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 Back in the 1920s, these were replaced with two very large locks when the Erie Canal was superseded by the Barge Canal to be able to handle larger loads and more traffic.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
Deacon Matt's Blog 