Originally Posted by
datlas
Zombie thread but still pretty cool. Riding on this has been on my bucket list for several years. Maybe next year. Anyone ridden it recently??
Two of us rode it for the second time in mid October, 2016. The first time was back in 2012.
Here's a ride summary I wrote for the Abandoned Turnpike Yahoo group (which never got posted because it's poorly moderated):
Two of us rode the Pike 2 Bike Trail yesterday, on 10/13. It rained the entire two hour drive it took me to reach Breezewood from Pittsburgh that morning and continued for another hour after I arrived. Temperatures were hovering in the upper 50's. Once it stopped, we made our way to the trail.
After parking at Tannery Road, we pushed our bikes up the slope to reach the old road bed and began our ride eastward. The road surface is worse than what I recall from our ride in 2012, but it was still easy enough to pick a clean line dodging around the scarred asphalt if you pay attention. Watch out for some of the small bushes growing in the old medial strip - some of them have thorns and brushing against them is not recommended!. Our hybrids were a good choice for the day, but I probably could have dropped my tire pressure by 10 PSI for a smoother ride. The road surface in the actual tunnels is great. The graffiti continues to build up, layer on layer, at the tunnel entrances. Interestingly, there are wooden shipping pallets scattered here and there along the trail and off to the side inside the tunnels. I have no idea why they are there, but it's pretty obvious that someone had a vehicle on the trail to deposit them.
The autumn leaf color was muted by the cloudy skies, but I would say that it was still probably a week or more from the season's peak. On the stretch from the Breezewood end to the mouth of the first tunnel, we noticed there were short (6 to 8 inch long) pieces of wire scattered along the way. These were shaped in a zig-zag pattern and were quite thin. Anyone know what those are?
The rain held off for our entire ride, only picking up again after we had loaded our bikes and stopped for lunch at Bob Evans. A short sleeve bike jersey covered with a soft shell jacket and mid-weight tights were the perfect ensemble for the day and the weather for me (my knees like to stay warm). It was a nice ride and we enjoyed it again.
The tunnels are still unlit. You definitely will need lights. We ran across a few other people riding that day, but otherwise it feels pretty desolate.