While I haven’t run it recently, the orange spur should be fine this time of year. It gets really bad in the spring during mud season; there was a section of shin deep water when I ran it in mid-March. It was fine (better than the South Hill Cider section during mud season) when I ran it mid-May and during Cayuga Trails at the end of May; during Cayuga Trails, the worst section of the Trailipop was in the meadow between Cayuga Inlet and Lick Brook.
Mapping the distances out online using Open Street Map data, the FLT road reroute trades a bunch of trail for road and makes the overall course about 500 meters shorter. Pete’s suggestion keeps the road length the same (within 100 m) but makes the overall course about 800 meters longer. My vote is to use the orange spur per Pete’s suggestion but to move the start/finish to the far side of the railroad trestle (for simplicity but ~100 m longer) or to the junction on the far side of the railroad trestle where the bridge trail and inlet ford trails meet (slightly confusing but approximately the same distance as the original course).
I’m unfamiliar with the orange spur, but it sounds like we have a consensus to use it. Anyone running hard for time can start where the Bridge Trail and the Inlet Ford trails meet, as @cpetroff suggests—those who are just looking for a completion don’t have to worry about it. Chris, if someone starts at the trail intersection, do they finish there as well or at the parking lot like normal?
I looked into changing the RunGo directions, but it’s going to be too hard. (RunGo isn’t designed to make editing existing courses easy.) @Petorius, would you be up for creating a new version of the course? I don’t think I have the mental fortitude to handle it right now.
I was very confused about this, but the suggestion is to run the FLT interactive map suggested bypass (the red dotted line in my screenshot) but replace Yaple Road with the orange spur on the east side of West King Road. So the new route for the course would be the pink highlighted route below, yes? Basically a 1:1 road for trail/trail for road.
@adamengst, to keep the distance the same, start and end at the trail junction on the far side of the bridge. @heathercobb3, yes, your highlighted route is what I proposed.
[Edit: On further thought, the absolute closest distance wise would be to push the start/finish slightly further to where the gas line comes down the hill (the lighter east/west-ish strip on the screenshot near the start/finish). This location is where the Cornell Botanic Gardens Lick Brook Natural Area signs are on the way out and the Finger Lakes Land Trust signs are on the way back.]
