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
Deacon Matt's Blog 