I’ve been raving about the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail since 2016. It’s gotten even better since then.
This past weekend I biked Connecticut from south to north, from New Haven across the state line to Southwick, Mass., as I took part in the East Coast Greenway‘s Ride the State ride.
Continue reading “Biking Connecticut from New Haven to Massachusetts — the state’s trails are tops”First we had to get over a hill — or mountain.
This 59-mile ride from Hartford to New Haven let me once again enjoy those fabulous five-star Farmington trails, some parts of which weren’t even under construction when we discovered them five years ago.
But first we had to get over the hill. Or rather, Talcott Mountain.
Continue reading “Biking from Hartford to New Haven, Connecticut, on the East Coast Greenway”There’s been big progress on Connecticut’s Farmington trail since I biked it in 2016.
I’ve been touting Connecticut’s Farmington Canal Heritage Trail, which bifurcates the states as it heads north from New Haven and ends in Massachusetts, as a 5-star trail ever since I biked it in 2016.
Now it’s even better because all the construction projects I saw two years ago have been completed. Only one sizeable gap remains — the 5-mile “Plainville Gap” up to Southington. While the state has approved funding for the project, the gap likely won’t be closed until at least 2023. You can cope by using roads and sidewalks, but of course that’s not quite the same thing.
This gives a sense of just how popular parts of the Farmington trail are.
Continue reading “Connecticut’s Farmington Canal Trail: One last major gap”
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.
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:
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.
Exploring by bicycle 