bike trail – Page 21 – Exploring by bicycle

Connecticut’s trails east of Hartford

We finally got off the Farmington trails and explored the Hop River Trail and Airline Trail South.

Day 3 in Connecticut — we finally got off the Farmington trails and headed east of Hartford. There are a series of trails — the Charter Oak Greenway, the Hop River Trail, Airline Trail North and Airline Trail South. All but Airline South are part of the East Coast Greenway “spine” and together take you almost to Rhode Island. (The Airline trails get their name from an old train line that connected Boston and New York as if a line was drawn through the air.)

There’s work being done here too — we saw construction along I-384 for a trail that will connect the Charter Oak and Hop River trails (and eventually include some costly bridges). Barb, one of my ECG buddies and a trail angel, told me another project is tying the northern end of the Hop River Trail in Vernon (where it’s no longer part of the ECG) to the Charter Oak Greenway in Manchester. And it’s all because of this man, a true trails advocate and East Coast Greenway champion. Thank you, Bill O’Neill.

We rode a 39.5-mile loop of trail and road from Bolton Notch State Park to Willimantic, then to Hebron and back to the car. Unlike the Farmington trails, these trails were stone-dust trails and every once in a while a bit bumpy on our road bikes. Still — road bikes with skinny tires!

Continue reading “Connecticut’s trails east of Hartford”

Closing the trail gaps in Connecticut

A big gap on the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail will be closed by the end of the year. More is in the works.

An inspiring part of our three days in Connecticut was seeing gaps in the trails being closed. And East Coast Greenway advocates are a big reason.

We had heard that work was being done to turn the 4.7-mile section of railway line into more of the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail north of where we parked on Cheshire on the second day of our Connecticut exploration. So of course we had to look.

There’s no sign of anything in the first section, between Cornwall Avenue and West Main Street; in fact, there is at least one active business. Willow Street, just around the corner, is a quiet road, so easy to ride (but no sidewalk or shoulder, so less easy to walk). And this newspaper article says the work will be done next year.

But a section beginning at West Main Street in Cheshire was just about done. The new crosswalk signals and barriers to keep motorists from getting on the trail still had to go up. A fence was up, but that wasn’t stopping locals from taking their bikes on the trail. One man told us about a new 70-car parking lot (I predict it will be busy) and solar-powered restrooms along the new section.

Further up, a section needed a second coat of asphalt.

And at the very northern end of this section, the trail was marked out but had absolutely no asphalt. But it’s all supposed to be finished this year.

Finally, the southernmost leg in New Haven is in construction too.

The bottom line: Best I can tell, come the end of the year, all but less than a mile of a 26-mile stretch of the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail from New Haven (accessible by train from New York) to Southington (all part of the East Coast Greenway) will be complete.

Fantastic!

And two breweries apparently are coming to Southington — could there be any better bicyclist magnet beyond that ice cream shop at the edge of the trail?

After that, there’s still one big remaining gap to close on this trail — essentially between all this construction in Southington to where we parked on Friday. And planning has started for that. Then it will be easy to bike traffic-free from the Connecticut coastline to Massachusetts.

The bad news is it’s supposed to be five years until it’s done. Planning alone will take two.

In the meantime, it looked like you could ride on the road. You just need to feel comfortable with traffic. We just didn’t have time to try it out.

Here’s a full “state of the trails” report from the Farmington Valley Trails Council on what done and what’s not, including the Massachusetts section we barely saw.

There is an organized ride this Saturday (June 25) leaving from New Haven if you want to try out the entire 56-mile stretch. A grand opening ceremony is planned for that new piece in Cheshire.

Given what we saw, once finished, this new section should be popular with Connecticut residents. It hopefully lure in plenty of out-of-staters too, bringing in some extra tourism dollars.

We saw more trail construction east of Hartford, but that’s part of my next post.

Discovering New Haven

The East Coast Greenway took us to New Haven pizza.

On our second day in Connecticut, we biked more of the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail, heading from Cornwall Avenue and Willow Street in Cheshire 16 miles south to New Haven and then back. It’s all part of the East Coast Greenway.

Here’s some of what struck me:

The parking lot we used was full before 10 a.m., and the overflow lot (really a local business’s lot) was pretty full too. (And when we came back late in the afternoon, the main lot was still pretty full, just with different cars)

The trail was heavily used by young and old, thin and fat, people on bikes and people on foot. The entire stretch was paved and while not as wide as the widest sections of the Farmington River Trail, still plenty wide. We did see a dirt section on the side for those who wanted to skip asphalt.

Because it was hot and sunny, the heavy shade along much of the trail was greatly appreciated. The downside of biking through the woods is that you don’t see as many businesses, so the economic impact isn’t quite as obvious as in Collinsville, for example.

And Connecticut drivers are generally polite. Although we had stop signs at intersections, so many of them stopped for us.

Once in New Haven, we rode to the coast, past the Puerto Rican food trucks parked along a fairly busy road and through a small nature preserve before deciding to head back to the New Haven Green. Of course we found some East Coast Greenway signs — thank you, Rob Dexter. (We also found Rob in between two bike rides he was doing that day, so I got to see another person from the Week-a-Year rides.)

At this stage, you’re probably thinking “You’re in New Haven. What about the pizza? How could you of all people pass up trying New Haven pizza?”

Of course I didn’t. One of our first stops in New Haven was Frank Pepe’s, one of the oldest New Haven Neopolitan-style pizzerias. It has a super-thin crust and comes on a sheet pan lined with wax paper. Personally, I thought it was pretty similar to a Trenton tomato pie (I guess the difference is sauce first, then cheese, instead of cheese, then sauce like in Trenton). Fwiw, the typical New York pizza has a slightly thicker, chewier crust.

Here’s something we found that we haven’t seen elsewhere. Clive said it really did have a birch taste:

Connecticut’s gold-star trails

We spent three days riding our bikes on Connecticut trails. Day 1 was the Farmington River Trail and part of the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail.

I’ve been hearing a lot about the Connecticut section of the East Coast Greenway over the past two years and knew I wanted to see these trails. But after I was put in charge of the ride-on-your-own section of a “Discover the East Coast Greenway” event in NYC a group of us organized in April, I knew I had to go.

So we took a three-day weekend and toured the trails with the help of some ECG buddies.

WOW!

We just loved them. (One of my nieces might call them “epic”.) Judging by how busy they were, so do lots of other people. And then to see gaps being closed along the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail (which runs from New Haven into Massachusetts) — well, this is why I ride in support of the East Coast Greenway.

Continue reading “Connecticut’s gold-star trails”

Join me for this family-friendly ride

June 4 is National Trails Day and given that the East Coast Greenway is all about connecting trails (and quiet roads) into one 3,000-mile route … of course I want to mark the day with a ride on a trail!

So I’m organizing this free family-friendly bike ride to promote the East Coast Greenway. We’ll ride a total of eight miles on the D&R Canal towpath in New Jersey. If you’re a hardy cyclist, it’s a great way to get friends and/or family out on a bike. And if you’re not a big cyclist, this is your chance to ride with me (and maybe 48 other people).

All you need to do is claim your spot here.

Bonus: The halfway point is Brearley House in Lawrenceville, and a representation from the Lawrence Historical Society will give us a short talk on the history of the house. Wonder if Washington slept here…

Day 6 – Love those trails in the Triangle

I fell in love with the American Tobacco Trail and other trails in Durham, Cary and Raleigh.

This was our last day — and what a glorious day it was. It was sunny and warm, I had a chance to catch up with a friend over 7 or 8 miles before he had to peel off — and then those trails!

They connected from Durham through Cary to Raleigh with almost no time on roads. They were straight, they curved, they swooped, they climbed … great variety. And they were well used, not only by cyclists.

I immediately fell in love.

Oh, if only more cities thought the same way.

Continue reading “Day 6 – Love those trails in the Triangle”

Building more of the East Coast Greenway

Another section of the Tobacco Heritage Trail is under construction.

We rode another stretch of the Tobacco Heritage Trail on Wednesday, this time on the edge of Boydton, the county seat of Mecklenburg County — and population 431 in the 2010 census. Yes, we are biking through small towns, towns that certainly could use an economic boost that cyclists using the East Coast Greenway could provide.

We saw some trail under construction east of where we picked up this stretch of the Tobacco Heritage Trail, and it will eventually be another part of the East Coast Greenway. It’s always cool to see the East Coast Greenway become more off-road on these rides. But Tobacco Heritage Trail organizers, why wait to get some basic information onto the kiosk?

The stretch of trail we rode Wednesday was just one mile long. Once we rode into Boydton, we essentially doubled back halfway on the road to our lunch spot. Hope the Copper Kettle puts up some yard signs by the trail to attract some riders. After Boydton (we saw one restaurant near the main square), it’s empty back roads (and no food) until Clarksville.

How empty?

This is from when gas sold for 65.9 cents a gallon:

Impromptu trail maintenance

The wooden bollard that keeps motorized vehicles off the Tobacco Heritage Trail in South Hill had been put in backwards at some point. We fixed that.

One of our riders has a sharp eye for the little stuff — in this case, East Coast Greenway arrows that pointed the wrong way. It was at the end of the off-road section of the Tobacco Heritage Trail as we reached South Hill on Tuesday night, and Rob Dexter vowed to fix it on Wednesday morning. I volunteered to come along to document this, and before I knew it we had become quite a little group.

Basically, the wooden bollard that keeps motorized vehicles off the trail had been put in backwards at some point, most likely when it was pulled out another time. The Tobacco Heritage Trail sign on the sloped part was facing the trail instead of the road, so those riding to the trail couldn’t see it. That meant the East Coast Greenway arrows were off too. So it was just a “simple” matter of someone (in this case, he-man Andy Hamilton) lifting the bollard out of its slot, giving it half a turn and putting the metal rod back in place.

Tobacco Heritage Trail

Here’s my assessment of the Tobacco Heritage Trail.

Finally got some trail riding today — we were on the Tobacco Heritage Trail from Lawrenceville west to the end, which seems to roughly be the Lacrosse/South Hill line. Yes, it’s part of the East Coast Greenway.

Here’s my assessment:

Much of the trail we rode is crushed stone and at times became very soft and sandy. I definitely felt it in the legs, and our pace was much, much slower. We were all thrilled when it turned to asphalt. (The trail pamphlet shows a long on-road stretch from Lacrosse west to Chase City.)

The trail amenities we saw are impressive. The bathrooms are these stand-alone structures large enough to accommodate someone in a wheelchair (not that a person in a wheel chair is going to be happy pushing through the soft surface, but maybe it was particularly soft because of the recent storm). Solar panel on the chimney, a motion sensor when you walk in the door that turns on the light. Not some smelly portapotty.

And I bet the horses love the soft surface. The trail caters to horse riders with these little steps to make it easy to mount your horse, and these places to tie up your horse. Not that we saw any today. Of course you could use this to mount your bike instead:

Of course there are picnic tables and historical markers along the trail.

There are few access points on the crushed-stone portion of the trail, unlike, say, the Delaware & Lehigh Trail south of Jim Thorpe. That makes it harder to use it for a short distance.

The Tobacco Heritage Trail hasn’t yet hit that tipping-point length when it becomes a tourist destination. The goal is to reach 150 miles of rail-trail, plus connecting corridors, as funding becomes available. It should be a draw well before then, giving the area some badly needed economic stimulus.

And food? We gave this place behind the trail in Lawrenceville a thumbs up:

Day 3 – Quiet roads in rural Virginia from Petersburg to South Hill, Va.

72 sunny miles in rural Virginia

A long but fabulous day: 72 miles on mostly quiet roads or trails. And sunny. What a contrast to Monday!

We cut Robert E. Lee’s last supply line as we headed south of Petersburg, leaving those chasing Lee and Grant’s ghosts to fade toward Appomattox while we headed southwest to South Hill.

This is rural southern Virginia, where towns have been left behind as the tobacco industry survives on life support and the interstate (I-85 in this case) saps their commercial life. Truly a case where a developed East Coast Greenway could bring some badly needed cash into these communities. We rode some of the time on U.S. 1. Where I live, it’s three scary lanes of traffic in each direction, and you’d be insane to bike on it. Here, traffic is insanely light.

Continue reading “Day 3 – Quiet roads in rural Virginia from Petersburg to South Hill, Va.”

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: