Northeast - Valley Forge to Graterford via Perkiomen Trail?

Bikeforums.net is a forum about nothing but bikes. Our community can help you find information about hard-to-find and localized information like bicycle tours, specialties like where in your area to have your recumbent bike serviced, or what are the best bicycle tires and seats for the activities you use your bike for.




bikerwannabe
01-11-08, 05:53 PM
QUESTION: Can you ride a road bike from Valley Forge to Graterford/Skippack?

I have ridden a road bike as far as VF and have ridden a MTN bike on parts of the Perkiomen trail.
But I am not sure of the trail surface between the two. I generally don't ride my road bike on anything but paved roads, though I know others do. So I am looking for advice on trail surface and opinions on whether it can be done on a road bike by a relative newbie (50+ years old with about 7 mos on a road bike).

THANKS


Stacey
01-12-08, 10:09 AM
I've ridden the northern part of the Perk trail, down to around Collegeville, it's pretty much hardpack gravel. I was comfortable on 27x1 1/4's. I don't know how I'd feel about 23's tho.

SPlKE
01-12-08, 11:08 AM
I did the perk on the hardpack gravel stretch on my road bike.

I wouldn't do it again.

While I could consistently find hard, relatively gravel-free areas, it was exhausting constantly concentrating on the surface just ahead of my bike, and steering to the least gravely parts of the trail.


bikerwannabe
01-13-08, 07:26 PM
SPIKE - I agree completely with your assessment. On Saturday I rode past VF for a few miles and I too found it exhausting (and slow) trying to keep to a suitably hard, gravel free portion of the trail. I was hoping to make it to Skippack but decided not to push my luck so I turned around at Collegeville.
Oh well - it was worth a try!

Thanks for the replies.