Pachaug (CT), Arcadia to Big River?

[talisman]

I know how to get from Pachaug, CT to Arcadia, RI off road, is it possible to make it from Arcadia to Big River off road? Yeah, I know you need to make it over I-95, but I think I saw a dirt road that crosses under the highway in the Big River area.

Pachaug and Arcadia are huge combined maybe ~30,000 acres, but including Big River would make the ultimate epic ride.

[Scott O]

I dont' know of any great trails to link Arcadia to Big River, but you could leave Arcadia from the Northeast side and ride on Austin Farm Road to Rt 3. Go N on 3 and take an immediate rt on 102 east. You'll then ride 1+mile to the New London Turnpike which goes directly right into Big River. So I think you could connect Arcadia and Big River with just about 2 miles of paved roads.

[Baconman]

The corner of Big River closest to Arcadia is not good riding so like Scott O says you have to take the New London Turnpike (dirt road) into Big River to get to the good trails. There's a another way to get to the NLT and that's from the south side of Rt 165. If you take the Tefts Hill trail up to Rt 95 there's an underpass. From there Rt 3 goes to Ten Rod Road which gets to the NLT. Ten Rod is dirt unlike Rt 102 which is busy.

The bigger question is why do you need to stretch out the Pachaug-Arcadia loop. A few years back I tried to circumnavigate Arcadia and Pachaug. I didn't know all the trails but managed to ride 52 miles. From what I know now I could add another 20 miles to the loop. Unless you're John Stamsted that's a long ride.

The big, big loop around Arcadia and Pachaug:

Start at Arcadia main parking lot. Go south over the hill to Park HQ then up Teft Hill over to the John B Hudson along the Breakheart Trail to Escoheag to the Rangers house. Get to the fire tower and go down Tippecansett to Beach pond then take the blue trail over to Hell Hollow Road. After passing Ekonk (don't blink) take a right down the singletrack, cross Hell Hollow then find the pond (don't know the name) in Pachaug stay on the blue Nehantic trail up the loose climb and continue to Hopeville Pond. After a quick swim, take the road for a couple of miles to Rt 138/201 intersection. Head over Mt Misery down to the Rhodedendron east over to Green Falls over to Hidden Lake to Deep Pond and then back to the parking lot. I'm tired just typing the names of the landmarks.

[talisman]

Thanks for the replies. Why the question? I wanted some data to validate what we already know to be true: SE New England is a great place to Mtn Bike. My brother-in-law from CA made fun of me when I told him I got lost in Arcadia for over an hour (total time from hey where am I to this is the trail back to my truck) People from other parts of the US imagine mtn biking in RI or CT as doing endless loops in a park the size of a foot ball field.

[mtbtom]

People from other parts of the US imagine mtn biking in RI or CT as doing endless loops in a park the size of a foot ball field.


Tell me about it ! I did a 48 mile ride out of the house yesterday (most of it off road) and we live practically in the middle of a big city. There's lot's of trails around - you just need to figure out how to 'connect the dots'. Try that in some other metropolis.

Granted it's not big mountain singletrack riding but at least it's dirt. And when the leaves are on the trees you can't tell that you're only 25 yards from someone's brand-spakin-new bombastic McMasion. :)