Well, sorry for not posting on my new site – I had to work the weekend after my last post, then I went hiking with the family, which I’ll post about soon, then we visited family out-of-town.  I got really sick on the way back and really lost a week there.  I managed to get out last week to one of my favorite trails (another future post), but felt miserable afterwards… lingering illness I think, didn’t have the stamina.

But this week was perfect weather.  Wife and dog went out Saturday to Hickory Creek Wilderness Trail, so I stayed home with the little one and did house stuff.  However, part of the deal was I got my pick of trail destinations today.

I lived in the Butler area during seven of my formative years, so I was happy to see they’ve got a rail-trail movement going with the Butler-Freeport Community Trail.  There apparently were some real property battles as part of getting this trail together, but I’d heard that they’d all been resolved and the trail was good to go.  And it was!

Right now, it’s about 16 miles from just east of Butler down to the Allegheny River at Freeport.  Key word being down.  Elevation drop of about 550 feet.  After the first five miles, I felt like the fastest cyclist in the world and breezed through the remaining eleven miles, knowing that it was going to be a hard road back.  And it was, but it wasn’t too hard not to be enjoyable.  It wasn’t like I could coast down, and I never thought about getting off and walking at any point coming back.

The surface is crushed stone, except the two closest miles to Butler which is mostly dirt, and about four miles close to Freeport that is mostly paved.  I’m not a big fan of crushed stone, but the trail was pretty even and smooth, the stone was pretty pulverized, so it really wasn’t that bad.

You go through Pennsylvania farm country, and then some really beautiful creek valleys.  One stretch passes right next to a turkey farm, with unfortunate signs warning passers to not throw anything at the turkeys…  Huh?  You go under a GIANT overpass – Route 28 I think – I’ll bet it’s one of those bridges that you just drive over every day and have no idea how high up you actually are.  Definitely gave me a touch of vertigo looking up at it…

There are a number of two-lane road crossings, but nothing too crazy.  Port-a-pottys, benches, and even occasional vending machines are never too far away.  There are lots of places to pick up the trail too, so if you want to start half way to break up the steady incline/descent, you should have no problem with that.

So, after some trepidation on not having been out for a while, my trip turned out to be pretty uneventful – I think I’m back in the saddle again.  I was pleased that there was a little ice-cream/hot dog stand in Herman where I grabbed a quick bite to eat and watched some biker (motorcycle) drama, when someone’s broke down apparently.  Motors on bikes… what will they think of next!