6 beautiful trips that combine bikes and trains
Mother Nature Network | By Jenn Savedge, July 16, 2017
Love bikes? Love trains? Why not combine the two into one awesome method of travel?
Bike rides are fun, but they’re often cut in half by the number of miles that you’ll need to travel to get back to your starting point. And unless you’re a dedicated long-distance cyclist, that may not be very far.
Bike trips combined with a train ride let you double the fun and extend your trip further with the promise of a train ride to return you to your destination. That means that you’ll not only get to travel farther, you will also get to enjoy some downtown with your companions, something that’s not easy to do when you’re traveling single-file on bikes.
Cyclists can bring their bikes aboard along many of Amtrak’s regular routes throughout the country. The same holds true for many of the public commuter lines that run in and around the country’s major metropolitan areas such as California’s BART system, Washington D.C.’s Metro, or Chicago’s “L.” Be sure to check the website for the train on your preferred route — here’s the site for Amtrak, for starters — to find out if it’s accessible to cyclists and whether or not you’ll need to reserve a spot for your wheels.
There are also a number of scenic bike-train combos that are perfect for cyclists of all ages and abilities. So grab your friends or your kids (or both) and head out to one of these fun destinations.
The Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad parallels the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail with more than 85 miles running from Independence to Akron, Ohio. The railroad’s Bike Aboard program allows bicyclists to ride any length of the bike path, more than 25 miles of which travels through Cuyahoga Valley National Park, before catching a ride back to their car via train.
Read the full article at mnn.com
