Free Wheeling : Bicyclists will...

As Americans gear up for fitness vacations this summer, bicyclists the world over are spinning their sprockets.

Alone and in groups, they’ll be traveling peaceful back roads and towpaths and passing hedgerows and split-rail fences, scenes that will recall an era when

vacationers focused on the simple life and reaped the rewards of summer’s sweet pleasures.

The world was gentler and more serene, and picking berries alongside a mountain meadow, as I recall, was far more satisfying than riding the jet stream.

It is for this reason that bicyclists will be steering away from the cities and pedaling into a past full of journeys along the back roads of Britain, the coast of Northern California, the byways of Canada, the paths of Provence and the salty shores of Cape Cod.

They’ll seek out quaint New England villages and Rocky Mountain retreats, and spend lazy afternoons collecting shells along the Maine seashore with its sandpipers and tide pools.

Mile after mile they’ll pass weathered barns and farmhouses and white-steepled churches that appear beside rolling hills and in fields of wind-blown grass. Other cyclists will attend concerts and nap beneath giant elms on the green.

In Colorado, Timberline Bicycle Tours is scheduling rides that will take in the awesome Uncompahgre National Forest, the Gunnison Valley and Slumgullion Pass.

Riders will pedal over mountain peaks into pastoral valleys and through forests where daylight turns to near-darkness. On a five-day tour labeled the Rocky Mountain Hilltopper ($465), bicyclists will ride from Denver to Boulder and onward to Estes Park and an alpine setting overlooking valleys and lakes. Afterward, they’ll snooze at Estes Park’s gracious Stanley Hotel, with its front-porch rockers and a dining room that brings to mind a lost moment in Colorado’s colorful past.

Other groups will ride into Leadville, challenge Independence Pass at 12,095 feet and coast 18 miles downhill into Aspen to window-shop and join white-water rafters. After catching their breath, they’ll spin off to the Roaring Fork and Crystal River valleys, where they’ll rest the frame at historic Redstone Inn before detouring to Glenwood Springs, Vail and Breckenridge to end the seven-day ($525) trip.

Timberline Bicycle Tours produces other rides to Montana and Wyoming, Idaho, New Mexico, Oregon and the Canadian Rockies. A nine-day tour along the rugged Oregon coast and beyond to the Cascades is pegged at $695, including accommodations, breakfasts and dinners and a support van for luggage. During summer ‘89, Timberline will dispatch riders on 70 journeys to 20 national parks.

In Canada, Rocky Mountain Cycle Tours is putting together six-day camping trips through Banff and Jasper ($550) with a support trailer that features beds and showers. Other RMC tours take in Washington’s San Juan Islands, the Big Island of Hawaii, New Zealand, West Germany, France and Japan.

Summer riders will pay $699 for six-day trips through Yellowstone with Backcountry Bicycle Tours of Montana. The price includes lodging, meals and refreshment breaks.

Backcountry is adding a six-day trip into Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains ($799) starting in Ketchum, with overnight stops in log cabins at Busterback and Idaho Rocky Mountain ranches. Backcountry will be doing other tours to Bryce/Zion, Wyoming’s Grand Tetons and Glacier and Beartooth in Montana.

In New England, riders will pedal across covered bridges, dip into swimming holes and soak away the aches in hot tubs. With its back roads and cozy inns, New England is expected to draw record crowds this summer.

Vermont Country Cyclers does dozens of leisurely two- to six-day trips. High marks are given to a five-day tour ($609) that rolls along the lake shores of southeastern Vermont, with stops in the hamlets of Chester, Weathersfield, Saxton’s River, Windham, Cavendish and Woodstock.

Picnics are spread on the village green in Chester and Weston, with its old-fashioned general store, fudge shop, country inns and Vermont’s oldest professional summer theater.

A five-day ($599) tour along the eastern shore of Lake Champlain follows back roads through Vermont’s rural countrysides, where the Adirondacks rise on the horizon.

Cyclers will visit apple orchards and dairy farms and cross one of the last two-lane covered bridges in the United States. Later they’ll picnic at the renowned Morgan Horse Farm and pedal away to Lake Dunmore and the land of Robert Frost, which is where the poet spent his final 23 summers, inspired by its beauty.

Similar paths are followed by Vermont Bicycle Touring, the originator of country inn bicycling in New England. VBT hosts both novice and experienced riders on 2- to 21-day trips, and sends its groups spinning down memory lane--beside lakes and waterfalls and fields of wildflowers, to 18th-Century villages that conjure up mental images of an earlier America.

On a five-day tour of central and southern Vermont ($599), VBT groups pedal through verdant valleys to Middlesprings and Manchester with its craft shops, and beyond to delightful little Chester whose ancient inns face the village green.

Other calls will be made at Weston, Norman Rockwell’s home in Arlington and one of New England’s most photographed villages, Grafton, with its antique shops and art galleries, restored homes and a marvelous inn, the Old Tavern, which has provided cheer for the wayfarer since 1801.

Vermont bikers carry away handmade crafts, fresh strawberries and apples that signal autumn and a turning of the leaves in a melancholy farewell to summer’s sweet promise.

VBT has wrapped up a five-day sailing-cycling holiday ($699) with nights spent aboard a 114-foot gaff-rigged schooner on Lake Champlain. By day, bicyclists explore villages, orchards and meadows that reach to infinity.

Back aboard the vessel, they nap while the chef turns out home-baked biscuits, pies and breads for a family-style dinner served in the lee of a deserted island.

Other cruise-cycle trips (seven days, $1,499) focus on the coastal waters of Maine, with its coves and lighthouses, and the islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. Cyclists explore salty villages and pedal past magnificent old mansions with widow walks that face cobblestone streets, wildlife refuges, windmills and the stately homes of Edgartown.

Vermont is recruiting mountain bikers as well as the cyclist who enjoys 10-speed racers. Vermont Mountain Bike Tours features “fat tire” bicycles with accommodations provided at an inn in Pittsfield, Vt., with its village green, a post office in a local’s home, a bandstand and a country store that sells rock candy and licorice whips. Tours start at $95 a day, with bikes renting for an extra $20.

Riders sip mint juleps on the verandas of antebellum homes in New Orleans, browse in the craft shops of New Hope, Pa., spin across covered bridges in Pennsylvania’s Brandywine Valley, tour New England and pedal through dozens of villages in France, Ireland, Britain and Holland.

This summer, other riders will explore Northern California’s wine country on five-day trips ($898) with Backroads Bicycle Touring of San Leandro, Calif.

Cyclists will follow paths into Napa, Sonoma and Alexander valleys, and skirt scenic California 1 and the Russian River on trips to California’s redwood country. En route they’ll take to the sky in hot-air balloons, dip into mud baths at Calistoga, check out a gourmet grocery, a chocolate shop, a cheese factory and wind up the day soaking in a spa.

For campers, Backroads is scheduling five-day tours ($588) through the Russian River Valley to the Northern California village of Willits and a ride aboard the famed Skunk Train. Later, they’ll tour the New England-like village of Mendocino and spin back down the coast to Gualala, Point Arena and Elk.

For those riders short on time, Backroads will be doing a two-day ($169) tour of Northern California beaches, with tents pitched at Bodega Dunes Camp Ground.

The same sponsor will also lead riders to California’s Santa Ynez Valley, the Sierra foothills, Hawaii, Alaska and the Canadian Rockies, and overseas to France, Ireland, Australia, Bali and New Zealand.

Twenty-two Europe trips are scheduled by Ten-Speed Tours of Van Nuys (France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Hungary and Switzerland) featuring Michelin-starred restaurants and accommodations at chateaux, relais and selected hotels.

In Champagne Country

Upcoming is an eight-day spin through France’s Bordeaux country ($1,535), with a final night at the popular five-star Relais de Margaux in the Medoc wine region north of Bordeaux. In the Champagne country, Ten Speed is planning a seven-day ($1,375) bike/tasting tour to other celebrated vineyards and cellars.

Denver-based Chateaux Bike Tours is leading deluxe nine-day ($1,960) tours between Provence and the French Riviera. Following the Rhone Valley, pit stops will be made in Avignon and Arles, where artist Vincent van Gogh left his mark. In addition, CBT is producing a seven-day ($1,785) bicycle spin along France’s Cote d’Azur, with visits to Nice, Grasse, Cannes and St. Tropez.

For bikers on a budget, American Youth Hostels is producing dozens of trips, both domestic and overseas. A nine-day spin through New England ($355) takes in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire, and another features Maine and Canada for barely $24 a day.

Cheaper on the Road

One question keeps popping up: At those prices, how can one afford to stay home?

Contacts:

--Timberline Bicycle Tours, 3261 S. Oneida Way, Denver, Colo. 80224. Telephone (303) 759-3804.

--Rocky Mountain Cycle Tours, Box 1978, Canmore, Alta., Canada TOL-OMO. Telephone (403) 678-6770.

--Backcountry Bicycle Tours, P.O. Box 4029, Bozeman, Mont., 59772. Telephone (406) 586-3556.

--Vermont Country Cyclers, P.O. Box 145, Waterbury, 05677-0145. Telephone (802) 244-8751.

--Vermont Bicycle Touring, P.O. Box 711, Bristol, Vt. 05443. Telephone (802) 453-4811.

--Vermont Mountain Bike Tours, P.O. Box 541, Pittsfield, Vt. 05762. Telephone (802) 746-8580.

--Backroads Bicycle Touring, P.O. Box 1626-PR24, San Leandro, Calif. 94577. Telephone (415) 895-1783 or toll-free (800) 533-2573 (outside California).

--Ten-Speed Tours, P.O. Box 7152, Van Nuys, Calif. 91409-7152. Telephone (818) 786-4279.

--Chateaux Bike Tours, P.O. Box 276-PR2, Denver, Colo. 80201-0276. Telephone toll-free (800) 678-BIKE.

--American Youth Hostels, 335 West 7th St., San Pedro 90731. Telephone (213) 831-8846. Other information from the national office, P.O. Box 37613, Washington, D.C. 20013-7613.

Other tour offers:

--The American Pedaler, 19 Belle Plaine, St. Charles, Mo. 63301. Telephone toll-free (800) 237-1200. Features bicycle tours of France for cyclists 25 to 60 years of age. Ride alone or in a group.

--Cycle Inn Vermont, P.O. Box 243, Ludlow, Vt. 05149-0243. Telephone (802) 228-8799. (Ride or walk, with accommodations provided in charming, family-owned inns.)

--Le Tour Bicycling Adventures, 1030 Merced St., Berkeley, Calif. 94707. Telephone (415) 525-4990 (California) or toll-free (800) 542-4210 (outside California).

--McBride’s Earth Ventures, 6608 St. James Drive, Indianapolis, Ind. 46217. Telephone (317) 783-9449.

--Easy Rider Tours, P.O. Box 1384, East Arlington, Me. 02174. Telephone (617) 643-8332.

--Open Road Bicycle Tours, 1601 Summit Drive, Haymarket, Va. 22069. Telephone toll-free (800) 333-BIKE.