Women's Garden Cycles Bike Tour 2008

I briefly mentioned this last year, but this year the Post did a lengthy story on the community gardening bicycle tour.

Lara Sheets, 26, Liz Tylander, 25, and Kat Shiffler, 24, climbed on their bicycles in Mount Pleasant and pedaled north, eventually to Montreal. Along the way they visited thriving inner-city gardens, innovative suburban farms and rooftop vegetable plots as they chronicled a grass-roots movement seeking to change the way we put food on our table.

They also made a documentary - "Garden Cycles Bike Tour." The article and website are more about agriculture than cycling.

The journey, roughly, took them to Baltimore, through Amish country to Philadelphia, Princeton, N.J., New York (all five boroughs in one day), up the Hudson Valley and on to Montreal.

They returned via Vermont, riding to Burlington and Middlebury, and then traversed Massachusetts to Boston.

Needless to say, their touring bikes -- they paid about $800 each for them -- look well used. (They own no cars.) Sheets calls hers Iridium Flare, Tylander's is Pearl, and Shiffler's L'etoile Noir.

Mine is called "Bike I wish were a Breezer Greenway"

Sometimes the back roads were just beautiful and they took their time; other times were harder. Approaching a city was always tense, the conflict with traffic tightened their grip on the handlebars. They worried about getting lost. "If you go the wrong way on a bike, it takes much longer to correct than if you're in a car," said Shiffler.

Photo by River Ty

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[Cindy Small]

You're invited to the 22nd Annual Amish Country Bike Tour, Saturday, September 6, Dover, Delaware. 15, 25, 50, 62 and 100 mile loops through Delaware's flatland Amish country. Four food stops and after tour catered picnic with live music. Only $30 per person, 800-233-5368 or www.visitdover.com for more info or to register. Weekend packages available for $275.