Howdy,
4 friends of mine are biking Route V from OH to NJ as part of a cross country ride.
Anyone have any experience with this ride? Specifically looking for good places to stop for the night along the way.
Thanks
i just looked at route v. i have to say it's that part of pennsylvania that is well...i guess not too popular. the part around clarion county is the southern edge of the allegheny national forest. there's a nice stand of old growth forest near there, called cook forest.
looks like you'll be near punxsutawney. you can say 'sup to phil the groundhog
Check it out:
ftp://ftp.dot.state.pa.us/public/pdf/bikes/state_mapV.pdf
Click on the little number next to each segment of the route to zoom in.
It looks like you're going to be deep in the heart of Pennsyltucky the entire time, although pretty much parallel with I-80 (meaning lots of little truck stop towns). By no means wilderness, but if it's anything like Route S, I hope you guys like gas station food.
at least until state college
Thanks for the information. I guess not many people have biked that route. I've driven I-80 before and the scenery is beautiful. Seems a shame that it's not more utilized.
It does look like a great ride. I'd gladly hit Route V from end-to-end, if there was anyone else out there willing to get a group together. I ended up doing most of CTC solo, which was absolutely maddening, so I'd like to do my next trans-PA ride with a group. The girlfriend bikes, but 40 miles is about her limit.
Id be into this if a group wants to go. I didnt realize there was a sanctioned bike route across the state!
Caitlin, there are three East-West routes and 4 North-South ones.
http://www.dot.state.pa.us/BIKE/WEB/tour_routes.htm
The "Crush the Commonwealth Easy Leisure Ride" (yeah, right) took Rt S almost all the way to Philadelphia. Rt S joins the GAP between West Newton and Rockwood, then takes off NE from Rockwood on the appealingly named "Water Level Rd."
The PennDOT bike route maps, although detailed, leave a little to be desired: they don't show nearby rail-trails and the map for one of the routes won't even show where it crosses other PA bike routes.
I took Rt A to WV once. Between Houston and I-70, it was like other heavily trafficked roads, but south of I-70, it was a nice route.
I've been meaning to write the state legislators to tell them what more visible "Bicycle Route" signs and a wide, clean shoulder would do for the bad parts. At least having the routes gives us an easy vocabulary to talk to the government about bike travel.
Mick
i took route A to erie last summer, and i might do it again in a few weeks. i was pretty impressed with it, on the whole. it was pretty much 19 up to meadville, and then was a state route where i saw probably three cars the whole trip.
other than the missing chunk of ride (missing! gone! 30 feet across, 10-15 feet deep), it was very low stress. there was generally a 15 foot wide shoulder the whole length, on either side. and the shoulder was actually reasonably free of debris.
