Anyone every do Philly to Niagra?
 

Hey guys, so I have started my training and aquiring all the items I will need for a tour from the Philadelphia Art Museum to the Niagra Falls.....

I am posting up this thread in an attempt to find people who have done this ride and/or who have rode this direction through the appalachian mountains and who would have some insight, advise, or warnings... I will not bedoing this trip until early Sept., but it doesnt hurt to plan ahead...

I do plan on taking a couple weekends off in North Jersey and PA to try and get better acclimated to climbs as all of my riding has been in South Jersey and St. Louis lol..

Any info would be appreciated... Thanks...

Yes, but in a roundabout way. I crossed the country west to east on the Nothern Tier. We went through Niagara Falls, ON on the way to Maine. I then rode home to Philly. Not exactly what you looking for.

One way to go is up to the Canalway from Albany to Lockport and enter Canada near there:

http://www.canals.ny.gov/trails/about.html


BTW...You don't have to go to north Jersey to find hills. Hunterdon & Warren Counties in west central NJ have plenty of them. In fact, some of the hardest climbs in the state are there. But if you will be in far northwest Jersey, make sure you do the climb to Highpoint State Park.

If you wan't a nice, three-day shakedown trip, consider Port Jervis, NY to Philly. I can give you the route. Avis has one-way rentals to Port Jervis. You can also get there via SEPTA to Trenton, NJT to Seacaucus Jct. and then the Metro service to Port Jervis that is also run by NJT. The ride through the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Are is very, very pretty. So is most of the way down the river from Delaware Water Gap, PA.

Somewhere at home I should have the cue sheet from one of the longer routes of the Black Bear Century out of DWG, PA. That makes a nice day ride in that area. You could camp at Worthington State Forest and do some or all of it. The route goes right past the campground.

The ACA Atlantic Coast route will get you from Phila up to Poughkeepsie:

http://www.adventurecycling.org/rout...anticcoast.cfm

The Erie Canal will get you from Albany to Niagara Falls:

http://www.ptny.org/canaltour/

and it is easy enough to get from Poughkeepsie to Albany - I can give you tips on that little chunk if necessary.

Thanks for the info indyfabz... I tend to clump everything above trenton as north jersey. I see a ride from Trenton to High Point in the future...

Jim.. I was thinking of a more direct route towards the fingerlakes and taking the erie canal from then on... If I was to head through albany, that would add 150 mile to my trip, which is I would love the experiance, but the time frame I will have to complete this trip is limited as it is..

I am trying to get a realistic idea of daily mileage with the climbs through the appelachians. I think I am setting a lofty goal of 100mi +/- 25mi. I will be packing light with it being less of a mossy along and enjoy the sights as it will be a personal challenge with a nice reward at the end, and camping in new locations under different circumstances...

How many days do you have budgeted?

One thing you might want to consider is getting yourself to Jersey Shore, PA, which is outside of Williamsport, and taking the Pine Creek Trail all the way to Ansonia. I believe you can camp in a few places along the trail. There is also camping at Leonard Harrison State Park, which is near the end of the trail U.S. 6 used to be a nice rode to ride east-west. It's my understandig that truck traffic resulting from gas fracking operations has made things not so nice.

Riding south-north long some of the Finger Lakes is not always hilly like you might imagine. That's because the glaciers that carved them moved south then retreated north. I did the Bon Ton Roulet back in '06. Stayed in Dundee one night and then rode up the west side of Lake Geneva all the way to Geneva. It was not difficult.

I have ridden Rochester NY to Niagara (and beyond) this past summer. If you find a route to ride north then catch the Erie Canal route and ride west the Erie Canal part is really easy to plan and ride.

NYS bike route 17 runs up that way I believe.

I am somewhat flexible on my time frame, but with a honeymoon planned in October, I would like to not go over my PTO balance between the two of them... If I didn't make this clear before, I plan on doing a round trip.

I was thinking giving myself a two week time frame to finish the tour, but with all hopes of completing it in 10 days...

I have created a couple different routes so far and one did use the Pine Creek Trail. It went Philly - Pottstown - reading - Pottsville - Jersey Shore where I would hope onto the trail...

My main concerns about climbs have been about getting through PA.

I have also considered getting dropped off in Hamburg/ Pottsville as it shouldn't be hard to get a buddy of mine talked into a trip to Cabelas or Yuengling Brewery...

Thanks for all the responses guys, I was not expecting this much help..

That wouild be a relatively mild way to go. While it's not going to be flat by any means, you would need to go further west/southwest of the U.S. 15 corridor to get into the real meat of the mountains. The real killer stuff angles southwest from the west of the Susquehanna.

The big question is how to cross the Ridge and Valley Provence without going too far east or south. Can the Susquehanna River be followed?

Once in New york the obvious bike routes are 17, 14, and 5.