A two day bike tour of the New River Rail Trail. The trail is 57 miles long, which we did both ways. Our total mileage was 103 miles, because we skipped the 5.5 mile spur to Fries on the second day due to rain. There are lots of great scenery on this trail. Waterfalls, two tunnels, some great old trestle bridges, and some historic sites. The surface is crushed limestone and it is well maintained. I used a bike packing bike with knobby tires.
Useful Links
This link is to the page that has a pdf of the trail map. There is also some other useful information on this site.
https://www.dcr.virginia.gov/state-parks/new-river-trail#park_trail_guide
Where to Park
We started at the south end of the trail in Galax, VA since we were coming from the south. We parked at the trail head. All parking must be paid for and there are kiosks at each lot to pay for parking. It is only $7 per day and all of the parking fees go to supporting the trail. Multi-day parking is allowed.
Description
Day #1 was 52 miles from Galax to Pulaski. We always make lots of stops along the way to take in the scenery. There aren’t many services on the trail. There is a camp store at Foster Falls, which is about half way down the trail. You can fill up your water bottles here. Other than that, there are only pit toilets along the trail. When we got to Pulaski, we took the Dora trail into town instead of the road. The Dora Trail took us within a block of our hotel – The Jackson Park Inn. Actually, it is the only hotel in Pulaski, but it is very nice and has a good restaurant in it.
Day #2 was back the way we came. After a continental breakfast in the hotel we took Main Street to the trailhead. Biking on the road wasn’t too bad, as it is two lanes each way. Again, we stopped at Foster Falls to refill our water bottles. We had planned to ride the spur trail to Fries, but skipped it due to a rain storm that came in.
Here are the links to my Strava statistics for these two day.