Month: May 2024

We finished our bike tour yesterday, but by the time we were on the train, I decided to just hang out with the guys and not tempt the WordPress gods to lose my work with an intermittent internet connection.

The weather yesterday was fantastic. It was actually a bit on the chilly side, starting at just over 50 degrees when we rolled out of the castle. It never got too warm but the sunshine and blue skies made up for the coolness.

At some point during the trip, we were discussing the difference between habits and traditions. I did all of the planning for our trip and intentionally changed up some of our itinerary based on learning from our last trip in 2020. However, there were some things we wanted to do again. Are those things habits or traditions?

JB is a creature of habit, especially with food. If he’s eaten at a specific place, he wants to go back. Back in 2020, we stopped in at a Dunkin Donuts on our way through Schenectady. So Wednesday night, JB said he wanted to do that again.

We made quick work of the first 18 miles from Amsterdam to Schenectady, stopping a little here and there for pictures. This part of New York state is beautiful, for sure. Sadly when people think of New York, they typically think of the city. In reality, that’s just a small part of what the state has to offer.

Per JB’s request, we went over to Dunkin to get our breakfast. A bagel sandwich, a large sweet tea and some donuts for dessert were enough for the rest of the ride.

The route today was a mix of old canal path, path along the Mohawk River, some surface streets, and finally a path along the Hudson River to take us into Albany.

At one of the locks we saw a huge crane being set up. We stopped to watch them for a little while. Apparently they were setting up this crane to load a generator on a barge later next week.

After reaching town of Cohoes, we went south on surface streets and trails until reaching the Corning Preserve park – the end of the route! We arrived around 12:30, with plenty of time to spare before heading to the Amtrak station for the 4:10PM train. We caught a few pictures then went into Albany for a little celebration and some lunch. I had a salad and cider, and we all toasted to the completion of our trek. We all made it this time!

The Amtrak station is in Rensselaer, across the Hudson River. There’s a new detour to get over the bridge. That set us back until we found the detour, but we made it with plenty of time to spare. A quick change into comfortable clothes, with a baby-wipe bath prepped me for the Amtrak ride back.

Traveling by bike with Amtrak can be a little bit of an adventure. Some trains have a baggage car for bikes, others you self carry the bike. Sometimes the bike protocol changes. Sometimes they ask you to put on a luggage tag, other times they don’t care.

Here’s my advice, first, you must book a bike with your ticket. They only have 4 spots on this particular train. Then, each coach car has one, and only one, place to hang your bike on the wall. They want you to remove your front wheel, hang the bike by the back tire, and then hopefully have enough time when you leave the train to get your bike back together quickly. I think these rules were made prior to more modern bikes that are a bit harder to remove your wheel. As I’ve done before, I just hung my bike by the front tire and left it all together. No issues.

As we wound our way back, we did cross a few of the places we’d cycled. We enjoyed a quiet evening and I listened to some music. It was nice to just sit still for a while.

When the train reached Rochester, I wished my cycling buddies goodbye. I arranged for my wife to meet me here so that we can spend some time with my parents.

Looking back at this trip, I’ve enjoyed it quite a bit. Good company, nice scenery, and cycling. A good combination. Looking forward, I don’t know what my, or our, next adventure will be. I’ll probably do another ride to work this summer or fall. Until then, I’ll mostly be focused on my road cycling.

Here are my thoughts on the Erie Canal / Empire State Trail. First, it is a very well developed path across New York. Much of it is well developed and the road segments are relatively tame with wide shoulders. Trail conditions are good and well maintained. There are a small number of segments where I think they could have done a better job of posting detours or the intended path. I had my Garmin bike GPS with me, so it was easy for us to avoid getting too far off track. I feel like the #PTNY team needs to revisit the trail marking in Rome since the detour looks rather permanent to me and could use some better signage for those of us who traveled from West to East. There was also a trail construction area in Western NY that had no detour posted on the western side.

Other challenges: if you are wanting to do 50-65 miles/day, there are some towns with limited lodging choices. If it is just two people, you probably won’t have to go too far to find lodging. If you are trying to arrange for a group, you will want to spend some time with google maps looking for towns with hotels ahead of time as your plan develops. One example is Amsterdam – very few choices there.

I’m a bit partial to the canal since I grew up near by. It’s a comfortable way to see much of what NY has to offer. Of the long distance trails I’ve done end-to-end, I’d put it in the top five. If you’ve not done it before, I recommend it for a week long adventure.

Statistics for this trip:
Miles: 386.78 over 7 days
Hours on Bike: 30 Hours, 44 Minutes (not including breaks)
Mechanical problems: 0
Tires and Tubes: No flats, Zubby lost a tire to glass
Meals with fries: 1
Trips to the Dinosaur BBQ: 2
Donuts: 3

With that, I thank you for traveling along with me. Until next time, may the Lord bless you and provide you with rest and enjoyment this summer.

Peace,
– Dcn. Matt

Today’s weather was quite a contrast to yesterday. We were blessed with blue skies, cool temperatures, good trail conditions, and an overall great day.

We were ‘wheels-down’ and rolling about 8AM today with a bit of 65 miles ahead of us. We decided to hit a Dunkin Donuts on our way out of town for breakfast. It was a bit nicer than eating at McDonalds, plus there’s donuts for a sort of breakfast-dessert after the bagel sandwich.

We took several breaks throughout the day to watch boats lock through and enjoy the day. We saw the same couple of boats several times and struck up a short conversation with one that was locking through going the other way. This couple was probably in their late 60s and spends their winters in Key West. Then it is a 21 boating day adventure up the Atlantic coast to get back to their home in Cleveland.

When we got to the town of Little Falls, we decided to skip the town but go out to Lock 17. This is my third complete trip on the Canal. In both of the previous trips (2010 and 2022), I did not venture out to Lock 17 – but should have. Lock 17 is a bit of a hike away from the trail which is why I didn’t do it before. But you are rewarded with an engineering feat: one of the tallest locks in the world. It drops the water just over 40’ along the Mohawk River. Before the canal, the only way to get cargo or boats across this area was to land carry the boats and cargo due to the steep drop and waterfalls.

We saw a boat approaching and Billy pulled out the drone for some amazing shots. He captured about 15 minutes of video of the boat locking through. The pictures and video may not look that impressive until you see us standing on the lock and how tiny we are in comparison to the surroundings. See if you can find us in the first picture standing on top of the cement upper part of the lock. You’ll have to zoom in to find us. The water being let out of the lock made a tremendous noise, much like standing near a major waterfall.

After our generous break at Lock 17, we continued our way uneventfully along the canal making good time towards our destination. We stopped briefly by the homestead of General Herkimer and then continued on to the town of Canajoharie for lunch.

Our final destination was the Amsterdam Castle. It really isn’t a castle, but a former armory that has been converted into a hotel and themed with castle decorations like suits of armor. It’s a neat place – and there really isn’t much else within biking distance of Amsterdam.

Dinner was a stone’s throw away at an Italian place, Lorenzo’s. It did not disappoint. It was the best meal of the trip for me.

Tomorrow we finish our trip with about a 50 mile trip from here to Albany, then crossing the Hudson and picking up the 4:10PM Amtrak back towards Buffalo.

Time for bed. I’m a little disappointed that my bed at the Castle is not a King sized bed. That would feel more appropriate.

Hopefully I’ll be able to blog on my way home tomorrow. If not, the next installment will likely be on Friday to wrap up the trip.

Peace!
– Dcn. Matt

Today was a great ride. No two ways about it. Good company, fun route, and epic weather. We all had a memorable day, in the good sense of the word.

After leaving the hotel in downtown Buffalo, we wandered across the street to a Tim Horton’s to get some tea and a couple of donuts. I really shouldn’t eat donuts, but I sometimes make exceptions for donuts. The other guys had never heard of Horton’s so I guess that’s one new experience.

Leaving Buffalo should have been a very short jog over to the Shoreline Trail. This is the trail that runs parallel to the Niagara River until we get to Tonawanda, NY. When we got over to the trail, there was a detour posted. We meandered a bit and eventually had to take surface streets for a few miles before going over to the Shoreline Trail. The views along the way are nice.

A few miles later, we passed under a major highway bridge that runs over to Grand Island. JB said he really wanted to go over the bridge. We rode across, went a little ways into the island and then returned. The bridge has a separated sidewalk but the traffic on the other side of the barrier was moving at highway speeds and the big trucks still made some serious wind. The sidewalk area was a little narrow and I can’t say I enjoyed that part of the trip as much as the other guys. But nonetheless, it was fun enough. Next time (?) I would like to plot a course that goes across to Canada and up the Canadian side to Niagara Falls, then back down to pick up the Canal trail. Not all of us had passports so I didn’t go that route this tine.

Once back on the trail, we finally left the urban area behind and turned eastward at Tonawanda to the Erie Canal Trail, also labeled the Empire State Trail. From this point forward, most of our riding will be a bit quieter alongside the original path of the Erie Canal.

Our next milepost was to reach Lockport. After a nice lunch at Tom’s diner, we wandered around at the locks there, read some of the history, and then pointed our way down the trail eastward.

Originally there were two parallel sets of 5 locks in Lockport that would get boats up / down the Niagara escarpment. Back in the 1920s, these were replaced with two very large locks when the Erie Canal was superseded by the Barge Canal to be able to handle larger loads and more traffic. Billy had never seen a lock in action before so we watched a boat lock through and wandered into the museum to learn a bit more about the history of the canal. Outside the museum is a set of bronze statues that recreate a famous portrait of the lock tenders in Lockport. We took our seats among them and got a picture.

Most of the rest of the day was uneventful as we enjoyed the crushed gravel path next to the canal. There was a mile or two of the trail that was in very bad condition due to construction. No detour posted on the west end of it and it was very good that it wasn’t a rainy day or we’d have been ankle deep in mud. When we got to the end of the construction there were detour directions posted for riders going the other way. #PTNY: not good, how about posting some detour signage?

We eventually made it to Medina, NY and found our hotel, checked in and did a deep scrubbing. I’m going to sleep well tonight!

Tomorrow we head to downtown Rochester, about 50 miles. We are going to try to get there early enough to spend some time at the Strong Museum of Play in the evening.

Today’s stats: 55 miles, 2 donuts, no mechanical problems.

Peace!
– Dcn. Matt