wellfleet Cape Cod MA tips?

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

We are headed there for this weekend in a B&B, with our bikes. Anyone have any tips for biking paths, restaurants, sandwich places, etc?

[DebW]

You could pick up the Rubel Bike Map of Cape Cod. The northern end of the 22-mile Cape Cod Rail Trail is in South Wellfleet. Roads marked in green on the map include Old County, W. Main, Chequesset Neck, Long Pond Rd., Ocean View Dr, and Lecount Hollow.

[wavedancer]

Hi Lisa!

Wellfleet is my favorite place on the Cape. I landed there almost 30 years ago and it immediately felt like home. I have since moved farther "up Cape", but love to get back down when I can.

Riding:
Lots of great road rides on the back roads going up to Truro or out Long Pond Road to go over to the Ocean side and some of the kettle ponds. For bike paths, there is the Cape Cod Rail Trail that you can pick up near Marconi Beach. It will take you all the way to Nickerson State Park, Dennis, Chatham. There is also a bike path up in Provincetown that goes out through the dunes.

Food:
For casual, but good food with a great view across Wellfleet Bay, I would go to the Bookstore Restaurant. There is a great "fancier" restaurant on Main Street called Aesop's Tables. If you want to get roll-up sandwiches for the road, stop by The Box Lunch as you head out Main Street toward Truro. You might also want to try The Lighthouse Restaurant in the center of town.

Make sure you get out to Great Island to hike, walk the beach, and see the sunset!

Have a great trip! I would offer to come down and give you a tour, but I am doing the Eco-Cross Challenge cyclocross race in Falmouth on Saturday. My first-ever race of any kind, and my first attempt at cyclocross. Yikes!

Linda

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

O wow, what a great bunch of info! Thank you both!!

We hope to return to the cape eventually for more biking, so perhaps we "will" meet up at some point! I will def. get the Rubel map DebW, AND i'll check out some of those other places you mention, Linda!

This trip has a bittersweet purpose....to release my mother's ashes into the sea as she wished. ....But I hope to get some fun "easy" family biking in too with my 2 daughters and my 2 brothers. And DH and I hope to be able to "sneak away" for a longer ride at some point before we all leave on Sunday.
I want to return with DH again when we can just spend our time relaxing and biking without family gathering obligations. Linda, I'll let you know if we do plan another trip- it would be fun to meet up with you!

[Crankin]

Have fun, Lisa. The only time to ride on the Cape is in the off season! In fact, I was a die hard Cape vacationer, but when we started riding, we stopped, except for a weekend once in awhile. Just too much traffic and dumb tourists who don't know where they are driving. This year, we only went down for 2 days, one night to stay with friends.
I would love to plan a spring weekend in early May; let me know how the riding turns out.

Robyn

[wavedancer]

Lisa,

Hope you have a good weekend. Many blessings to you as you say goodbye to your mother. Let me know when you are back down this way.

Linda

[Triskeliongirl]

I hope its not too late to chime in. You have gotten some great advice. I suggest doing the cape cod rail trail bike path, its very nice, paved and protected from cars. At the end of the bike path, you can use your map to navigate to provinceton, also a nice ride (just choose the bike route that goes along the coast, don't remember now what the roads are called). I think from the start of the bike path (there is a free parking lot) to P-town and back, is around 70 miles. If you want to spend time with family that doesn't want to do that much riding, have them drive to P-town, so you could meet for lunch, and then they could go out on one of the whale watching boats while you ride back.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Thanks everyone for their advice and well wishes.
We had a very successful weekend, with absolutely perfect weather.
The ashes ceremony was way at the end of Marconi Beach where no one was around- just beautiful with us all there, and big harbor seals watching us from way out in the waves, ready to serve as "escorts" for my mother.

DH and I did a quick little 11 miler from Wellfleet the first day. The second day we had to abort our group ride due to various family activities running late- but we all had a good time. On Sunday DH and I and the 3 girls (in their 20's) all went for an 18 mile ride from N.Eastham, partly along the railtrail but also along the beach roads as well. Went to Wellfleet and then back to N.Eastham. We had fun! DH and I had to go slow as the young women were not as agile on bikes as we. It was great fun.

I did get Rubel's bike map which helped. We ate one lunch at The Box Lunch which was good.
I had wonderful fresh whole boiled lobster two nights in a row....what a huge treat!!! One dinner at Mac's Shack (the dinner restaurant, not the market) and one at Duck Creek Tavern. Next time we will try The Wicked Oyster and The Black Duck- both of which we have heard good things about.

[Pax]

Thanks everyone for their advice and well wishes.
We had a very successful weekend, with absolutely perfect weather.
The ashes ceremony was way at the end of Marconi Beach where no one was around- just beautiful with us all there, and big harbor seals watching us from way out in the waves, ready to serve as "escorts" for my mother.

DH and I did a quick little 11 miler from Wellfleet the first day. The second day we had to abort our group ride due to various family activities running late- but we all had a good time. On Sunday DH and I and the 3 girls (in their 20's) all went for an 18 mile ride from N.Eastham, partly along the railtrail but also along the beach roads as well. Went to Wellfleet and then back to N.Eastham. We had fun! DH and I had to go slow as the young women were not as agile on bikes as we. It was great fun.

I did get Rubel's bike map which helped. We ate one lunch at The Box Lunch which was good.
I had wonderful fresh whole boiled lobster two nights in a row....what a huge treat!!! One dinner at Mac's Shack (the dinner restaurant, not the market) and one at Duck Creek Tavern. Next time we will try The Wicked Oyster and The Black Duck- both of which we have heard good things about.

Sounds like a wonderful trip Lisa! I'm glad your send off for your mom was so peaceful, and the food sounds awesome...I really miss The Cape.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Thanks.

DH and I would have liked to ride the whole system of bike routes- like a 50 mile loop north and south. But we were leading a small easy ride for our 3 girls....it was like herding cats! Maybe DH and I will return on our own- it was an easy place to get to, for sure- a 4 hour drive.

It sure was DIFFERENT riding bikes on Cape Cod than here in rural New York!

For one thing, so FLAT!!! And the cars seemed so patient and courteous to the gazillion amateur bikers wobbling all over the roads!! I was surprised at how many people were biking without helmets. Bikers seem to have absolutely no fear of being hit by cars as they weave about wherever they please. ODD!!! They'd last about ten minutes over here in dairy land before they joined the road kill army. oh....and no road kill anywhere, not even birds, snakes, or chipmunks!!??? Are there no animals there?
Where we live, we routinely wind up and down steep hills, many with no shoulder, pickup trucks and cars zooming past us just a few feet away. We have to really stay on our toes. In the Cape the cars all seem to go entirely into the other lane to avoid you, and I didn't hear anyone honk even once.

I suppose I could get used to that. Hmmm....but I'd lose all my leg muscles without my old familiar killer hills here.

[tygab]

Sounds like a good weekend - overall I find the drivers to be courteous as well, even the tourists. But, you do get a lot of congestion in season and depending on the road it can be challenging. But, at the end of the day most realize everyone's there to have a good time so they are respectful, it's just "relax" mode. I am pretty sure many of these same drivers are not so mellow when they are rushing to/from work, or to the kids' game, vet appt or whatever else they are busy with back at home.

In P-town people on bikes bob and weave all over in ways I have yet to fathom as safe, not to mention the pedestrians stepping out wherever they please, and yet it all seems to work.

As for upper NY, hmm... I've ridden around near Saratoga Springs, Lake Placid, Wilmington, Jay, Keene areas and the cars have been almost without exception considerate... even on the roads farther away from LP and the IM course they've been pretty good. Not sure where you are but maybe your area needs more cyclists to cause a mindshift in the drivers.

Oh, and another restaurant to go to (best in non-peak season) is Moby <banned word here>'s, right on 6 out of Wellfleet. It is my husband's fave seafood shack there, but it is always mobbed in summer.

So glad you had a restful and meaningful weekend there...

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Sounds like a good weekend - overall I find the drivers to be courteous as well, even the tourists. But, you do get a lot of congestion in season and depending on the road it can be challenging. But, at the end of the day most realize everyone's there to have a good time so they are respectful, it's just "relax" mode. I am pretty sure many of these same drivers are not so mellow when they are rushing to/from work, or to the kids' game, vet appt or whatever else they are busy with back at home.

Good point, I bet you are right about that when they are out of the "vacation environment"

In P-town people on bikes bob and weave all over in ways I have yet to fathom as safe, not to mention the pedestrians stepping out wherever they please, and yet it all seems to work.

Driving right in Ptown is a surreal experience. I suppose one gets used to it, but it sure freaked ME out....scary!

As for upper NY, hmm... I've ridden around near Saratoga Springs, Lake Placid, Wilmington, Jay, Keene areas and the cars have been almost without exception considerate... even on the roads farther away from LP and the IM course they've been pretty good. Not sure where you are but maybe your area needs more cyclists to cause a mindshift in the drivers.

I'm up the Hudson river southeast of Albany, in a fairly dairy area.
I don't mean that the car drivers around are discourteous- actually i am usually treated very courteously...but they do drive fast right past you not too far away. You just have to ride steady and not let the wind and rumble from trucks faze you. Cars will NOT usually go into the oncoming lane to give you 8 feet of room like they often did in Cape Cod. More common is that they just move over an extra 2 feet from where they were before passing you. I guess it's because in Cape Cod everyone knows there are a lot of beginner bike riders, so they give them EXTRA WIDE berth.

Oh, and another restaurant to go to (best in non-peak season) is Moby <banned word here>'s, right on 6 out of Wellfleet. It is my husband's fave seafood shack there, but it is always mobbed in summer.

Moby ____'s, ok! (too funny)

So glad you had a restful and meaningful weekend there...

Thank you. It wasn't what I'd call restful, but it WAS meaningful and all went relatively smoothly as family gatherings go.