Biking at the DE beaches on "Bike Route 1"

[americancyclo]

so if we’re on 16 for most of the way, we should be ok?

route at the moment looks like 13 miles on 404, 40 miles on 16, then the last 8 miles in mixed traffic.

[creadinger]

If you want to make lots of miles fast, I think that would be a safe enough route. Those roads have a wide shoulder, but you’d be dealing cars flying by you pretty much constantly. The worst would be backed up traffic for which you’d have to worry about people pulling out onto the shoulder to make turns.

If you have more time and want a quieter ride, I’d hit the back roads. Hardly anyone but the locals travel the back roads. It’ll be more miles but much more scenic and quiet. I’ve done this route a couple of times and found it pretty enjoyable for the most part. http://www.bikewashington.org/routes/beach/index.htm

[DismalScientist]

+1
Have you thought about getting dropped off in Easton instead? You could take 328 to Denton or the back roads to Bridgeville. If I remember right, 16 gets a lot of traffic as well.

Here’s a page on traffic counts in Delaware: http://www.deldot.gov/information/pubs_forms/manuals/traffic_counts/index.shtml

[americancyclo]

@creadinger 26829 wrote:

If you have more time and want a quieter ride, I’d hit the back roads. Hardly anyone but the locals travel the back roads. It’ll be more miles but much more scenic and quiet. I’ve done this route a couple of times and found it pretty enjoyable for the most part. http://www.bikewashington.org/routes/beach/index.htm

Thanks for the link! I think we’ll try that route from either Tuckahoe State Park, Ridgely, or Denton so we can still get some time at the beach with the family after the ride. I didn’t see a GPX file on the BikeWashington.org website, so I mapped it so others could use it if they wanted. Here’s the link:

http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/119341475

[creadinger]

No problem! One word of caution. I don’t remember if this applies in the bikewashington route, but….. On the 3-day eastern shore trip I did a few years ago, the actual road signs did not exactly match up with the road names according to google maps, making my cue sheet all wrong… so on day two from Rehoboth to Assateague and day three from Assateaque back up to Tuckahoe State Park I had to zig-zag a bit as I got temporarily lost a few times. Day three was supposed to be 90 miles but turned into 101. This was before I had a smart phone with mapping. You should be fine though.

Otherwise. Enjoy! We will appeal to the wind so that it does not blow relentlessly in your face the entire time.

[americancyclo]

The road names on Google maps didn’t really line up with the cue sheet either, lots of places where google mentions the name of a road where the cue sheet refers to it by county road number. I think I managed to work it all out. With the GPX file loaded up in my Garmin, hopefully it will all work out, as long as the roads are still there. Trip report on the 13th!

[americancyclo]

The ride was really nice. Instead of leaving from downtown Denton, MD as planned, we stopped at the McDonalds right off 404 about a mile north of Denton. We waited out some clouds and played with our kids in the ‘playplace’ there until the skies cleared. We followed the route on bikewashington.org and only made one slight detour near sunny side rd. it looked a bit gravelly, so we just went to the main road and followed that until it met up again in a few hundred feet. We got doused with rain just before getting to Dewey, but by the time we made it to the state park, we had dried out and the cold ocean was a welcome change!

http://app.strava.com/rides/18221955

[Riley Casey]

Thanks for the update. I’ve driven the Denton to Dewey trip so many times I’d love to ride it once. Interesting that your Garmin thinks that Dewey is 12 ft below sea level.:eek:

[americancyclo]

@Riley Casey 28129 wrote:

Interesting that your Garmin thinks that Dewey is 12 ft below sea level.:eek:

I think at the time it was measuring how deep Dewey was in booze.

[mstone]

@Riley Casey 28129 wrote:

Thanks for the update. I’ve driven the Denton to Dewey trip so many times I’d love to ride it once. Interesting that your Garmin thinks that Dewey is 12 ft below sea level.:eek:

They added predictive logic.

[Author]

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