Short Bike Rides Series | Publication Date: December 1, 1999

Park your car, put on your helmet, fill your water bottle, and discover the best way to see the sights in and around Philadelphia - on two wheels. Biking is fun for the whole family, and whether you're a dedicated cyclist or just want to have some fun with the kids on the weekend, a bike and a couple of hours are all you need to enjoy the carefully selected routes in this well-researched guide. Each ride includes precise written directions, excellent route maps, the level of difficulty, including mileage, safety tips, availability of food and facilities and vivid descriptions of points of interest.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Park your car, put on your helmet, fill your water bottle, and discover the best way to see the sights in and around Philadelphia - on two wheels. Biking is fun for the whole family, and whether you're a dedicated cyclist or just want to have some fun with the kids on the weekend, a bike and a couple of hours are all you need to enjoy the carefully selected routes in this well-researched guide. Each ride includes precise written directions, excellent route maps, the level of difficulty, including mileage, safety tips, availability of food and facilities and vivid descriptions of points of interest.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Globe Pequot; 3rd edition (December 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 076270408X
• ISBN-13: 978-0762704088
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,456,084 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars directionally challenged, August 24, 2009

By 

Philip L. Blumenkrantz "Big In Japan" (Philadelphia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Short Bike Rides in and around Philadelphia, 3rd (Paperback)

I've taken a number of rides in this book and have come to realize that you cannot trust the directions, which appear to either have been written from memory or using a print map, as opposed to actually route/ride tested. Frequent right turns that should be left, wrong road names, omissions of key information.
The writers characteristically fail to give adequate (or any) warning of a hard-to-find turn that one can easily breeze by on a bicycle. Since signage can change over time, it is so important to give landmarks and other tips (e.g. "at the top of the hill", "just after the lake", to help the rider.

Example: ride 10:

At 1.0 miles the directions say Pebble Hill Road continues as "Sugar Bottom Road." In actuality, you must take a LEFT off of Pebble Hill to get onto Sugar. I missed this, causing two hilly miles of extra riding. It may well be that the name of the road does change, but the rider needs to know to watch out for the turn, or that, in fact, there is a turn. True, I probably should have seen the Sugar Hill sign. But as there was no turn indicated, I assumed I merely continued straight. This is typical.

29.7 miles - Says "turn ride onto Tile Road." No - the right turn is onto Twin Silo.

These are but a few of many examples of why I have hesitated using this book.

These mar the otherwise enjoyable rides that are presented. I found the routes generally low-traffic and as described.

If you are using this book you may want to supplement it with either a good county map, GPS or Google maps.