While getting around within the Campus is a wonderful usage for bikes, another thing that they allow is for reasonable transportation times for off campus housing near the University.
The farthest off campus housing (within Amherst) is only a 24 minute bike ride!
Getting downtown is really fast on Bicycle. Assuming you start from Worcester, it only takes 10 minutes on bike to get to Downtown. In 3-5 more minutes you would be at Amherst College (which you can take a class at via the 5 College Consortium partnership).
There are a wide variety of things downtown for you to explore, and you get to explore them on your own time with a bike!
Puffer's Pond is the local fishing spot in Amherst, and while it is best to get there via bus or car, especially if you are carrying a lot of gear, it is around 12 minutes from Worcester, so you are not very far from the Campus.
There is also a cute little spot in the North of Amherst between 116 and 63. If there are things open I'd advise you to take a look.
This is by far one of the most useful trails you have at your disposal. I like to think of it as Bike Highway that takes you to a bunch of useful places.
One of the most useful places that the trail can take you to is the mall. While there is also a more direct route which has a bike lane along 116 which is slightly shorter, I find the Norwuttuck Trail to be by far the comfiest way to get to the mall.
From Worcester it takes around 25 minutes to get to the mall via the Norwottuck Rail Trail.
From Worcester it takes around 21 minutes to get to the all via Route 116.
The trail also leads you off close to Central Rock Gym in 34 minutes.
The other useful place that the trail takes you is Northampton. Northampton itself is a town with a lot of things going on.
Here I will list all the things Northampton has:
The Trail also takes you to Belchertown, however, I find this section of the trail to be less useful than the Northampton/Hadley half. Especially because Route 9 is a more direct route to whatever housing you need to get to in Amherst. Moreover, the trail ends 20 minutes away from the Belchertown's downtown.
Sunderland has a big breakdown lane which can make it suitable for riding during the day. From my experience it can take a 17-30 minute bike ride to get to the bridge that connects to Deerfield.
In the previous chapter we discuss the benefits of owning a bike on Campus.
In the next chapter we will discuss longer road cycling routes around Amherst.