On Wednesday, August 18th, my wife an I rode a tandem, mountain bike equiped with shocks, on this trail from Jay to Farmington and back. It was a tough, tough ride. We have ridden several rail trails in New Hampshire and this was the hardest we have ridden. It was very sandy for most of the trail. In parts, where is ran next to the highway nearer to Farmington, the trail was wavy with loose sand between the dips. There were also stretches with rocks protruding from the trail. If the scenery was beautiful, which my wife claimed it was, I couldn't say as I was very focused on steering us though the trail's maze. At one point, nearer to Framington, the trail crosses the main highway. There was considerable traffic with only a very small safety island between the lanes. It was a scramble.

When we arrived at Farmington there were two riders loading their bikes onto a bikerack. We spoke and they told us they had planned to ride to Jay, but the trail was too sandy so they turned back. They expressed surprise that we had made it.

My wife and I walked the bike into Farmington, about a mile+ and had a nice lunch at a local coffee shop, then rode back down to the trail and back to Jay. It was an exhausting ride back, and I expressed surprise we had made it.

During the roundtrip we passed several ATVs the riders of which were considerate of us and pulled over to wait for us to pass, three or four lunchtime walkers near a business establishment, and four bicyclists. There was lots of evidence of ATV use on the trail. Personally I would this rail trail, in it's current condition, is more suitable for the ATV.

Wow, what a surprisingly nice trail! My DH and i rode this trail Sunday May 9 2010 from Farmington to the Munson Rd Crossing in Wilton. We've rode the Nashua Rail Trail from Ayer to Nashua (all paved and not very challenging-12.25 miles one way) and we've rode the Warren County Bike Trail and went right into the Feeder Canal Trail. (Paved and unpaved-We did 28 miles round trip that day).

Using the directions on this site it was very easy to find the parking area in Farmington. It had rained all day the day before but the trail, being a hard packed gravel trail, was not wet at all, except for a few puddles when we got close or around the Wilton area. We rode our full suspension MTBs. A hybrid bike would work great for this trail. We did find the trail is more loose gravel and a sand gravel mix beyond West Wilton, but it also had lots of evidence of ATV use, which most likely made the trail gravel loose. Not horrible or unridable at the time we rode it, just a little more challenging and engaged a little more cardio to get past this area. This trail also follows the river quite a bit, which was beautiful and appeared very clean. The day we rode it was a little cold out, so we only came across a couple of hikers and a couple of joggers. Very quiet.

We lingered for a short time at the Yurt, which is only 2-3 miles from the Farmington parking area, also we rode the trail by the yurt which goes behind the hospital property. That was nice and FUN, but we had to double back and get back on the WST (whistle stop trail) It was also nice that there were signs pointing you to restaurants, coffee, etc. along the way and in West Wilton there is a little convenence store you ride right past, picnic tables behind it by the river. So if you really didn't want to bring snacks, lunch or drinks with you, you can get stuff during the ride.

We did about 7-8 miles of the trail, but we'd love to go back sometime and ride the Jay end toward Farmington. Our trip took about 1hr 45 mins. I'll try to post a few picts of the trail.

"The northern third of this trail, between Wilton & Farmington has an improved surface, which is hard-packed and suitable for hybrid or Mountain bikes."