Great American rail trail

[staehpj1]

Some trails are worth going out of your way to ride, but most are unexceptional.  For many, the only advantages are getting away from motor vehicles, and it being easier to find a place to relieve yourself.  For example, I'd go out of my way to ride the Elroy-Sparta because it's a nice trail and the tunnels are cool.  Or most of the GAP/C&O for the views and historic sites.

Yeah, that makes sense.  Not generally found that sort of trails on my routes.  I have had a lot of bike paths though.  About as often as not I actually preferred to avoid them.  There were some really nice exceptions though.

The Virginia Creeper trail is one that folks might go out of their way to ride because it is pretty, but I left it to ride on a parallel road to avoid the hoards of oblivious folks on rental bikes going the opposite direction.  Had I been going the same way as the rental traffic it might have been okay.

I see remarkably few journals on the ECG.  I suspect that people discount it once they look into it.  Personally, I'd like a route that stayed closer to the ocean and bays, and have charted out one that made extensive use of ferries.

Probably true that most discount it after looking in to it. Wrt a route that hugs the coast... I suspect that a lot of the coast really doesn't lend itself well to that.   After living on the east coast for 64 years before moving to the gulf coast the east coast doesn't hold much appeal for me as a touring destination.

[canalligators]

There's a section of the Erie Canalway Trail near Canajoharie, where I purposely took the highway because the view from the trail was pretty much sealed off by vegetation.  A tunnel of trees.  But out on 5S, you can see the escarpments on either side of the Mohawk River.  And 5S has moderate traffic and nice wide shoulders.

[BikeliciousBabe]

I read about cycling on the so-called east coast greenway. If ever a cycling route existed mostly in the imagination, the ECG is it, so far, anyway. I read comments on CGOAB. One cyclist said he could not believe the ECG people had done research research on the prescribed route which he described as narrow, with no side lane, dangerous, with loads of traffic, noisy and polluted.

In PA, south of Philadelphia, the ECG uses many miles of a road literally named "Industrial Highway." From the center of Philadelphia to the north, it's mostly on very busy, urban streets.

[adventure124]

That trail sounds great, thanks for sharing it.

[Westinghouse]

Some trails are worth going out of your way to ride, but most are unexceptional.  For many, the only advantages are getting away from motor vehicles, and it being easier to find a place to relieve yourself.  For example, I'd go out of my way to ride the Elroy-Sparta because it's a nice trail and the tunnels are cool.  Or most of the GAP/C&O for the views and historic sites.

I see remarkably few journals on the ECG.  I suspect that people discount it once they look into it.  Personally, I'd like a route that stayed closer to the ocean and bays, and have charted out one that made extensive use of ferries.

That was what I did. I checked out the East Coast Greenway map closely---and discounted it. I mean, what to hell. They have you going all over hell and back just to make a few miles at a time. In one short section they have you going sixty extra miles.