12.3 Mile Ride on the Albany Country Rail Trail
Friday, May 26, 2017
Since late winter work has been proceeding on paving the section of the rail trail between Slingerlands and Voorheesville. First in the form of clearing trees and brush to allow the heavy equipment room to do its stuff, then actual grading of the trail in preparation of setting down the base for the eventual pavement. There's also a big project in the works at the Hilton Rd crossing where they're trying to reduce the size of a somewhat blind hill and will be lowering the level of the trail to match the new road level.
The rain stopped early enough that I wanted to get out for a ride, but not so early that I wanted to drive too far to a trailhead... so I decided to check out where things are at along the unpaved portion of the trail, and maybe wrap up with a few miles on pavement.
The first surprise was that they've laid the base for paving (a compacted layer of gravel and stone dust) all the way from Slinglands out to Upper Font Grave Rd. That was easy ride - could have taken my road bike on it without difficulty. The first section past Upper Font Grove was graded dirt/ballast, so not much fun, but then there was another section of compacted gravel/stone dust out to Hilton Rd.
The worst part was definitely from Hilton Rd down into Voorheesville... it seems like that was only recently graded, and so it was rough going.
Of course, the trip back was easier, being mostly downhill (a gentle grade but still a very noticeable difference.) I recently read an article about the plans to change the road and crossing level at Hilton and laughed when the author talked about how the rail trail is flat other than for the first few miles of climbing away from the waterfront area... anyone who has ridden or run it knows very well that it's a mostly uphill grade almost all the way to Voorheesville.
Along the way I had several deer cross the path, and when I reached the bridge over route 155 on my way back, there was a huge flock of turkey vultures flying around over the trail - possibly the same flock I've seen roosting near there, though I had assumed they'd moved on now that the weather was nicer.
While I'm not a fan of riding my mountain bike on pavement, I didn't want to stop at just under 8 miles, so I rode all the way to the American Legion Hall in Delmar before turning around and heading back. And despite what I just said about the mountain bike and pavement - it was a welcome change from struggling over the rougher sections of the unpaved trail.
I'd guess that they'll have the rest of the trail paved in the next month or two, unless they haven't lined up a contractor for doing the paving yet... I suspect the main hold up at the moment is the work at the Hilton Rd crossing, and they seem to think that will be done by mid-June. On the one hand, it will be nice to have smooth riding all the way from Voorheesville to South Pearl St... but I'll still miss the unpaved trail. We have a serious lack of dirt rail trails around here, and sometimes it's nice to get off pavement without hitting the trails in the woods...
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| the "flat" section of the rail trail... |
JMH
