I recently bought the Adventure Cycling Pittsburgh Spur map from Pittsburgh to Erie, PA for planning a trip from Pittsburgh to Hamilton, Canada. I checked out the first 40 miles or so and was very disappointed with the route choice as it was very busy roads with poor shoulders and lots of truck traffic (along Ohio river). Does anyone have experience with the rest of this route? Or does anyone have a better suggestion from to get from Pittspurgh to Erie?

Thanks for your help.

I've been interested in an Erie to Pittsburgh ride myself.. waiting to see if anyone has good input.

I do not think this is a heavily traveled route so we will see what comes up.

Jim Sayler from adventure cycling was here in pittsburgh last month raving about the route. From Beaver Falls to New Castle it seemed okay but from Ambridge To New Brighton it was on a rather unfriendly truck route for a stretch. Rideable but nothing I want to take my family on.. That section is all that I have scouted so far.

Have you ridden any of the Adventure Cycling route that goes through Erie and on to Canada or Maine?

I'm not sure what the Adventure cycling route to Canada is, but I did ride from Erie to Niagara Falls last summer, and other than missing / being unable to find a couple of trail heads in Buffalo, I would do it again. I think I'm right on the ACA route and I've ridden what I believe it to be from Conneaut, OH to the New York state line. Very nice route, except through Erie where's it's typical urban cycling.

Compare it to PA Bike Route A:

ftp://ftp.dot.state.pa.us/public/pdf...state_mapA.pdf

https://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/PA-Bike-Route-A

I rode part of that last summer.. I wasn't intending to go more than about 20 miles out, IIRC. I turned around a couple miles early due to the condition of the road / shoulder. At least closer to Erie, it's not a very nice route.

Rode the entire Northern Tier west to east many years ago. Nice route overall. The trip up the river to Niagara Falls was fun. It used the Erie Canala tow path from Lockport, NY. Didn't like that all that much in places due to the surface condition, and I hear there are sections that were recently damaged by flooding. There are parallel roads you can follow. From somewhere east of Rochester, the route headed up to Lake Ontario and then east to Sodus Point and Booneville. You eventually cross the Adirondacks and end up doing a screaming descent into Ticonderoga, where you catch a cable ferry to VT. The VT section was very nice. In the Middlebury area we went off route to find camping and ended up doing Brandon Gap instead of Middleburry Gap. It was the one climb on the entire trip I thought I might have to walk a portion of. The final section is very steep. Woodstock, VT is a crazy town. In NH, you get to ride the Kagamagus (SP?) Highway (between Lincoln and Conway) through the White Mountain National Forest. Very pretty. The part I didn't like the most was in ME. The U.S. 1 corridor is very busy and noisy. There is a great state park in Camden. Bar Harbor is very crowded up through Labor Day.

What brings you to Hamilton?

I am actually researching feasible routes for a 1-2 week tour that's reasonably close to Hamilton.

Hamilton just seems like a reasonable endpoint for our trip. Do you live up that way?

I'll be picking up the route in New Castle on 10/21/12 and following it to Pittsburgh, so I'll post after I've done it.
That will be a Sunday, so I would expect to not have much truck traffic.

Did you look at Google’s suggested bike route out of Pittsburgh to Erie. I don’t know all the roads down that way but it stays east of 79 all the way to Portersville where it picks up the Perry Hwy.

I'm starting in Akron OH and heading to New Castle. Going east of 79 at that point would lengthen my trip.

Agreed.

For the OP getting out of the Burgh he might want to consider the Google map option. The thing I like about Google is you can go down to street view mode and inspect the road and even inspect the shoulder for width and condition. What I do is take a look at the satellite mode and then zoom in at street view where it looks like it could be sketchy. I inspected a 40 mile stretch in about 10 minutes doing that the other day. Can even find camping and eating along the way.