Backroad Bicycling in Eastern Pennsylvania: 25 Rides for Touring and Mountain Bikes (Backroad Bicycling Series) (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

From Philadelphia to the Amish country, this all-new guide to cycling eastern Pennsylvania's scenic roads includes tours for both road and mountain bikes. Patricia Vance has explored hundreds of miles of roads in eastern Pennsylvania to find the most scenic, uncrowded, and enjoyable cycling on both paved and dirt roads.

Areas covered include:
• Philadelphia
• Valley Forge
• The Brandywine River Valley
• Bucks County
• The Poconos
• The Endless Mountains
• Pennsylvania Dutch Country
• Gettysburg

Rides range in length from a 10-mile spin through the row houses of Old City Philadelphia to a 55-mile ramble in the rolling hills of the Pocono Mountains. Each chapter includes a detailed map, mile-by-mile tour directions, and information on mileage, terrain, and difficulty, as well as nearby bicycle rental and repair shops. An overview chart at the beginning of the book provides information at a glance to help you choose a tour. And throughout, Vance provides fascinating commentary on the history and culture of this picturesque region. 25 black & white photographs, 26 maps.

About the Author

Patricia Vance is a research science associate at the University of Pennsylvania. A member of the Bicycle Club of Philadelphia and the Bicycle Coalition of the Delaware Valley, she is also the author of Cyclo-touring: The Traveler's Guide to Bicycle Touring. She lives in Philadelphia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Countryman Press (April 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0881504777
• ISBN-13: 978-0881504774
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,197,242 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars this could be so much more user friendly than it is, May 28, 2007

By	Tacfarinas (Swarthmore, PA USA) - See all my reviews

I've enjoyed using this book; I have been on about five of the suggested rides, and enjoyed them all. In some cases they made me aware of areas of the region that I had ignored, and so I'm very grateful to the author. And I plan to buy the guides to adjacent regions as well.

So what follows is intended as very friendly constructive criticism, in hopes of a second edition, and perhaps general improvement of the series.

First, PLEASE could the maps not be detailed. Yesterday we tried the Ringing Rocks route. The instructions all depend on knowing the names of particular roads (all, for a miracle, clearly marked by the highway department) but those names are mostly NOT on the map. So it's very hard to know where you are. In this case we wanted to turn back half way, and joint the canal in the middle of the route instead of doing the whole 26 miles, but there was no indication on map of what the names of the relevant roads are.

Second, and I know this is hard in all such matters, but please write the directions for getting to the starting place in such a way that someone coming for the first time will absolutely get a good start. For example, in the Ringing Rocks instruction, why not say "there's an enormous white Baptist church where Cafferty Rd meets PA 32. And tell us which way to go in starting out: "Start at the parking lot" is much more helpful if you say where to go (North ? south?)

I'm thinking of getting a GPS to complement the book. But in a perfect world, especially for beginners, that surely shouldn't be necessary.

Third, why not make clear which rides can easily be shortened. The Ringing Rocks route can easily be two rides of half the distance, but only the map (inadequate, see above) makes that clear. The Delaware River Canal Towpath Route never even mentions (and it's not marked on the map) that there are places to cross which, again, can make the ride into a series of much shorter ones.

The book is clearly intended for beginners. We get a guide to biking in Center City Philadelphia, and we're told about Fairmount Park and the Schylkill. So why not offer as many short rides as possible??