Norts

I am riding the GDMBR this year after I finish I need to get to Albany, actually Bennington in Vermont, going up to see Vermont in the Fall. If I am feeling up to it and I have the time I would like to ride there.
What I am looking for is a relative flat route( I think I will be over hills after the GDMBR) that will still be interesting but get me there in reasonable time, I will want to keep off major roads as much as possible.
I have plotted a couple of routes on RWGPS, one using parts of the ACA Route 66.
I dont mind if ppl give suggestions for sections that shouldnt be missed, ie Rail Trails that I can link in to my route.
Thank you

mev

The Katy Trail and OTET are two longer trails on your route to consider.

I don't know what time of year you expect to finish the GDMBR but if it were me, the other factor I would take into account is potential heat/humidity. The dew point map below is for July. Generally, about 65F I is listed as "muggy" and temperatures I start to find uncomfortable. So( the other item (somewhat at odds with the first) is I might consider swinging further north first. For example, roughly following the Rio Grande River north at least through Albuquerque and coming via eastern Colorado to connect into the Platte River valley and then across... However, I would be trading off some nice Katy Trail riding for slightly better odds of cooler temperatures.

In either case, I would come across the Erie Canal drainage towards the end.

Hopefully earlier parts of Route 66 are better but I mostly followed Adventure Cycling Route 66 between Springfield and Chicago ad found it not as pleasant as many other Adventure Cycling routes - with a fair amount of frontage road riding. The final parts of getting into Chicago are probably nicer though I actually followed mostly quieter/off-road parts from Joliet into Chicago and then a fair amount of trails across northern Indiana.

Steve B.

Katy towards Illinois/Indiana, then farm roads to Cincinnati, then the Ohio Erie trail up to Cleveland, Along Lake Erie to Buffalo and the Erie Canal Trail, then across to Albany and over to Bennington. A good chunk of this is off road trails. This route also avoids central Pennsylvania, which is very hilly. The Erie Canal trail is pretty flat, has some road sections with rolling hills, is then in the Mohawk River valley to Albany.

Norts

Thank you for your suggestions, I will look into those option. I do enjoy planning out a route. It would be nice to see some of the middle of the US, I have hiked the AT, PCT and the Montana section of the CDT, so I have seen some of the East and West coasts.
I dont fly into Edmonton until the 26 Jun so I definitely wont be finishing in July Mev.

Roger

Norts

Also someone has sent me a Private Msg, as I havent had 10 posts I can not access it.

Lambkin55

Oh Boy! That sound like a great touring idea! Here is my suggested routing plan...

• El Paso to Belen NM == Follow the Historical Spanish Trail along the Rio Grand (Lots of history along this route)
• Belen to Santa Fa == Take the state run Roadrunner Train (fun fast and UP hill)
• Santa Fa toward Kansas City == Follow the historic Santa Fe Wagon Trail (Lots of history -- Roughly following US-56 and US-50)
• Before Kansas City Pick up the Flint Hills Trail to eastern terminus == (Bike Trail!)
• East End of Flint Hills Trail take county/farm roads east to Clinton MO == Farm roads in this part of the county are paved and quite
• Clinton Mo to St Louis == Take KATY Trail (Longest rails to trails bike trail in the country)
• St Louis to Dwight IL == Take the ACA "Route 66" route (The Mother Road)
• Dwight IL to Albany NY== Take the ACA "Northern Tier" route (Safe way to travel east into more densely populated areas)

Good luck with it!

indyfabz

When do you expect to finish? Note that some state park campgrounds in NY (and possibly other states) start to shut down starting after Labor Day.

Norts

Thanks for that Lambkin. I will look into those options.
I would think that it will be well after Labor Day Indyfabz, so it will be something to keep in mind and there might be a few extra motels in Sep.

Tourist in MSN

Just an FYI, if you run low on time, Amtrak would run from Toledo OH, or Cleveland OH, or Buffalo NY to Albany NY.

I do not know if there are other routes or if this is the only route. I plan to ride on this train in Jun and again in July, so I was researching this.
https://www.amtrak.com/routes/lake-s...ted-train.html

You would need to get on at a baggage station, some stations are not baggage stations. And either box your bike or make a reservation for your bike to be carried in a bike rack in baggage car.

mev

There are quite a few baggage station stops earlier as well leaving some flexiblity, e.g. El Paso, Albuquerue, Kansas City, Omaha, St Louis and Chicago all come to mind...Most of these would be a connecting train (typically via Chicago).

Norts

Thanks for the info on Amtrak. Amtrak is plan B if after the GDMBR I dont feel like riding another 4000plus ks.
Or if I get tired after some of the ride the option is always there.
I like traveling by train so much nicer than plane, if I could travel by train from Tasmania to Canada I wouldn't be sitting in a narrow aluminium tube a few thousand metres in the air.

Tourist in MSN

Different Amtrak routes have different criteria based on how the bike is carried on the train. Years ago they had to be boxed and Amtrak sold boxes at some but not all stations. Some stations still sell boxes according to their website, but if you can find a phone number for that station in advance it may be a good idea to make sure they will have one in stock for you.

More recently, some trains have added bike racks in the baggage car, such as the Lakeshore Limited route that I cited above, that you need to reserve in advance.

And apparently some trains, you carry your bike onto the train and put it in a bike rack in a passenger car. This option, you do not need to be at a baggage stop if my understanding is correct on this. I have not used that option since 2010, so procedures may have changed.

And some stations may be a bit different.

So, any route you pick, look first to see how the bike part of your trip works, as that may prevent you from using some stations.

Folding bikes are different because they can be a piece of carry on luggage, but given what you plan to do, I doubt if you are using one of those.

mev

Amtrak's route network is here: https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/p...m-Map-1018.pdf
Prior to Chicago, any of the three trains you would likely take:
- California Zephyr including Omaha
- Southwest Chief including Albuquerque and Kansas City
- Texas including El Paso, St Louis
all have the same scheme for bicycles: trainside-baggage and checked baggage.

The trainside checked baggage option is similar to what is described above, you reserve it when you make your reservation, the bike goes in the baggage car and you can only board bikes at designated baggage stations. This and the connecting service in Chicago would be similar - you reserve/pay when you make your tickets and can book a bike all the way through. You need to pick up the bike in Chicago to bring it from one train to the other.

The checked baggage option is where your bike goes into a box. You can get the box and pay for it at the Amtrak station and useful to make sure a box will be available.

indyfabz

Bringing your bike on Amtrak:

https://www.amtrak.com/bring-your-bicycle-onboard

tcs

Between El Paso and Kansas City lies the Chihuahuan Desert, Southern Great Plains and the Prairies. I adore this part of the country; other cycletourists have referred to it as "the road to nowhere", "a brown sameness day after day" and "the dreaded middle third".

Just for fun:
Amtrak El Paso to San Antonio
A perhaps more interesting for you Texas Hill Country/Quachita Mountains route to connect to the ACA TransAm.
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/45168732
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/34587746
From there it's pretty much your choice of five or more ACA routes east.

tcs

Uh...

"The foliage season in Northern Vermont runs from early September to mid-October. The peak usually falls on the last two weeks of September when visitors can see the whole palette of colors: green, yellow, red, and orange."

I'm either not following you (quite possibly!), or you need to research airline flights between El Paso and Burlington.

indyfabz

Bennington is in southern Vermont. I went to high school 50 miles SE of there in MA. Peak foliage is usually later. Twice since 2018 I have ridden south from near the Canadian border starting the weekend after Labor Day weekend. I was always ahead of the significant foliage change.

That aside, I agree that making it there in time could be tight. Plus, you have competition for accommodations from “leaf peepers.” My school was in a historic village. For a short period every fall we would have lots of fall foliage tour buses stop in town.

tcs

Google suggests 2650 miles on a fairly direct route to southern Vermont. "Well after Labor Day" start date in El Paso, Texas to catch some of "Vermont in fall". Maybe five weeks? 76 miles (122 km) a day, seven days a week, no rest or weather days.

Shrug. It's Norts' call.

indyfabz

I think must have missed the “well after” part. My thought would be Amtrak to CHI. ACA has a route east to NYC. Maybe use part of that and its Northern Tier route to the Erie Canal towpath. That would get him a lot of the way. Potentially nasty weather would be a big concern if mine. I remember camping along Lake Erie a bit west of Buffalo while crossing the country. It was mid-August. We had a fire to keep warm. Really cold a wet day east of Rochester, NY. Fortunately, we got hosted that night. Those lakes can cause unexpected conditions. Booneville, NY was very cold for August. You’d definitely want to stay as far south as possible but stay north of the Berkshires.

Norts

Not sure how it came about that I would be not starting from El Paso until after Labor day, I meant that I wouldnt be getting to Vermont until after Labor Day.
I start the GDMBR on the 26 Jun hopefully I will be in ElPaso by approx 25 Aug at the latest.
Also this is also all hypothetical at the moment. If I get to El Paso and had enough or weather not favourable I'll just hop on Amtrak and got to Albany where I will be able to be picked up by the people who I am staying with in Vermont.
My main goal is to ride the GDMBR and secondary is maybe to ride to Vermont. I wanted to have a rough route sorted before I get to El Paso,
I think I have a route planned,
Thank you for all your input. I have used some of the information to plan my route and of ccourse it isnt set in stone and I will remain flexible.

Tourist in MSN

Have a great time.

mev

Seems reasonable. You are leaving late enough to not have as many issues with snow in the northern reaches. My guess is the largest weather issue to watch for weather will be further south in New Mexico where there can be longer stretches without water an temperatures warm but not extreme. For example, Deming is a little east of your route but a reasonable representation of the last part of desert getting to Antelope Wells. Average high temperatures a little over 30C - https://weatherspark.com/y/145595/Av...tes-Year-Round in August. Late summer has lower averages than June, in part because this is "monsoon" season Nothing extreme (this is still desert) but a larger chance of afternoon showers cooling things down and hence a lower high on average. Compared to OZ, still reasonable... warmer than Adelaide but not as hot as Coober Pedy...
https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/1...edy-and-Deming

estasnyc

Seriously, I would consider flying out of El Paso, going to either Toronto or Buffalo, and putting more miles from there to Vermont.

But if you have it in you, here are I have a set of GPX routes I generated using the Brouter web client (https://brouter.de/brouter-web).

Nuts. I don't know how to upload GPX files.

estasnyc

This thread seems to have come to a natural ending but I do want to share the routes that I've generated using Brouter.

Using app parameters that I came up with for finding the flattest, but not necessarily completely flat, route to my brother's house, I wanted too see what might be coughed up for a cross-country trip such as what the OP is contemplating.

I made only a very few manual tweaks: staying on the Katy Trail and riding the entire Ohio-to-Erie Trail.

Otherwise, the primary consideration would be that this route should be as flat as possible and the secondary one being to find the shortest route. For the original route I generated, using any part of either the Katy Trail or the OTET at all was purely accidental.

Brouter allows you to choose whether or not you're willing to use ferries and this made for a dramatic difference between the two alternate choices.

Hooray. I couldn't upload the individual GPX files previously but I can upload these while packaged together in a single zip file.

Anyway, I used the end of the Great Divide Mountain Route in New Mexico as the starting point and Bennington, Vermont as the destination.

rm -rf

estasnyc,
In the Cincinnati area, the auto-generated routings aren't too bad. There's some supposed gravel roads that I'm not sure are public accessible, though. And the portion from the Indiana-Ohio state line to downtown Cincinnati has better alternatives.

Riding on the north shore of the Ohio, it's hard to avoid highways at times, unless you do a lot of hill climbing.
The original route:
Milan Indiana to Milford Ohio-original

My edit:
Milan to Milford-preferred

I picked a very nice alternative out of Milan, with a long, shallow downhill into a quiet valley.
This includes some miles riding on US-50, near mile 30 of the route. You'll want to avoid rush hour times -- other than rush hour, the cars and trucks can pass you pretty easily since it's 4-lanes.
Green path--I haven't ridden these roads, but they do have good heatmap activity. Purple path--the busy US-50 section.
Once you reach mile 44, it's all great riding to the start of the Little Miami Trail, part of the OTET. The off-road paved trail starts at mile 53.