Why Go: Though it’s only recently become recognized as a cycling paradise, Minneapolis’ best bike route — the over-50-mile Grand Rounds Loop, which traces natural features including lakes, creeks, riverbanks and wetlands in a massive circle around downtown — has been around since the 1930s.
Bike Ride
Why Go: With its rolling karst topography, award-winning vineyards and dazzling springtime wildflower blooms, Texas Hill Country features some of the state’s best rural cycling. These hills, while not Swiss Alps caliber, were one of Lance Armstrong’s primary training grounds.
Why Go: The ruggedly beautiful topography of South Dakota’s Black Hills presented highway engineers with some unique challenges. They responded by constructing two “impossible” roads — the Needles Highway (Rte. 87) and Iron Mountain Road (Rte. 16A) — that thread their way through the mountains using steep grades, one-lane rock-walled tunnels, hairpin curves and photogenic spiral “pigtail” bridges.
Why Go: Covered bridges and horse-drawn buggies are the hallmarks of the Pennsylvania Dutch Country surrounding Lancaster, where the Amish and Mennonites have been farming the rolling countryside for centuries. These are the same low-traffic rural roads where a young Floyd Landis — himself raised Mennonite — cut his teeth before becoming internationally infamous.
Why Go: The Delmarva Peninsula (Delaware-Maryland-Virginia) is a bucolic, 170-mile-long peninsula that separates Chesapeake Bay from the Atlantic. A crazy quilt of fields, small towns, coves and sinuous tributary rivers, it’s the perfect place for a laid-back, low-speed ramble along the Eastern Shore’s low-country back roads.
Why Go: With its rolling vineyards and cherry orchards, historic lighthouses, sandy beaches and charming ports, Michigan’s Leelanau Peninsula comprises one of the most scenic stretches of the Great Lakes’ so-called “Third Coast”. Take in Lake Michigan’s pristine shoreline on a flat pedal from the vacationland of Traverse City to the oversized sandbox of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Seashore.
Why Go: Because it’s home to Acadia National Park, Mt. Desert Island is the best place to explore Maine’s ruggedly beautiful granite coast. Between the miles of traffic-free carriage roads, well marked trails down to seaside tide pools and the panoramic view atop Cadillac Mountain (the highest point on the Atlantic Coast), this is a cyclist’s coastal dream trip. Of course, the profusion of postcard-perfect fishing villages with fresh-catch lobster pounds make it worthwhile off the bike.
Why Go: Just north of the crunchy northern Vermont mecca of Burlington, the bucolic Champlain Islands bob in the center of Lake Champlain, where they’re shielded by the Adirondack Mountains to the west and the Green Mountains to the east. Farm stands and creemee (that’s Vermont for “soft-serve”) shacks sprout along quiet, pancake-flat roads here, and dramatic views of mountains tumbling down to the lakeshore are almost nonstop.
Why Go: This feature-packed ride, which starts and ends downtown, highlights the sheer geographical diversity and scenic beauty that makes NorCal so special. From San Francisco’s touristy waterfront, it crosses the Golden Gate Bridge, heads over the rugged Marin Headlands, hugs the Pacific shoreline through Muir and Stinson Beaches and climbs past redwood forests and flowering manzanitas to 2,574-foot Mt. Tamalpais.
Why Go: Utah’s State Route 12 traverses 122 miles of otherworldly landscape — chockablock with slickrock canyons, cosmic pinnacles and monolithic buttes — between Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef National Parks. We’ve carved out a more manageable (relatively, mind you) chunk between Bryce and Boulder that winds past petrified forests, stratified cliffs and ancient Puebloan granaries where you can peer into history.