If you're considering a end of summer bike ride, you may want to consider the Lewis and Clark Bicycle Trail. After a grant from the National Park Service, the Adventure Cycling Association is generously giving away 275 maps for the historic bike trail. The maps retraces the 4,675 mile route of the pair from Hartford, Illinois to Seaside, Oregon.

The Park Service grant (from the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail 2006 Cost Share Challenge) also helped to fund Adventure Cycling's update of the route itself and a reprinting of the entire eight-map set. The improved routing steers cyclists to new off-road bike paths, while freshly paved rural roads allow cyclists to avoid busy highways. Several areas also feature new gravel-road options that allow riders to further escape car traffic.

The list of services (restaurants, hotels, campgrounds, etc.) that come on every Adventure Cycling route map have been thoroughly updated for the Lewis & Clark Trail and, after many requests from cyclists, the locations of public libraries along the entire route have been added. Thanks to WebJunction, an online community of public libraries, these same libraries - 175 in all - will be offered free, complete sets of the Lewis & Clark Trail maps for display and public viewing.

For more information on the Lewis & Clark Trail maps, visit www.adventurecycling.org/routes/lewisandclark.cfm.