The Search for the Unusual on Two WheelsCycling is often celebrated for its health benefits, its environmental credentials, and its ability to connect people with nature. However, for a growing subculture of global cyclists, standard bike paths and scenic mountain passes no longer satisfy the craving for adventure. These riders seek the strange, the historical anomalies, and the downright bizarre paths that exist across the globe. From subterranean passages to decommissioned nuclear sites, the world is full of unexpected lanes waiting to be explored by bicycle.
Subterranean Safaris and Industrial AnomaliesAmong the most unusual places to ride a bicycle are the spaces explicitly built for entirely different purposes. In the United Kingdom, the Combe Down Tunnel forms part of the Two Tunnels Greenway. It stands as the longest unventilated railway tunnel in the country, featuring interactive light installations and classical music that plays as cyclists pedal through the dark, damp belly of Somerset. Similarly, the Kerka River Valley in Slovenia offers guided underground mountain biking tours through abandoned lead and zinc mines, where riders must wear headlamps and navigate tight rock crevices deep within the earth.
Above ground, industrial history provides equally strange routes. In Germany, the Landscape Park Duisburg-Nord allows cyclists to ride through a decommissioned ironworks plant, navigating between massive blast furnaces and metal scaffolding. Across the Atlantic, the crisp asphalt of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway opens its famous racing oval to cyclists on designated evenings, giving commuters a chance to pedal over the historic yard of bricks where professional race cars usually roar. In a similar vein of repurposed transit, the High Line in alternative cities or the Kettle Valley Railway in Canada invites riders to traverse high, rickety wooden trestles that once supported steam locomotives.
Spiritual Paths and Borderline AbsurditySome routes are defined by their cultural and spiritual quirks. Japan’s Shimanami Kaido is a spectacular highway spanning six islands, but its true quirk lies in the dedicated bike shrines along the way, where cyclists stop to have their two-wheeled steeds blessed for safety. In contrast, the United States features the quirky “World’s Largest Things” route in Iowa, a self-guided pilgrimage where riders navigate rural roads specifically to photograph themselves next to giant concrete statues of corn stalks, frying pans, and rocking chairs.
Geopolitical oddities also make for fascinating cycling. The Iron Curtain Trail stretches thousands of kilometres across Europe, but its most peculiar stretches lie along the former border of West and East Germany, where cyclists ride on the “Kolonnenweg”—the perforated concrete block paths used by military patrol vehicles. In Baarle-Nassau, a town split intricately between the Netherlands and Belgium, a short three-kilometre bike ride requires crossing international borders dozens of times, with metal rivets in the pavement marking the sudden shifts in nationality.
Chasing Giants, Ghosts, and Natural WondersNatural landscapes present their own eccentricities. The Uyuni Salt Flats in Bolivia offer an otherworldly expanse of flat, blinding white terrain where the lack of visual perspective makes cyclists feel as though they are pedalling through an empty void. For those who prefer a supernatural chill, the Ghost Towns of Montana route takes riders through abandoned mining settlements where eerie, preserved wooden saloons and empty houses stand as silent witnesses to the Gold Rush era.
Animal encounters define other unusual trails. The Otway Odyssey in Australia features stretches where cyclists routinely spot wild koalas snoozing in low eucalyptus branches, while the famous highway through the Florida Keys includes the Seven Mile Bridge, where riders are suspended between the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, often spotting manta rays and sharks swimming directly beneath their pedals. In Scandinavia, the island of Gotland features limestone “rauks”—giant, surreal stone pillars carved by the sea that resemble frozen mythical creatures lining the coastal bike path.
The Final Stretch of Eccentric ExplorationWhether navigating the mathematical precision of the Prime Meridian Trail in Manitoba, where riders cross the literal dividing line of the earth’s hemispheres, or tracing the path of ancient lava flows in Iceland, quirky cycling routes redefine the relationship between the rider and the road. These paths prove that the joy of cycling is not merely found in the destination or the physical exertion, but in the sheer novelty of the terrain. Stepping outside the boundaries of traditional tourism opens up a world where every turn of the pedal reveals a piece of forgotten history, a natural marvel, or a delightful human eccentricity.
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