looking to do this trail for a day this winter for training.  Anyone have any experience.  My question is should I have a problem running my road bike on it?  

There is a group of us riding the Tunnel Hill trail tomorrow at 10:00 am. We will be riding our geared fat tire bikes because of conditions. We're meeting at the Vienna Station and heading towards Tunnel Hill for some winter time training. Who knows, we may end up down at the Cashe River Winery. I heard they now serve beer there. Any body available should come catch up with us. We're going to try to get this in before the rain hits.

Hey--how did that ride go?  I've been talking about going there for a long time, but I am yet to make it.  Been there before, but it was always in much warmer, dryer weather.  I figured the cross bike with pretty descent tread would work....right?

Trish ,You are exactly right. The bike you described would easily have worked yesterday. In fact a young lady that rode with us yesterday had one and it made her fast. the trail was in excellant shape and solid as can be. There was no mushy or sloppy parts on it anywhere. We rode from Vienna to Tunnel Hill and back and a litttle more. We ended up with about 21 miles in. When the other trails are to soggy , the Tunnel Hill trail is a good training ground.

Quoted from Edward C.

Trish ,You are exactly right. The bike you described would easily have worked yesterday. In fact a young lady that rode with us yesterday had one and it made her fast. the trail was in excellant shape and solid as can be. There was no mushy or sloppy parts on it anywhere. We rode from Vienna to Tunnel Hill and back and a litttle more. We ended up with about 21 miles in. When the other trails are to soggy , the Tunnel Hill trail is a good training ground.

sooooo, having just been there do you think a standard road tire would work ok?  My road tires are 1 1/8 " wide, some but not much tread.  I hate to pick up a second set for my mtb along with tubes if i don't have to.  We are planning on doing the full distance ~ 50 miles which may be an issue running wide tires the whole way.  

thanks for the replys

I do not know a whole lot about rode bikes, so I can not give you even an uneducated guess. I will say that I don't believe I have ever seen a rode bike on that trail. I also will say that the last time I rode a rode bike was back in 1974. That was before I had silver hair. Can anybody else chime in and give an opinion?
                                   Good luck
                                    Edward C

I rode with Ed on Saturday.  Not that I'm an expert on road bikes, but I wouldn't ride that trail with road tires; it would be too bumpy a ride to enjoy.  I would think a hybrid bike would be a great bike for that trail; semi-skinny tires.  I had the wide tires and they created quite a bit of drag.  

Moon

Quoted from Edward C.

I do not know a whole lot about rode bikes, so I can not give you even an uneducated guess. I will say that I don't believe I have ever seen a rode bike on that trail. I also will say that the last time I rode a rode bike was back in 1974. That was before I had silver hair. Can anybody else chime in and give an opinion?
                                   Good luck
                                    Edward C

I concur with everything Mark said, I ride the trail on my road bike all the time with no problems, 23s or 25s, in the winter when its soft I sink in, its a lot more work to pedal those tires through.  Mark's set up is the perfect Rail Trail setup.

thanks all you've been most helpful.  A couple of questions, on the recommendation of " 700x28c minimum ".  Isn't that roughly 27 x 1 1/8?  pretty narrow?  Also, on your setup bullit, did you find the 1.9 width a bit wide if you were running hte whole distance ~47 miles.  

I have an 06 Giant Rainier that i do believe has 28 mm wide rims, was thinking about maybe trying to get 1.25's mounted on these rims.  Any reason this would not work.  Still debating though, 1.25's may be a bit narrow, 1.5's may be a better bet.  

Just my $.02

I've ridden the rail trail with both 2.1" Kenda Small Block 8, 2.1" Schwalbe Racing Ralphs, and some 1.5" Maxxis Detonators.  They all seem to work fine.  I personally think that 1.25" tires on a 26" wheeled MTB will yeild more resistance than a 1.5" or maybe even a 2.1".  Since the tire is so narrow and your contact patch will be so small with a 1.25" x 26" tire, I think they will sink a bit into the surface more than the other tires recommended.  My wife runs some 1.7" Kenda kwick tires (semi slick mtb tread) and they work really well.  If I had my choice, I think a semislick MTB tire in the 1.5" - 1.7" width range is the best choice for a 26" wheel.

I have a set of 1.25" road tires for 26" wheels, and in my opinion they are just silly looking and the best word I can think of to describe the handling of the bike with them on there is weird.

i appreaciate the feed back all, your imput helped me narrow my options.  I ended up going with the bontrager H2's 1.5's.  These are a street / trail tire that seem to be of good quality.  They were not cheap at just under 36 per tire.  I didn't want to go with cheap tires option and risk problems since we plan on doing the full trail distance.  I mounted them yesterady and they seem like a good fit for the task at hand and the 28mm rim width rims.  http://bontrager.com/model/07795
Since we have some 40 degree days coming up this week I may try and ride to work with them and see how i like them after a little distance ~16 miles round trip.

thanks

Those will work great for the road and rail trail.

If they don't have decent sized "knobs" on them, you might throw in some tuffy-liners.  I suspect there will be a fair share of cinders on the roads after our last snow.