39.80 km 130586.60 feet 24.73 mi 10780.00 seconds 179.67 minutes 2.99 hours 8.26 mi/hr
Woo hoo! That was a great ride last Friday. Hopped on the NYO&W trail in Kingston. It's a little wet at first, and the trail has some erosion issues. Only after going through that section did I notice that it was temporarily closed. Rode along a grassy section, then it opened up into a paved section right next to the highway. Left the highway, and started to go on the NYO&W's standard cuts and fills. The NYO&W is a railroad that should never have been built. They relied on the towns to put up bonding, so they skipped any towns that wouldn't pay. This included some of the biggest markets, e.g. Syracuse. Thus, it went through the hills and avoided the valleys. It eventually did connect Lake Ontario at Oswego to the New York City harbor, and it picked up the Scranton coal region as well, but with all the hills it had to traverse it wasn't the cheapest carrier. But, that makes it a very picturesque rail-trail.
I didn't realize that I was going to get as far as High Falls, but when I saw it coming up I simply had to go visit the D&H canal ruins there. They had five locks in town, a canal slip, and an aquaduct over the Rondout Creek. The aquaduct is long gone, but it was built using the same technology (wire ropes) as the Brooklyn Bridge.
Then, on the way back, I saw the high bridge in Rosendale. Silly me, but I didn't think of hopping on that railroad grade for the trip back. I believe that it is open for travel. It certainly is going underneath I-87 as I saw this morning. Oh well; next time.
posted at: 23:22 | path: /bicycling | permanent link to this entry
