Russ Nelson

I have a goal of riding every named Rail-Trail in New York State. There are many more railbeds not used for trains anymore which are also ridable. They are usually unnamed, unsigned, and unpublished. I speculate that this is because the owner is either indifferent or away. I've ridden some of these but I'm more interested in getting the named trails ridden first. I'm maintaining the list of NY rail-trails on my Rutland Trail website.

This past year I rode 2/3rds of the Catskill Scenic Trail (got too dark), the eastern undeveloped end of the Orange Heritage Trailway plus about 200' of the trailway itself, and the whole of the Uncle Sam Bikeway.

Trails I've ridden:

• Ballston Bike Trail,
• Black River Recreational Trail,
• Bog Meadow Brook,
• Cato Fair Haven Trail,
• Catskill Scenic Trail (2/3rds),
• Cayuga Hojack Trail,
• DnH Canal Heritage Corridor North,
• DnH Canal Heritage Corridor South, (partially)
• Dutchess Rail Trail,
• Gorge Trail,
• Hudson Valley Rail Trail,
• Jim Schug Trail,
• Jim Tedisco Fitness Trail,
• Maple City Trail,
• North County Trailway,
• Ontario Pathways Rail Trail,
• Orange Heritage Trailway (the unimproved eastern end),
• Oswego Recreational Trail,
• Railroad Run,
• Rivergate Trail,
• The Rutland Trail,
• South Hill Recreation Way,
• The Uncle Sam Bikeway,
• Wallkill Valley Rail Trail,
• Warren County Bikeway,
• Zim Smith Trail,

Trails I haven't (yet) ridden:

Allegheny River Valley Trail, Auburn Fleming Trail, Canalway Trail, Catherine Valley planned, Catherine Valley, Catskill Scenic Trail (still need to ride the 1/3rd), Chautauqua Alison Wells Ney, Chautauqua Brockton Area Recreational Trail, Chautauqua Brocton Area Recreational Trail, Chautauqua Laurie A. Baer Trail, Chautauqua Nadine and Paul Webb Trail, Chautauqua Nancy B. Diggs Trail, Chautauqua Ralph C. Sheldon Jr. Trail, Chautauqua Village of Mayville Trail, Cheektowaga Trail, Clarence Akron Pathway, Corning Bike Path, Fonda, Johnstown and Gloversville Rail Trail, Genesee Valley Greenway, Harlem Valley Rail Trail, Joseph B. Clarke Rail Trail (walked a couple of hundred feet of it in October), Lehigh Memory Trail, Lehigh Valley Linear Trail, Lehigh Valley Rail Trail, Newstead trail, Orange Heritage Trailway (still need to ride the paved portion), Outlet Trail, PatMcGeeTrail, Philip A. Rayhill Memorial Recreational Trail, Portage Trail, Putnam County Trailway, Rochester, Syracuse n Eastern Trolley Trail, Shawangunk Rail Trail, Sodus Point to Wallington Trail, South County Trailway, Spring Run Trail (doesn't really exist yet), Tarrytown Lakes extension, Town of Edwards Nature Trail, Vestal Rail Trail, Webster Hojack Trail, White Plains Greenway,

15.26 km 50070.49 feet 9.48 mi 3526.00 seconds 58.77 minutes 0.98 hours 9.68 mi/hr

Rode the Uncle Sam Bikeway way back in October. Had to be down in Albany, so I took the bike with, found the trail, and went for a nice ride. Didn't know where the trailhead was, so I just parked on a side street and went north looking for an entrance. It's a nice trail, if a bit short. Would be much nicer if they lengthened it on the north end. South end has been built upon and so is unusable.

Sigh. So little time, so many keyboards. The Mark XIV keyboard, using surface-mount pushbuttons was utter fail. Had I actually looked at them, I would have seen that they can't withstand any sideways force at all. Consequently, they break when you look at them sideways. I only discovered this after arriving in India and finding three switches completely useless. Oh well, back to the reliable Marquardt switches. Will remove the surface mount switches and replace them with the Marquardt switches.

All evil starts with one person threatening to hurt another person. The purpose of government is to threaten to hurt people (that's what makes it different from any other organization). Thus, the only way that government can not be evil is if it only threatens to hurt people who threaten to hurt other people. When government undertakes any other activity, it becomes a source of evil.

A society of libertarians is not an oxymoron. Libertarians aren't loners; in fact we're usually even more socially oriented than socialists. What we are is individualists; meaning that all relations between individuals should be voluntary. Socialists think that it's acceptable for some relations to happen at the point of a gun. Note that someone may hold individualist and socialist ideas; while they may think of themselves as pragmatic, compromising towards a worthy goal; instead they're just confused. You can't compromise on a principle, otherwise you lose it entirely. For example, it's wrong to kill; thus it's wrong for a group to kill; thus it's wrong for a government to kill; thus capital punishment is wrong. At best it's a cheaper method of life imprisonment -- but when you compromise your principles to save money, you are not principled at all.