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iandavid t1_jcp1ma8 wrote

I’ve done Willimantic to Plainfield to the Washington Secondary via route 14 and 14A, which is similar to your option 3. The problem with leaving the Air Line trail is that then you have to deal with all the terrain of eastern Connecticut: Basically all the ridges run north-south, so if you’re going east or west you have to go up and down hill after hill after hill. But if you don’t mind hills, those roads are fairly low traffic and have decent shoulders.

Moosup briefly has a nice paved trail, but only as far as Barber Hill Road. Between there and the Summit General Store in Coventry it’s pretty rough. RI and CT are working on paving the whole thing eventually as funding permits, but it’s slow going. You’re better off staying on roads through there.

The Washington Secondary is a fantastic trail and it’s literally all downhill from Coventry to Providence. Folks are right that it ends unceremoniously at the Providence line and you have to cut through either Silver Lake or the West End. Cranston Street sucks but once you get under Route 10 you can weave through neighborhoods. We did the Silver Lake route to Olneyville and then zig-zagged up the various segments of the Woonasquatucket River Greenway, which aren’t contiguous yet but are nice. They’re working on new segments all the time so this will get better in the future.

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samskeyti_ t1_jcpfcvu wrote

FYI Summit General Store closed AFAIK. it can still be a landmark but if using it as a place to buy refreshment/etc, it is not in business

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GravitationalOno OP t1_jcp2tv7 wrote

Thanks! This is another vote against Option 3. It was the in between choice between (2) which is longer and safer, over two days and (1) which is faster but more unpredictable on roads, over one day.

My other option is to just do the Air Line trail on its own, maybe as Hartford-Willimantic-Pomfret-Willimantic-Meridien and then start another ride from Providence ... that's looking more attractive.

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>Moosup briefly has a nice paved trail, but only as far as Barber Hill Road. Between there and the Summit General Store in Coventry it’s pretty rough

Where is Barber Hill Road? I could not find it on the map going east from the Summit General Store in Coventry.

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iandavid t1_jd1rqvs wrote

Sorry, missed this part earlier:

> Where is Barber Hill Road? I could not find it on the map going east from the Summit General Store in Coventry.

It’s in Moosup: https://maps.app.goo.gl/Rk1pSf5Dfq2vWEGt5?g_st=ic

Basically the trail from Barber Hill Road east to Summit General Store is either gravel, mud, or brush. They’ve done some preliminary work on the RI side to get it ready for paving (see here and here but there’s no timeline for the actual paving yet.

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GravitationalOno OP t1_jd2gmwq wrote

Ah, I see! I missed it bc it's right at the start and a dead-end road. Good to know. Thank you!

I saw on the maps it's kind of neat that some of the bridges exist to be part of the trail, but yeah, if it's mud or brush, it will be too much of an effort for me to take a chance with. Not to mention if I can't get across some of those waterways, I don't want to be portaging a bike.

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iandavid t1_jcp5tcf wrote

Yeah the areas nearest the border are the least developed, which on the plus side means it’s very rural and pretty, and on the minus side means none of the trails are very well-maintained at this point. That’s true in Massachusetts as well – the part of the Air Line/SNETT in Douglas state forest is in good shape, but it starts to get super overgrown between Douglas and Millville. I haven’t attempted that segment, but I have heard from folks who tried that it was rough going and you’re better off on the roads.

But Millville to Blackstone is brand new and great, and the path from Woonsocket to Pawtucket is beautiful. The plan is to connect all those segments eventually, again, as time and budgets permit.

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