Biking

Bicycling is popular throughout Virginia, and with good reason. Most of the state's scenic highways are open to bicycles. Best are the 17-mile George Washington/Mount Vernon Memorial Parkway between Arlington and Mount Vernon, the 105-mile Skyline Drive above the Shenandoah Valley, the 218-mile Blue Ridge Parkway in the Southwest Highlands, and the 22-mile Colonial Parkway between Jamestown and Yorktown.

The state also has three excellent "rails-to-trails" parks, in which old railroad beds have been turned into biking and hiking avenues. In northern Virginia there's the Washington & Old Dominion Trail, which begins in Arlington and ends 45 miles away at Purcellville in the rolling hills of the Hunt Country.

The 34-mile Virginia Creeper Trail, one of the country's top bike paths, begins in the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area high up on the flanks of Whitetop Mountain, Virginia's second highest peak, and descends to Abingdon. Near Wytheville, the 55-mile New River Trail follows the New River, which actually is one of the world's oldest rivers. Outfitters along both trails rent bikes and provide shuttle services so you don't have to ride both ways -- particularly handy on the Virginia Creeper Trail, which drops more than 3,000 feet from Whitetop Mountain to Damascus, near Abingdon.

Down on the coast, you will love riding along the Virginia Beach Boardwalk, through the natural beauty of First Landing/Seashore State Park and Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge, and along all of the flat Eastern Shore roads.

I've never attempted them, but Virginia is crossed by sections of three major Interstate Bicycle routes. The Maine-to-Virginia Route 1 runs 150 miles from Arlington to Richmond and connects to 130 miles of the Virginia-to-Florida Route 17 from Richmond to the North Carolina line at Suffolk. Some 500 miles of the TransAmerican Bicycle Trail (Route 76) runs from the Kentucky line to Yorktown, including a stretch through Mount Rogers National Recreation Area in the Southwest Highlands. For strip maps of these routes, contact Adventure Cycling Association, P.O. Box 8308W, Missoula, MT 59807 (tel. 800/755-2453 or 406/721-1776; fax 406/721-8754; www.adv-cycling.org).

If you're into mountain biking, you can find plenty of trails, especially in Mount Rogers National Recreation Area and in the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests, which occupy parts of the Shenandoah Valley and the Southwest Highlands. For details about the latter, contact the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests, 210 Franklin Rd. SW, Roanoke, VA 24004 (tel. 540/265-6054; www.southernregion.fs.fed.us/gwj).

Mountain Bike Virginia, by Scott Adams (Beachway Press, 1995), is a very handy atlas to Virginia's best trails, with excellent maps.

The Virginia Department of Transportation's Bicycle Coordinator, 1401 E. Broad St., Richmond, VA 23219 (tel. 800/835-1203 or 804/786-2964; www.virginiadot.org), publishes the annual Virginia Bicycling Guide, which describes Virginia's routes and trials and lists local bike clubs and relevant publications. Contact the department or the Virginia Tourism Corporation for a free copy.