Bicyclists can celebrate the opening of the final link of the Great Allegheny Passage with a fully supported bike tour that spins from DC to Pittsburgh this summer.

Dubbed the Greenway Sojourn 2007 by organizers Rails to Trails Conservancy, the bike ride takes advantage of 335 miles of unbroken bicycle path comprising the C&O Canal towpath (DC's Georgetown to Cumberland, Maryland) and the Great Allegheny Passage (Cumberland to Pittsburgh).

The bike tour, limited to 500 cyclists, runs from June 23-30, 2007. The northbound tour provides camping ...   more »

Ever get tired of waiting for government to act? David Brickley did.

That's why he took it on himself to purchase the rights to a 16-mile railroad right-of-way through King George County and launch plans for the Dahlgren Railroad Heritage Trail as a bicycling and hiking path near Fredericksburg, Virginia.

The Rails to Trails newsletter reports on Brickley, who saw the railbed in 1999 when he worked as director of a state agency. Try as he might, however, he couldn't interest the county's board of commissioners to develop a bike-hike trail.

Fearing the tract might be chopped up ...   more »

Virginia has printed up a bicycle touring map for the state that includes major cross-state bike routes totalling some 800 miles, as well as a half dozen or more rail-to-trail bike paths and off-road mountain biking areas.

Bicycling in Virginia is also available online in two .pdf downloads at "full map" and the reverse "trail side."

One of the main features of the map are the two US bicycle routes that criss-cross the state. Route 1 runs north-south about from the DC suburbs, through Richmond and into southern Virginia. The east-west Route 76 essentially follows the old Bikecentennial (Trans-America) trail ...   more »