My daughter and I are always using the trail. Last week we rode our bikes from South Kortright to Bloomville and had a great time. It's so beautiful. So lucky to have this in our backyard.

Mostly gravel & dirt trail btwn creek & hillside. Better for running/walking than biking. Nice waterfall

My favorite section of the Erie Canal is when I bike from Tow path in Pittsford to Long Pond in Greece where the gravel begins. The whole trail is asphalt and it's really smooth. It's a good 30 miles I would say.

Free parking can be found at a small park in Rennseller with toilets nearby,
Follow the RT 5 & 9 signs to the ped. bridge over the river which takes you directly onto the path. There are signs for the Mohawk / Hudson Bikeway.
The map is out of print but online. You will need to get off trail and ride on road for 4 miles before connection to the pathway. Side street at blue kiosk will take you to Cohos Falls (food nearby). About 12 miles to Falls.

We parked at the Forest City Trailhead and rode 10 miles to the North. There is a nice parking lot in Forest City.
The 5 miles from Forest City to Uniondale is recently maintained with fine cinders. The next 5 miles was coarser gravel, so a little more difficult, but still well maintained. The grade was pretty gradual, so even though it was uphill, it was quite do-able. On the way back, the same gradual grade meant there wasn't much coasting, but it was a little easier.
The trail crosses a few roads, but cyclist never need to ride on the road.
To discourage ATVs, there are gates periodically. Bikes can get around the gates, but ATVs can't.
I hope to explore other sections of this trail in the coming months. I will definitely come back.

This used to be my favorite bike trail, but on a recent day we encountered more motorized vehicles on the trail than bikes. We were overtaken by two ATVs, and had to pull off the trail to let a pickup truck pass! Clearly it's now unsafe for bikes to use the trail, yet when I contacted the sponsoring organization (Catskill Revitalization Corp.) they seemed unconcerned. It's a shame that this trail is now in decline and can't be recommended for biking. Let's hope these issues are addressed before it's lost for good.

Rode one way approx 7 miles starting in Amsterdam. While pedaling under the thruway overpass, it smelled like feces/urine. This area has an abandoned building and an adjacent overgrown wareyard with debris piles, junk and very weedy. Approx 1/3 mile past the overpass we stopped to look at map and weather app (the clouds were looking ominous) and I see a large man riding toward us (up until that point we saw no-one else on the trail). As he passed us grunting and snarling at us, I noticed he was filthy with dirty hair and face. He rode past us and less than 30 seconds later when I looked down the trail, he had disappeared into the brush (this is a straightaway section - you can see a long way). We turned around and within 10 minutes the downpour was upon us. We were soaked when we arrived back in am-dam.

My advice: do not pedal this section by the overpass alone. This man had no good reason to pursue us, then growl/grunt when passing us and then disappear back into the brush. If I had been solo riding, I can only speculate on a different outcome. He is living under/by the overpass. We apparently pedaled thru his "area".

Started out in bloomville. Rode 5.3 miles on fat tires. The trail was too rough for our bikes. We encountered an UTV on the trail. A grandpa and grandson were using the trail to get to town. Pops was setting a bad example imo showing it is okay to drive motorized on an nonmotorized trail... Also encountered heavy equipment on the trail in the same area. Either someone is maintaining the trail and removing debris or again, someone is using the trail to get to their property. The tracked equipment was leaving ruts so between the ruts, logs, rocks etc, this trail was too rough to be fun. The map shows the TH in bloomville is across the highway. That too is being overtaken by adjacent landowners. The "TH" was cluttered with industrial sized trash bins scattered everywhere leaving little room to park and no appearance of a "TH" . Despite these issues, the turntable foundation was cool. And so was the old dairy.

This is not a trail that is friendly to cycling. It is mostly an ATV trail. However, since the southern end runs so close to the D&H trail, you might want to give this a try. I was cycling the D&H and found the places where there were crossovers between the two trails. Inspecting the O&W, I found its roadbed to be vastly inferior compared to the (apparently recently upgraded) D&H. Since the O&W always stays east of the Lackawanna River, I figured it would have a bit of a different feel to the D&H- and it does. I would recommend doing what I did- unless you really want the exercise. I covered the O&W DOWN-hill from Forest City to Uniondale and covered the D&H 3 times (once down, twice up). The O&W is pleasant going downhill, but it was clear that the slippery cinder base would be a challenge going in the other direction.