What’s best small city in Northeast for bikes?
 

What’s the best small city in the Northeast for bikes?

By small, I’m thinking populations of around 25K to 100K.
By best for bikes, what makes it so?

Dave, thinking ahead

Burlington VT

great jumpoff spot to a lot of the wonderous magic of VT

Cambridge, MA

"A study published on Thursday has determined that when it comes to cities, Boston and Cambridge are among the most accommodating to cyclists in terms of infrastructure, public safety and amount of workers who commute via bike."

I agree that Burlington is a great city. Saratoga Springs is smaller, and is pretty nice too.

If you don't mind losing months of riding due to winter weather, the riding around Keene, NH, is superb. Tons of little (and little-traveled) backroads. Mostly paved with some smooth dirt. I moved out of the area, but miss the riding between there and North-Central Mass.

My vote would be Brattleboro VT. (our daughter lives 25 min south and loves it)

Burlington and Saratoga have huge seasons where you're going to be snowbiking, riding through salty mush, riding on ice, riding with studded tires, or just riding the trainer. More fun to pick up actual winter sports.

If that bothers you then you'd want to solve for "still in the northeast but quite a bit further south."

Burlington is 42k people but effectively speaking it's metro population is > 100k as most of Chittenden county's population is clustered right around Burlington when you add in South Burlington, Essex/Essex Junction, Colchester, and Winooski.

It is great riding for sure but the season is short. I'm originally from Burlington and have a lot of family there and went to college in upstate NY. The season feels dramatically shorter than Boston or NYC metro areas, especially Burlington. Saratoga is a fair bit south of Burlington but feels more like it in winter due to being relatively far from the ocean.

Having rode around the Saratoga area as well I kind of feel like Vermont has more variety. The whole capital district is great if you want a LOT of climbing though. Live down along the Hudson somewhere and you'll be forced to climb out of the valley on most rides.

Saratoga is quite a bit more upscale. Burlington has a lot of weird juxtapositions.

I would struggle to really pick a small city I think is actually better though. If you actually had a job there are places in the White Mountains in NH I think might actually be better for cycling and skiing/snowboarding type lifestyle. But they can't touch Burlington or Saratoga in many other areas. Portsmouth is the closest city in feel in NH and it's in a region that's terrible IMO for cycling, way too flat for me.

Most of MA is rat race. Western MA might have some cities that would check the boxes, hard to say. Same with Connecticut. But I think any place in MA/CT that's going to have good career opportunities is going to be too close to the rat race for ideal cycling. Burlington and Saratoga both allow you to get into the absolute middle of nowhere on relatively short ride and have quick access to pretty hilly terrain but also have access to jobs, which Saratoga being better due to the ease to commute down to Schenectady and Albany areas. Burlington is pretty tough on jobs. In my generation only 1 out of 10 of us has stayed in Burlington. My wife was also born in Burlington, in her family they did a little better at staying in Vermont while finding decent careers.

Kingston, NY

This would be my second choice. First choice would be Middlebury. But, ultimately, you can’t go wrong with Vermont.

Another absolutely stunning area is around Deerfield MA (if you want to move "away"), CT river valley for flats, then head west for some itty bitty hills. Drop boat into CT river nearby. If you want bit more connection to world, perhaps Sunderland MA (towards Amherst)

Nothing wrong with the cape, just run away in the summer.

You will laugh but Hockessin, Delaware (or that general area). You can do a road ride that has 4-5000 ft of climbing in 40 miles or you can do a 50 mile ride with 200 ft of climbing. And there are tons of small roads and lanes to do it safely.

If you like mountain biking you have several places that are fantastic near by.

And while it does get cold, it is not that common and if you have the gear, you can ride all year long.

Deleted. Duplicated post.

Central New York has excellent cycling, and some affordable small cities. Ithaca is fantastic; smaller and cheaper (and still around Finger Lakes) are Geneva, Skaneateles, and Canadaigua. Cooperstown is smaller, but also wonderful. All have access to excellent roads, with not a lot of traffic; good terrain, gravel if you want it. I find the roads here to be remarkably well-maintained, and aside from a few assholes in pickup trucks, traffic is fairly respectful of cyclists. There are so many paved small roads, windy and hilly! To me it's close to perfect, and I've biked in lots of other parts of the world. The winters do run about 4 months, but that's when I x-c ski.

Vermont and New Hampshire are gorgeous in the right seasons, but if I had to make the choice, I'd move to Rhode Island. There aren't the mountains, but still plenty of nice roads, and the riding season is so much longer.

I remember when I was in college in Rhode Island and it would be March, and the snow had all melted and it would feel like springtime. Then I would go home to my parents' house in Western Massachusetts for spring break (Northampton area, about 100 miles away) and there would be a foot of snow on the ground. It wasn't that far, but it made a big difference.

I know you asked for a specific city, but the state is so small they all kind of blur into one (just don't be on the Newport side of the bay, because you can't bike across that bridge).

Agreed. But the west “suburbs,” Belmont, Lexington, Concord, & Carlisle are excellent for cycling. And the “watertower hill” from 2A to Belmont Center is a good end of loop climb.