The more time I spend riding in and around Philadelphia the more I understand it and enjoy it. Although I have ridden the roads and trails outside of center city I have never really spent much time riding around the city itself. So this past Saturday I headed to the city to do a few rides. I ended up doing three loops. The first loop started at the Art Museum and headed to Penn's Landing and back.Riding in the heart of any city is hard with the crowded streets, traffic and the general impatiences of both drivers and pedestrians bad things can easily happen. I must say through that riding around the Philly really wasn't too bad. This city is made up of a lot of little neighborhoods and as long as you stay away from the main thoroughfares like Market and Broad Street you can ride along most streets. I ended up going down the Schuylkill river trail which got me down to Locust Street where I headed east towards Penn's Landing. I took a couple detours along the way to see some sites like Rittenhouse Square, Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. Independence Hall didn't look quite right and if you look at the picture you can see what I mean.
When I got to Penn's Landing I took a quick detour south to Old Swedes Church which is the oldest church in Pennsylvania to take a few pictures before exploring Penn's Landing. Penn's Landing was a little disappointing. As waterfronts goes there is not much going on here compared to Baltimore's inner harbor but I did get a few pictures of the scenery along the river. The trip back to the Art Museum was an easy trip down Spring Garden. The city has a lot of bike lanes which makes getting around by bike pretty easy. Of course like any city the bike lanes are some times blocked by double parked cars or other obstacles but as long as you have so good urban riding skills getting around the city is no problem just watch out for the occasional cobble stone road which are harsh even on a mountain bike.
For my second loop I headed to Forbidden Drive which is about 5 miles north from the Art Museum on the Schuylkill river trail. Forbidden drive is a wide gravel path along the Wissahickon river. This is an unbelievably beautiful river gorge and being so close to the city is a very popular place for bikers, runners and anybody looking to enjoy the outdoors. There are also a number of interesting bridges and features along the trail. I really enjoyed this ride. One of the best features was the Valley Green Inn which is an old hotel built in the late 1700's that is now a restaurant and snack bar. It was a good place to take a break and talk to a few other bikers.
There are also a number of mountain bike trails that go off of Forbidden Drive. I have heard from a few people that they are pretty fun. I didn't get a chance to explore them this time so but will try to get back here again to explore them.
My last loop was around Fairmount Park. Fairmount Park is the main park in Philly. Unlike Central Park in NY which is one large park, Fairmount Park is a sort of a series of smaller some what interconnected parks that have grown over time. The park has a series of athletic fields historic houses and museums that straddle both sides of the Schuylkill River. There are a lot of roads that criss cross the park and even on a nice Saturday the roads were pretty quiet. There were a lot of interesting builds and statues along the route I took. I also got some good views of the city from the top of a few hills. It was a little hazy so the pictures weren't perfectly clear but I now know the city skyline for a couple of different angles.
I spent about 40 miles touring the city and feel I'm starting to understand it from a biking point of view. I still have some more exploring to do but so far I am finding a lot to like about biking in Philly.
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