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the cycling the erie canal ­ july 2009 steve sokoloski so if you go on a multi-day ride it seems like you have to do a report my trip this summer was the erie canal ride sponsored by parks and trails new york this is a week long trip from buffalo to albany it is 400 miles in total and you average about 50 miles per day this year there were about 500 riders a key feature of this ride is that over 2/3 of the trip is on the compacted stone dust trail that follows the erie canal you do ride some roads especially getting in and out of the cities and some of the trail is paved bikeways but you will remember miles and miles of rail trail riding it is a trip for fat tires the stone dust takes a few mph off your average but it is a tour not a race and going slower lets you take in the scenery because you are following the canal it is pancake flat a couple of tcc folks i talked to who had done it before said that it was flat but i can tell you it is really flat the one or two big hills engendered much attention and conversation among the riders but they were nothing that we don t see as on a typical saturday ride it is a ride that is done by all ages and many families do it together the youngest rider to pedal their own bike the whole way was 7 and the oldest that started was 85 the mean age was 48 but folks felt that that number was skewed downward because there were 43 junior riders under 18 there were lots of grey haired riders riders were from all ability levels and i appreciated not being the only one who knows how to fill out a bike jersey while bikes came in all shapes and sizes from high end to low end the typical bike was a hybrid with upright handlebars and a click shifting hand grip there was one guy who calculated the cost of shipping a bike from texas and came to buffalo went to wal-mart and bought a huffy to do the ride i saw him at the bike mechanic s van trying to get the brakes adjusted because it is so flat it is recumbent heaven i have never seen such a wide variety of `bents in one place the tour is designed to celebrate the history and culture of upstate new york there is the canal of course and you travel by and over locks and waterways each day there was something special to see or do from taking a boat ride through a lock to visiting an art or history museum attending a wine tasting checking out the birthplace of mormonism or the birthplace of the women s rights movement in seneca falls the tour organizers did a marvelous job of working with locals to highlight towns and places of special interest and making sure you knew about them on the cue sheet or at morning meetings we camped one night at the revolutionary war monument of fort stanwix in rome and were hosted at the syracuse zoo when we were in the `cuse the accommodations were like most tours ,creating a tent city by camping at schools parks and colleges along the route there are optional camptel services they set up a tent and air mattress for you each day and some limited off site indoor accommodations unlike ragbrai this trip follows about the same route every year since this was the 11th year it is pretty well dialed it and runs as smoothly as any 500 person travelling circus can run a typical day is wake up an pack up your tent and gear take your duffel to the truck head to breakfast buffet in a school gym and head out to ride i was an early riser and usually was on the road by 7am or so there is a morning rest stop about 15-20 miles in with a typical array of fruit water gatorade crackers peanut butter nuts pretzels granola bars and sometimes local baked goods lunch was on your own but the cue sheet would let you know that there were lunch options in a town typically at the 25-30 mile mark and often there were local civic folks at the trail crossing with lists of restaurants to stop at in town afternoon rest stops come another 15-20 miles in and then finishing at another school park or college i was finishing between 2pm-3pm each day leaving plenty of time to pick up my duffel set up my tent grab a shower at the shower truck rinse out my bike shorts and shirt buy a smoothie grab my rented lounge chair and still have time before dinner to spend $20 for a 20 minute massage at the massage tables dinner was at the school or park tent city but two nights we were turned loose to find dinner in town there was some activity every evening either music or a speaker and usually there was a shuttle bus into the nearest town now i know what you all are thinking fifty miles per day starting at 7am finishing at 2pm is like 8 mph over flat terrain well it is a tour not a race the compacted stone dust is a little slower than pavement and i was pushing sweetness my heavy trek touring bike but as the ragbrai folks found out it is best to go slow and

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enjoy the experience i took my time and stopped to see the various sites along the way and found the most enjoyable part was the people you meet riding and in camp chatting up other riders about where they came from what other rides they had done how their ride was going what they were stopping to see led to great conversations dinner and lunch companions and contributed to just a general camaraderie and a great feel to the ride many people were veteran tour riders and knew where the special pie shop was in the next town or that the climb up the long driveway to the shrine of the martyrs was not worth it i learned about lots of other tours and multi-day rides from the vets every once in a while when some folks went by in a fast line and if my legs were up to it i jumped in cruising in the high teens and i really put the hammer down for a couple of hours on the afternoon of the 63 mile day when the thunderheads were rolling in but mostly it was leisurely cruise each day we did hit a perfect week of weather with cool temps and only one night of rain it would have been a different ride if the weather was hotter and more humid if you are looking to try out a multi-day ride and not yet up for biggie like a ragbrai or michigander cycling the erie canal http www.ptny.org/canaltour may be the trip for you it is a bit closer to home very well run and doable by riders of a variety of ability with 500 riders it felt big enough so that you were meeting new people every day yet you were not overwhelmed by the logistics of thousands of people you can long term park in albany put your bike on a truck and board a bus to buffalo to take care of getting to the start the coordination of the ride is handled by inmotion events http www.inmotionevents.net/index.html a veteran bike touring company that sponsors their own rides but also coordinates the bon ton roulet http www.bontonroulet.com in the finger lakes region and the great hudson valley pedal http www.ptny.org/hudsontour which are more road rides with more hills there is a great resource of all kinds of tours to be found at the national bike tour directors website http www.nbtda.com/default.php where you can search for rides by location or date i am headed back next year hope to see you there!

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