The pathway for vibrational-energy flow following the excitation of the first excited state of the acetylenic C-H stretch is investigated for a series of 10 terminal acetylenes in room-temperature gases and dilute solutions using transient absorption picosecond infrared spectroscopy. The transient absorption infrared spectra are obtained at three different probe frequencies. These experiments separately detect the population of the excited C-H stretch state, the population of vibrational states with 2 quanta of acetylenic C-H bend excitation, and the population of all other vibrational states with C-H stretch absorption frequencies within the laser bandwidth (25 cm(-1)) of the C-H stretch fundamental frequency. These measurements show that the initial redistribution event for the isolated molecule involves population transfer to vibrational states with bend overtone excitation. The secondary intramolecular vibrational-energy redistribution (IVR) process, which involves population transfer to the remaining near-resonant vibrational states, occurs on a time scale that is about 5 times slower than the initial redistribution event. The same relaxation pathway is observed in dilute solution. The total relaxation rate in solution for the slower process can be quantitatively described using a simple model where IVR and solvent-induced vibrational-energy relaxation (VER) proceed independently. The main effects of the solvent are to increase the extent of population relaxation for the first stage of IVR and to cool vibrational excitation rapidly in the low-frequency acetylene wag normal-mode vibrations produced by the IVR dynamics.