How to Find a Route to Work--or anywhere around your town or city--by bicycle | Ken Kifer

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While exploring all possible roads on a bicycle may be fun, it is also time consuming, so the first step in finding a bike route to work, routes around town, and/or routes out into the countryside for weekend excursions is to get a map of your city or town. In smaller cities and towns, a good place to find such a map is at the courthouse or city hall, where most often there is a free map with the city streets on one side and county roads on the other. In larger cities, detailed local road maps are available from any store or gas station selling road maps. Either kind of map is very useful because it will suggest routes that you otherwise wouldn't think of. That side road may go a short distance and then end, or it may be an excellent bypass of a busy part of town.

The second step, of course, is to explore the roads personally. You have to suit yourself about which roads you want to ride on. On a recent trip to Huntsville, I was advised to follow a bike route along residential streets that wound far too much for my pleasure, so I got on the main four-lane street and proceeded without difficulty towards my goal. But what if I had arrived in town during rush hour traffic, especially in the late fall, when it gets dark early? Then I would have appreciated the longer route.

Although we all have our own preferences and compromises, I notice in town after town that the streets I choose to ride on are the ones with the busiest bicycle traffic. Evidently, there is some kind of logic behind my choices that other cyclists share.

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How to Find a Route to Work--or anywhere around your town or city--by bicycle | Ken Kifer