Originally Posted by
phocycle
Thank you for the intro to this route! My sister and I are thinking of doing this trip next year. I am completely new to touring and going anything more than a century ride. What are some of the stuff you need that are essential to this trip. Especially equipping your bike? I have a 85 Trek 400 Elance 700x23 tire, and I'm taking my time to get it ready for this trip. I suspect that the tire I have may not be suitable for the trip?! Any thoughts? Thank you for any great inputs and suggestions.
There are sections of the PTNY route on which 23mm tires would make you very, very unhappy. :-) You might be able to get away with minimal slipping and sliding on the western-most portions of the stone dust trails, but some of the towpath east of Weedsport would eat you alive. In particular, the 36-mile path between Syracuse and Rome is currently being prepped for paving over several miles, and is covered with a very fine sand and dirt. It may or may not be completed by the time you ride, but it's something to think about. Also, the section of the towpath between Rome and Utica has a few miles that are more like easy doubletrack, which would be an issue when muddy.
That being said, one of the beauties of the PTNY route is that there are many sections where you feel like you've gotten away from it all, but you're never more than a couple of miles from towns and civilization. You can do anything from a credit-card to full-on camping tour without any problems.
There are a whole bunch of trip journals from people over on CrazyGuyOnABike. You might want to check them out for other ideas.