Riding across New York state along the Erie Canal is a popular bike touring route that I’ve had on my list for a while and I recently had the opportunity to do. I was chatting with a neighbor about biking this spring – it truly is a small world as we have both cycling and sailing friends in common – and she invited me to do a trip she was organizing along with a group of her friends from New Jersey. Since my head was occupied with stuff happening at home and my own looming bike adventure this summer (more on that in the next post), I was happy to tag along as it didn’t require a lot of mental bandwidth and it would be a good shakedown cruise for the work I did on my bike and some new gear.

The Route

The route more or less follows the original Erie Canal of 1825 – known as “Clinton’s Ditch” named after New York Governor DeWitt Clinton – and traverses the state just north of the Finger Lakes and through the Mohawk Valley to the Hudson River. Like all other barge canals in the US, it opened up the movement of people and goods between the east and the Midwest and even though it is still in operation today was largely a “transitional technology” bridging the gap between horse drawn wagons and railroads, a period of only about 50 years, extremely short considering how much money was spent on canals like this and the C&O. One thing I learned is that there are essentially three canals, the original, the expanded that follows much of the same original alignment and the current “barge canal” which has a very different alignment in places as it uses existing lakes and rivers because it is so much bigger.

A topographical map of New York State really shows clearly how the canal gets across the state. It’s always amazing to me they figured this all out without the benefit of the “big picture” provided by satellte imagery.

The total route length is about 375 miles and our trip was broken up into eight riding days with mileage between 30 and 65 miles each day. The short days were on the ends and made the logistics a bit more relaxed and even for the 65 mile days there was plenty of time for rolling along chatting and multiple stops per day for sightseeing. It’s a bit of a departure from my typical solo trips where I don’t stop quite so much, go a bit faster and typically don’t do days shorter than about 60 miles. But with company, it was very enjoyable to smell more roses than normal.

One of the really nice things about this route is the signage is excellent. While I like to have the route on my Garmin head unit, you really don’t need it. You can easily just follow the Empire State Trail signs, one of the real benefits of a big picture trail overlay – the Empire State Trail moniker is essentially just branding – on top of what is more or less a collection of locally owned and maintained trails, all with their own local names.

Travel and Overnight Logistics

The nice thing about bikepacking in this part of the world is Amtrak finally go off their duff and now allows roll on/roll off bikes on trains (as I learned last summer) which makes A to B trips much easier because you don’t have to deal with retrieving cars after. So I quickly booked trains to Buffalo (from NYC to avoid a change, with Lisa dropping me close from a work trip) and home from Albany to BWI (with a change in NYC). For overnight lodging the original idea was to camp using numerous campgrounds along the route which are very popular during the summer months.

In the run up to the trip, there was a bit of churn in the makeup of the trip both in who could go and who wanted to camp and the fact that most campgrounds were not open this early in May, ultimately resulting in using Air BnBs overnight and a vehicle driving to Buffalo. Turns out in this churn, I mixed up the start date so was offered a ride in the vehicle going to Buffalo from New Jersey. I quickly canceled my train to Buffalo and planned on meeting the crew in Princeton NJ. As far as camping, some Air BnBs allow camping in the yard and I planned on doing that where possible.

Lisa still dropped me close and I had a prologue ride from her hotel in Ewing NJ over to Princeton to meet Jerry who gave me a nice tour of the University/city before we met Cyndi (my neighbor). We went to dinner at the invitation of Henry who accompanied us on the trip along with several other of his friends. We stayed overnight at Jerry’s and in the morning packed up and headed up to Albany with 2 vehicles. At the Albany train station, we consolidated the five of us and shuffled off to Buffalo (sorry couldn’t resist).

Day By Day

This is my brief log of the rides each day. Lenny Rosenfeld has a great day by day writeup on his journal over at Crazy Guy on a Bike, definitely check that out for another perspective.

As I typically do, there are some highlight pictures here, but you can always view a full photo album of the trip.

Our typical day was wake early, coffee at the house, and head to breakfast either walking to before suiting up or suiting up and riding to depending on how close the place was. I ate more for breakfast (typically a big omelet, toast and hash browns) than I have in years. We’d ride, chat, sight see, and often I would go ahead to stretch my legs a bit for the last miles to the destination. My gig was to find a place to get post ride beer (NY is awesome as they have decent beer in every quickie mart or gas station), and then head to open up the Air BnB.

Prologue – Princeton

I had a nice ride over from Ewing NJ to Princeton thanks to some route guidance by Jerry. Of course as a chi chi college town, Princeton in pretty nice and very bike friendly. It has great infrastructure and excellent transit access (bus and rail). No surprise. While a bit cool, it was a nice tour around by Jerry who knows the place inside and out having bike commuted and worked in the biz there for a long time. We met Cyndi who rented a car and drove up and did a little more touring followed by a ride to Jerry’s house for the evening. The next day was a non-riding travel day to Buffalo.

25 miles. Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11324744593

Day 1 – Buffalo to Lockport

We got to our Air BnB a kind of whacky old building across from a nice park, unloaded and walked over to a local burger joint for dinner. Since they did not allow camping, I camped “inside” on my air mattress.

We saddled up the next morning a bit late as the temps were in the low 50s with light rain, something we would see a bit of over the next week. Fortunately, it did not last long. We did a little touring around Buffalo with a local friend who stashed the car for a week, then wound our way out of Buffalo.

Eventually we picked up the canal towpath trail proper and rolled through some cute little towns, stopping for lunch at a “crab shack” kinda place along the canal and finally ending the short day in Lockport where we got some cool views of the locks there.

We got to our Air BnB in Lockport and I set my tent up that night in the yard before we headed to dinner at a nice Italian restaurant Molinaros for dinner. It rained hard for a bit, but good ole Big Agnes kept me dry. This would prove to be the last time the tent came out because it just wasn’t practical (and was close to my sleeping bag’s lower temp limit of 50F), so for the rest of the trip, I camped indoors which was always very comfortable.

42 miles. Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11341620563

Day 2 – Lockport to Rochester

It was sunny and cool, the scenery was very wide open and flat with the limestone canal tow path very consistently smooth. It rolled through a bunch of small, cute canal towns. My guess is they do pretty well during the height of the season and the cycling/canal tourists bring much needed business. The one striking architectural feature in this part of the canal are “lift bridges”. I’ve never seen anything quite like them in the past. Other “lift bridges” like the train bridge over the Cape Cod Canal are nominally in the up position very high and are only usable in the down position. These bridges are only about 10′ high and have steps going up to them so when they are in the nominal up position, they can be crossed by people while boat traffic can pass, but in the down position, they are accessible to vehicles. When they are down, it looks weird to have the two stair cases to “nowhere” on either side.

We got to our Air BnB in Rochester through parts of the inner city, but it was a really cool ats and crafts 4 square probably about 100 years old with the original varnished trim inside. There were no restaurants other than fast food junk within walking distance so we got Mexican take out which was really good. Since the neighborhood was a little suspect (there was a huge 5am car chase) I opted to camp inside.

64 miles. Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11348602818

Day 3 – Rochester to Clyde

On the way out of Rochester, we were off the trail, but went right through downtown and were treated with smells of Genesee Beer and great rainbows at the falls along the Genesee River. The weather was a bit nicer and the sun came out in the afternoon with temps in the 70s. It was perfect riding. There were a few cute little towns like Fairport where we met a companion, who lives in the area, for the rest of the ride. There was a bit of road riding after lunch (I was still burping up my omelet so did not have anything) and went off the front with Henry who also wanted to get his heart rate up. We arrived in Clyde about an hour before the rest of the group and sat in the local park having an IPA wrapped in a leg warmer (the cyclist version of a brown paper bag). The Air BnB was a “walkup” apartment, pretty cool. But Clyde looks like it doesn’t get much love these days. If you wanted to by a cheap building to do whatever (as long as you don’t need local customers) there’s lots of unoccupied commercial space! The only place open for dinner was a takeout Chinese restaurant, bit it had a few tables so we were able to eat the takeout in. It was good, but I think I over did it on the chilis in my Szechuan Beef though… 🚽

58 miles. Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11356428197

Day 4 – Clyde to Syracuse

We got rolling to nice warm temperatures with a honkin’ tailwind at 20+mph. There was a lot of road riding on this leg because the old canal alignment ran through really swampy areas and is now mostly gone, along with the towpath. But the roads were nice and with the tail wind, it was a “no chain” kind of day, at times being spun out at 25-30 mph. Weeeeeeee! I went off the front pretty easily just pedaling and Henry came with me a couple times, but when everyone stopped for lunch I kept rolling (again still stuffed) and starting to worry about the impending cold front driving the breeze. I realize I really am a weather worrier, but I think that definitely comes from sailing experience offshore.

There was an option at the end of the ride to go around Lake Onondaga, which has a really nice loop trail, and I wanted to get around that before the crap hit the fan. I did make it and it was crazy windy on the lake, maybe 25-30 knots. I made a bit of a bad choice of routes, thinking the route I had was going to take me on a highway, but in reality the route I took almost DID take me onto I-81, doh! But I got it sorted and came to the lovely Air BnB maybe an hour before the group that did not take the loop around the lake due to the lateness of the day. It just started to rain when they showed up.

I failed to get beer, but there were some in the fridge thankfully! We walked to a restaurant named Lavish Mediterranean and there was so much food in my lamb dish, I left almost half of it. When does that ever happen?? At this point although I could have camped in the yard, but due to weather and laziness I’d pretty much given up on that and continued camping inside for the rest of the trip.

58 miles. Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11363959962

Day 5 – Syracuse to Utica

It rained a bit overnight, but was cool and dry in the morning. We rolled to breakfast and then hit the cycletrack out of Syracuse. About half way to Utica there was a great canal museum where we stopped at chatted with folks a bit. In this area there were lots of “ceremonial” aqueducts that were rebuilt to show how they crossed streams and such, but since this was on the old alignment, they were just for show.

Once we got back to the modern canal alignment, we were treated to a private lock demonstration at Lock 21 as they were doing some testing prior to the start of the season. They drained a basin and opened a set of doors for us. Very cool.

Coming into Utica, it’s clear the city has seen some rough days. This was the longest day and I again didn’t stop for lunch and was ahead of the group, but did remember to get beer on the way to the Air BnB which was definitely not in a great neighborhood. Again got take out as none of us felt great about walking around there at night. And I definitely was not camping outside there. But it was all fine.

64 miles. Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11372895011

Day 6 – Utica to Canajoharie

We left Utica with chilly temps and rain but found a nice breakfast place in town. There was a bit of road riding in the rain leaving Utica and directly to the east, but the rain mostly tapered off as we entered the heart of the Mohawk Valley where the scenery was definitely different and much more mountainous. I was pretty cold so again rode ahead skipping the lunch stop to stay warm opting to eat lunch at the Village Restaurant at the end in Canojoharie.

Canajoharie (we learned pronounced “cano-jo-harry”) was a cute town and the Air BnB was a 140 year old house in great condition. I unloaded my gear, showered/warmed up before the group got there and I made a beer run. Despite some life earlier downtown on a Friday night, by the time everyone else got cleaned up and walked into town the only place left open was a good Mexican place. Always works for me!

44 miles. Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11379836755

Day 7 – Canajoharie to Schenectedy

The day started out cool with a little light rain off and on, definitely a smock on, smock off (as we say sailing) depending on whether it was rain or sun. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous in the heart of the Mohawk Valley with cliffs on either side of the canal. This was definitely the break between the Catskills to the south and the Adirondaks to the north. We all rode together and chatted all morning since it wasn’t too cold. There was some road riding but the trail was also paved virtually the entire way.

We stopped at the Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site, the only spot where the alignment of all three iterations of the canal were in the same place. It was a really nice museum with lots of interesting facts and helpful staff.

In Amsterdam, we looked around a bit and finally decided to have lunch at Shorty’s but it started to rain again when we left and I was getting cold so decided to ride a bit faster into Schenectedy. The route into the city dumps you right on Union Street in the historic district and the old architecture is fantastic! You can tell there was a lot of turn of the century industrial money there and the fabric is largely intact.

I once again stopped for beer before getting to the Air BnB, a townhouse just east of the historic district and met the rest of the group when I arrived. We showered and went out looking for a restaurant, but since it was Saturday night and it was jammin’, we could not get in anywhere. We finally found a local bar that had some pretty good food and great local beer.

44 miles. Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11388326668

Day 8 – Schenectedy to Albany

Once again it was raining steadily as we suited up and headed downtown for breakfast in Schenectedy. It was a little more hurried than normal as we had trains to catch in the early afternoon. We had routed north of the Mohawk River, off the signed Empire State Trail route, but chose not to do that in lieu of staying on the signed route as it was a paved trail and a bit shorter but much hillier as we went by the GE Research installation.

On the run into Albany we came to the “T” intersection of the two branches of the Empire State Trail, took some pictures and slid down the hill along the Hudson River into Albany. We eventually found the eastern mile 0 sign, took some more pictures and continued on to the train station.

Crossing over the river there was a trail bridge out and we were routed on a temporary path made out of a jersey barrier. It had a lot of crap in it and when I stopped to take a picture on the bridge I must have run over something really sharp because I was spewing sealant out of my back tire when I got off the bridge, ironically 100 yards from the train station. I thought it might seal itself, but it was just a little too big, so I eventually got a dart into it and pumped it back up. All good.

32 miles. Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11394991472

Epilogue

We got changed at the station and grabbed some lunch. Henry and Lenny grabbed their car and headed back to New Jersey, Jerry got a train back to Buffalo to get his car, Joe a train back to Rochester where he lives and Cyndi and I got a train to NYC transferring to the NE Regional to BWI.

Cyndi and I were going to ride home from BWI to Annapolis via the B&A trail, but it was late (9:30pm), dark, still raining and cold (what is up with this spring weather?!), so we opted to call for an extraction and Lisa came and picked us up.

All in all it was a great trip with interesting conversation, scenery, and camaraderie. It’s always fun to meet new people. Perhaps the most interesting tidbit is pretty much each person only knew one (or two) others in the group, so everyone was more or less on the same footing, and we all got along very well.