As soon as things warm up a bit around here I'd like to take a drive up to Albany (from Westchester) to ride the canal path. I won't go all the way to Buffalo, maybe just a weekend. From the maps that I have seen it apears as if the trail from Albany heading west is paved for quite a while. Is this section (say the first 80 - 100 miles) better than a typical MUT? It seems the further west you go there are more road sections and less paved trail. Is it worth the trip?

The Erie/Barge canal trail is not continuous, and many rural parts leave you riding on local roads. Once you get past Utica, however, there is a long stretch along the original canal bed, which was abandoned about 1912. This goes much further south, taking you almost into Syracuse. From there, you will need to take roads once again, until you are into wayne county, and from that point, the trail continues to Lockport. If you want to go all the way to Buffalo, you will need to take roads once again.

Most of the trail (maybe 70%?) is not paved, but is packed dirt or fine crushed stone. This gets your chain dusty when conditions are dry. I would not try riding this trail with tires any narrower than a 28mm wide tire, so that pretty much counts out most of the road bikes out there.

Check out http://www.nycanal.com/recreation/hikebikemain.html for trail info. BTW, don't even consider taking "bike route 5"-it was probably laid out on paper by somebody who doesn't ride-it sends you down some really awful highways without bike lanes.

You may also find a route book at your local Barnes & Noble in the section for NY state vacation books.

I ride that bike path all the time between st. johnsville and going east to fultonville ( 21 miles one way ) ....it is hard packed between st. johnsville and fort plain....then paved from Fort Plain to Canajohari.....then hard packed crushed stone from canjo to Fultonville. As far as rout 5 is concerned.....between Canajohari and going west to Little Falls it is great, my basic ride is St. Johnsville to Little Falls on rout 5 ( 21 miles round trip ). This summer they will be extending the bike path from St. Johnsville to the west, i see the work signs have been posted already, which will extend the bike path considerably so that there should be no need to get onto rout 5 ( but Rt. 5 betweem St. Johnsville and Little Falls is truely a really nice ride and the shoulders are very wide, only a few short spots do you ever have to be near the white line)......hope this helps

The canal path is very well paved for about 16 miles or so through the Rochester area. From the west in Greece the path needs some serious work as many roots pushing up through the pavement EVERYWHERE making for a very sore butt. From the Genesee Valley Park (U of Rochester area) east to just east of Pittsford's canal area (Marsh Rd.) the path is quite smoothe, but also a popular MUT--beware of inline skates and strollers. Not too far east of Pittsford (Perinton, perhaps) the trail turns to crushed stone/dirt. The dusty path makes for a fairly smoothe ride, but I would recomend wiping down your bike afterwards as the dust is quite clingy.

two cents

~Jay