By John Schubert

Early in 1979, an unemployed bicycle tourist and newspaper reporter answered a job ad in the New York Times. Rodale Press needed a writer with subject expertise in bicycling. By March of that year, I was on the job at Bicycling Magazine in Emmaus.

I wasn’t sure what to make of my move to this backwater called Allentown. I’d spent the previous nine years in the Philadelphia suburbs, and had lived at trendy addresses in Massachusetts, California, Washington DC and Connecticut. Could my ego stand to hail from a place where shoo fly pie was a delicacy? Where high culture was the annual drum and bugle corps competition?

It turned out better than I could have guessed. I discovered riding in the countryside. I discovered affordable homes, a suitable distance from work for a bicycle commuter. I met many wonderful friends.
My job at Bicycling Magazine came and went, as did other jobs after it. But I stayed. I first lived in downtown Allentown, then moved to the outskirts of Coopersburg — a location I chose for great running and cycling routes (and a rather hilly commute to that job in Emmaus).

There are many reasons why my wife and I elected to stay here, despite the pull of job offers in other states. The Lehigh Valley’s near-perfect conditions for human powered transport were always on our minds.
Some years back, I was talking with a professional colleague who had also worked at Bicycling. His work had taken him to glamor cycling spots like Colorado and California, but he said, somewhat sheepishly, that the cycling around here was better. I feel the same way. Compared to just about anywhere else, we have more roads to explore, more little villages and country stores, and fabulous scenery.

Our urban cycling scene is benign. My old commute from Allentown to Emmaus was peaceful and easy, and it remains so today. Our major arterials are easy to ride. The populace is supportive of cycling. Allentown and Bethlehem have a friendly competition to see which city has the more law-abiding, traffic-responsible cyclists. The area has lots of helpful bike shops.
What’s changed in 36 years? The biggest single change for me has been the addition of great rail trails and towpaths. Headed south, I can take the Perkiomen Creek Trail and Schuylkill River Trail all the way to Phoenixville and Philadelphia. Headed north, the Saucon Rail Trail takes me from Coopersburg to Hellertown. It joins with the Lehigh Canal Towpath for a delightful romp to Easton (or, if I choose, westward to Allentown). The D&L trail is a gorgeous gateway to the Pocono Mountains, neatly bypassing the Blue Mountain ridge on the west bank of the Lehigh River. A few hours after getting on that trail’s southern terminus in Cementon, you can be enjoying all the recreation the Poconos have to offer.
What else has changed? We have many more cyclists and runners. The roads are better maintained. We have a Facebook page full of winter weather updates, so people know whether to bring running shoes or cross country skis to the trails in the wintertime. Yes, there is some more residential development and traffic, but I don’t believe it has changed the essentially good conditions.

Because the Lehigh Valley lacks the trendiness of, say, Boulder, Colorado, we sometimes forget the objective facts: this is a great place for a cyclist or runner to live, run and ride. Once you tell yourself how good it is, you’ll enjoy it even more.