Yesterday, Mark and I rode with a couple we met last weekend from the local club.

The route they took us on had our favorite bike route quality – light traffic.  Another plus, was the route was almost entirely on well maintained roads.

It honestly doesn’t take much more than that to satisfy a cyclist.

It was a beautiful day with that wonderful autumn sunlight hitting the trees and meadows and wildflowers along the road. Another one of those bucolic days. There was a section of hills for several miles, but otherwise nice and relatively flat.

 

We rode 38 miles and probably encountered less than 20 vehicles. Whatever the number they just sort of faded into the background – not often the case when you ride.

Another great thing about riding in this “new to us” area, is the number of other people on bikes we saw! We have seen more bicyclists in the last two weeks, then we saw in the past year on our previous routes.

This area south and east of where we live attracts many bicyclists because of the light traffic, good roads and mix of flat terrain and hills.  It is well known and well-utilized.

Besides it just being nice to see other friendly faces on bikes, riding in an area known to have a high number of bike riders means drivers are more aware than the drivers in the areas less frequented by cyclists. Overall, more awareness by drivers – means more safety for cyclists.

Another plus, the routes are well marked by Team Bike Buddies.  Glad we “discovered” this better area to ride before fall is behind us. 

There isn’t a better time of year to ride - at least to me; and now we have better routes to explore and more nice weather ahead to do it.