Just One More Ride

 Just one more ride to add. After the Manhattan ride (The Cherry On Top), I was picked up at the hotel by my older brother Ed. We packed up the car with my bike and luggage and sped off to his home in New Jersey. He lives in a beautiful lakeside community called Fayson Lakes. A great place to live and raise a family. Every year, Ed and his Wife, Rose, host a fishing derby for the kids. Prizes are awarded based on size, number and combined weight caught within age categories. The derby is being held this Saturday and he can always use a helping hand to set up the operation. I am staying for a couple of days to lend a helping hand.

The area is a beautiful location for cycling as well. Some roads are narrow without much of a shoulder and other roads are remote and breathtakingly beautiful. I set up a 30 mile out and back to Denville. The route is at the bottom of this blog setup as a figure 8.

The route starts out crossing a dam that forms the largest lake and is currently home of many Canadian geese and their goslings. The temperatures were cool and the winds were calm as I crossed the dam about 8 AM.

I popped out on to Boonton Ave. A rolling road without much of a shoulder that has a nice rolling action so that you drop down a bit to pick up speed and stand on the peddles to get to the top of the next hill only to repeat the sequence over and over.  On occasion, you will hear a large truck behind you and then pull off to the side to let them pass. Cars on the other hand can easily maneuver around you.

There are many opportunities to leave more traveled roads and head off to quiet roads the travel around additional lakes with only occasionally crossing paths with people walking their dogs.

School is still in session and it's a weekday, but you can imagine the lakes in the summer with kids in the water and sail boats and paddle boats dotting the lakes

The lakes will often freeze over in the winter and the summer activities will give away to winter sports and ice skating.

The turn around point is in Denville about 15 miles into the ride. Denville is a small community with an main street lined with small upscale shops. A stop at Church Street Bagels is mandatory.

I find cycling to be a very sensory activity. As you ride your muscles and lungs strain as you accelerate and climb up the hills. You feel the wind as it washes over you arms and legs. Your mind calculates distances to the next turn when to accelerate or decelerate through the turns and skin is cooled as your sweat evaporates as you coast down the hills. Your ears are listening to the sounds behind you. Is it a car, or a truck or maybe a school bus? What's it's speed and do they have enough room to pass you safely? You feel the vibrations of the bike as it rolls along the road surface. Sometime smooth over an newly paved road, sometimes harsh vibrations over an older road and sometimes jolts as you roll over frost weathered roads that will require replacement soon. Don't forget about the smells of newly cut lawns or blooming flower and bushes as you pass by. On occasion you will pass through a microclimate where the air is rushing down a valley or a forest and it will suddenly turn from warm summer temperature to a stream of cool, cool air enveloping you. I cannot comprehend any activity that subjects you to as many pleasurable sensory experiences as cycling. 

Today's Photos

The Cherry On Top

Well today is the day. The final day of our New York State journey. From Buffalo to the tip of Manhattan. A total of 619 miles in 10 days. 6 guys from across the US meeting in Buffalo to share the pleasure of the joy of cycling; Chuck, Chris, Doug, Frank, Mike and myself. 

When we were planning this trip. We were simply going to cycle from Buffalo to Albany to follow the Erie canal. A nice trip but when I realized that we could continue on cycle trails all the way to the southern tip of Manhattan, it wasn't difficult to nudge the rest of the group to take on the challenge. The planning started in late January with each of the riders taking a task. Hotel rooms, dinners, breakfast stops, lunch stops, vehicles and bike routes.  You break all the tasks down and it's all very doable.

Today was the cherry on top of the tour. Perfect cycling weather, cool in the morning, blue skies and a promise of warmer temperatures as the day progressed. None of us had cycled in NYC before. Our route started north of Manhattan in Yonkers, travel down the west side to the southern tip of Manhattan, referred to as the battery after the artillery batteries that were positioned along the southern tip of Manhattan to protect the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam when the Dutch had control. The tour continued up the east side winding toward Central Park in the center of the island before exiting north, through Harlem (the name is another Dutch gift originally Haarlem), before returning to Yonkers (another Dutch gift, Jonkheer).

The beautiful bike path continued right to the northern tip of Manhattan (who would have thought), though the morning rush hour traffic could roared close by.

Left to right, Mike, Frank, Chuck, Chris and Doug

The trail ended in Van Cortlandt Park and before entering Manhattan, we had a quick safety talk. Use hand signals; right, left, stop and obstacles. Keep together, regroup as necessary, leader up front with a sweep rider in the rear. All pretty standard stuff for a group ride. Manhattan is always under construction with detours likely.

We jumped from the trails to the city streets, mostly residential. A nice warm-up before the much denser streets ahead. Right, left, right left winding our way to the Broadway bridge, crossing the Harlem River. The bike lane across the bridge was under construction, so we had to scoot across the bridge and more twisty turns followed by a detour or two until we found our way to the Empire State Trail following the Hudson River south and beneath the George Washington Bridge, or as the natives call it, the GW.

As we continued south, we started to pick up riders zipping by us and runners and walkers. At about 21 miles into the ride it was time for some coffee. Using Google, Mike located a bakery just a couple of blocks off the trail. Someone wondered if we actually ride our bikes, because all of our photos are of us having coffee. I assured her that we did indeed ride, but that any ride without coffee and snacks was a wasted tour. "Ride to eat and eat to ride" is my motto.

We reached mile zero of the Empire State Trail at 12:30. After stopping at "ground zero" of the World Trade Center. We then took a short detour to view the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island in the distance near the New Jersey side of the harbor. It was now time to head back to Yonkers mostly following the East side of Manhattan.

On the way back, we hit several detours that made changes to our planned route. NYC is always under construction it seems and our primary goal was to make our way to Central Park. We hit several sights along the way, under the Brooklyn Bridge and the United Nations to name a few. On way back we followed the surface streets. We reached the Southeast corner of the park near the Plaza Hotel and spied a Sabrett's hot dogs cart and just had to stop to get one and a drink. We were hitting all the high points today.

Now it was time to dive into Central Park and enjoy a couple of miles of car and traffic light free cycling as we continued north. As we exited Central Park, we still had a ways to go to get back to the hotel in Yonkers we continued our navigation hoping that the charge of our various GPS devices would hold out. 

Chuck had a plan to continue on without them. Simply find Broadway and follow it all the way to the Broadway bridge and pick our way to the trail-head. Fortunately that wasn't required.

The route placed us on the Harlem River Greenway that followed the Harlem River Drive (HRD). The ride was unexpectedly beautiful with the Harlem River to our right and tall apartments located in the Bronx on the far side of the river.

After crossing the Broadway Bridge, during rush hour traffic, it was retracing our morning's twisty left, right, left to the Van Cortlandt Park and the trail head. With 9 more miles to go, we were back to the hotel.

A wonderful and unforgettable day of cycling.

If you would like to recreate the entire tour, the collection of the 10 days of routes are located at the following URL: https://ridewithgps.com/collections/3426853

I hope that you found this blog enjoyable.

Happy Biking,

Brian Cox 

Today's Photos

A Chilly Day For The First Of June

For the first day in June, it was a chilly start. Riders were outfitted in their cold weather gear this morning as it was overcast and chilly. If you look at the Epic Ride Weather image below, you can see that the temperature were in the low 50's but it felt more like the low 40's. Must have been because of the overcast clouds and damp air. With everyone bundled up, we headed off.

The trails today, like yesterday, were asphalt and the trails were mostly rail to trails. Meaning that the trails were built on the right of ways of abandoned rail lines. Being abandoned rail lines, the trails were mostly straight and if there were curves, they were gentle. While on the rail to trails, the climbs never exceeded 2 or 3% grades.

The ride today was fairly short, only 48 miles so we left pretty late at 10 AM and took our time. We even took a coffee stop at 14 miles at a nifty place that we had found on Google.  The shop as right off the path in a town called Mahopac. This was a great example to not judge a book by it's cover, the shop on the exterior was nondescript, but once you stepped into it, you almost felt that you should be taking off you shoes. The menu was heavily tilted toward teas plus they had cold brewed coffee. We were generally shocked how much we enjoyed our unexpected drinks. The name of the shop is Rowseelee. Click on the link to find out a bit more about the shop.

The lunch followed at the 24 mile mark and the beautiful trails continued. Again, today as in the previous days, the amount of time and attention paid to making these beautiful cycling and walking paths were very enjoyable and as we were inching closer the Manhattan, they became more heavily used. There were tunnels, bridges, old rail road stations and memorials. I had even spotted a COVID-19 Memorial.

The sun eventually broke out, the day warmed up and became very delightful. I might even like to do the Buffalo to NYC trip again sometime, perhaps a mid-June trip.

Tomorrow will be the cherry on top. We're heading into Manhattan from Yonkers to the battery and back again. About 52 miles round trip. None of us have ridden in Manhattan previously and we don't know what to expect. We hoping that we won't have any significant issues, Manhattan has upgraded the city to make it more bike friendly and we'll have a complete report after the ride is completed. We plan on leaving Yonkers at 8 AM, hitting Manhattan shortly after rush hour traffic, circle the island and be out of the city before evening rush hour traffic. We'll know if the plan worked in 24 hours. Wish us the best.

Today's Photos

I May Be In Sleepy Hollow

 We may have cycled back to the 1820's and the time of Washington Irving. As we left our motel and headed to New Paltz, we passed a school called Ichabod Crane high school and saw signs for Rip Van Winkle bridge. I sure hope that I don't meet mysterious Dutchmen and fall deeply asleep in the Catskill Mountains.

For the most part, the wonderful trails that we've experienced in the past couple of days have continued.  I have been struck by the amount of enjoyment that we've had as a direct result of New York State having invested in cycling infrastructure.

Today's ride was 64 miles with over 95%, or greater, in separated cycle paths making the journey safe and fun and reducing confrontations with automobiles.

We have left the Erie Canal behind us and are now traveling south along the Hudson Valley with quite a bit more climbing that we have had when following the canal and crossing the very wide Hudson river. The views from the high river bridges are spectacular.

I had a minor mechanical issue today on the road. I couldn't take care of it with the tools that I had with me and fortunately Frank was able to pick me up in the SUV and take me to a bike shop in Kingston. A place called Kingston Cyclery. An unassuming shop where I was met at the door and explained the issue. Knowing that I was on a bike tour, the mechanic took my bike into the shop and with no drama, was able to professionally resolve the issue and get me back on the road while we traded touring experiences. 

I was fortunate on several accounts; first that Frank could pick me up in the SUV, second that I was able to locate a quality bike shop with my smart phone, third that it occurred during business hours, forth that the shop was able to put me at the head of the line to fix my bike and finally that the shop was not too far from the route that I was able to navigate back to the bike trail and continue the ride. Sometimes you just need to count your blessings. In addition, I met another rider on the trail that helpfully pointed me to a great restaurant at our destination, New Paltz, called Main Course. A place that I would highly recommend.

Today's Photos

Good-Bye Castle, It Was Fun

 It was fun being a knight for a night, but the road is calling and we need to mount our trusty steeds for the road is calling us. We did have time for one final photo.

As we stepped outside, the ground was wet from an early morning shower. The air was cool and damp. The weather forecast showed a low probability of rain and off we went.

We picked up the trail where we left off yesterday and the with and the beautiful trail went on for miles and miles.

Chuck, with his sharp eyes spotted a blue heron on the other side of the canal bank and with a bit of patience, I was able to grab the shot of him looking for his morning meal.

At this point of the canal, it's really wide. So wide that a spillway was constructed to raise the height of the canal so that a lock could be installed. If you look closely, the spillway is under the 3 support arches and the canal water spilling over the spillway. the canal lock is between the 2 vertical buildings on the lower center of the photo. Both of them are marked with a number 8. The canal lock gates are between the 2 vertical buildings

As we were leaving Albany we were required to take a detour next to a highway in order to cross a bridge. The experience was a bit unnerving to say the least.

We arrived at the Blue Spruce Motel in Valatie NY at about 4:30 in time to shower and start this blog before we went into town to have dinner. Tomorrow is going to be another  70 mile ride and we plan on being in the road by 8 AM. The weather is likely to be similar to today with overcast clouds and a chance of rain. The next day, Saturday, is likely to be sunny and warmer. Below was the prediction for today and it was fairly accurate.

Today's Photos

I Wanna Stay In A Castle

  With a group of 6 riders and one SUV, someone needs to move the SUV and shop for lunch supplies and today that was me. I took the morning shift. Stopped at the market and picked up the lunch essentials and scooted to the designated lunch stop (about 1/2 the way through the ride) and waited for the other five riders to arrive. The lunch stop was in Saints Johnsville at a marina (more of a boat landing) on the Erie Canal. The riders started to roll in close to noontime and we picnicked under some shady trees with a beautiful view of the canal.

Douglas was taking the afternoon shift of the driving and I headed off with Chris on to Amsterdam NY about 31 miles. The winds were light and the sky sunny with puffy clouds. The main attraction was the trail. Over the years, many train tracks have been abandoned and we're fortunate that many of them have been converted to trails for walking and cycling.

You can spot a rails to trails path because it will run in a fairly straight path and generally gentle grades. As a plus, the temperatures were in the low 70's and a mild breeze. I love the feel of the breeze flowing over your arms and legs as you move. Similar to the feeling of water as you swim. I'm sure that you have heard of runners high as the endorphins kick in and I'm sure that the endorphins were kicking in today. 

Today, we were scheduled to stop at Karen's ice cream, about 6 miles from the ride end. It's located on a quiet highway that is very popular as we just had to stop in. While other riders had ice cream, I opted for a chocolate malted. It was only 4 PM and dinner was a couple of hours away, so I ordered a large.

A big surprise occurred when we arrived at our hotel, the Amsterdam Castle. It's a very imposing structure located high on a hill looking every inch of a medieval European castle. Built in 1895 as a National Guard Armory and after extensive renovation, it's a hotel and private residence. Click on the link at the bottom of this blog to view the interior of the castle. The rooms are huge and filled with art of all types. 

Tomorrow morning we'll be heading out early at about 8 AM and planning on stopping in Schenectady for breakfast. The day will be a 70 mile plus day and we want to get a good head start.

If you would like to view the collection of our daily routes, you can click on the following link and follow us all the way to Manhattan:

https://ridewithgps.com/collections/3426853

Today's Photos

What a Nice Day For A Ride

What a nice day for a ride. Today we traveled from Syracuse to Utica. Nice bump of climbing at the beginning of the ride, then flat for the remaining part of the ride. After the first 8 miles of the ride it was mostly on quite and flat trail riding mostly along canals. The wildlife was abundant as we toured. Chuck spotted a bald eagle resting in a tree overlooking a canal and Douglas spotted many fish and a muskrat. Maybe the eagle was looking for a fish for his next meal?

We stopped for a morning coffee at the 17 mile mark and spent about 30 minutes sipping coffee and munching on danish before heading off to lunch at the 31 mile mark. Chuck was waiting at a nice shaded picnic area with the lunch fixings. We still had approximately 30 more miles to go, so we shoved off for more trail riding.

We crossed the canal several times including a couple of crossings at canal locks. We came across a marker stating the location of the start of the original canal in 1817 (the war of 1812 only ended in 1815). As I may have mentioned before, besides the original canal, the canal was enlarged and re-routed twice more in 1862 and 1918. Who knew that cycling could be educational?

About 7 or 8 miles from the end, we stopped for some drinks and snacks (we really weren't in hurry to end the ride) at a Dollar General. In this neck of the woods, the Dollar General stores are more common that 7-Eleven stores. From there, we jumped onto a trail that followed the canal almost all the way to the motel. This evening, it's a Red Roof Motel.

Tomorrow we head to Amsterdam, about 66 miles from Utica. To me, it's amazing that we will have covered 329 miles in 5 days on these spindly spindly machines with skinny tires and having a ball doing it. We'll be at about the 1/2 way point of the 10 day ride with more fun to come.

Today's Photos

Paradise on Two Wheels

 Almost all days on a bicycle are special, just some days are more special than others and today was one of those days. As we started out from Palmyra the temperature was just a bit brisk at 59 degrees, the sun was shining with a promise of blue skies and almost no chance of rain. 

I was anticipating that it would warm up fairly quickly even it was a bit chilly at the start, I left my jacket in Chuck's SUV.  From the Best Western hotel it was a bit over a mile to re-join the canal trail. The hard packed trail had dried out from the showers yesterday with only a couple of isolated puddles that we could easily maneuver around. The canal was on the right and at one point had opened into a fairly large lake. At eleven miles we pulled off the trail for a morning espresso and danish but were a bit confused when the coffee shop was closed. We knew that there was another shop ahead in Lyons so we headed off. But it too was closed. Finally it occurred to us that it was Memorial Day and it would be difficult to find anything open. Nothing to do but press on.

It had warmed up by now and everyone that had started off with jackets had removed them and stashed them away. Shortly after 27 miles we popped out of the trail and on to Route 31 where we had some climbing in front of us. The road was smooth with only a few cars as we just zipped along. If you take a look at the ride trace below, you will note that the flatter portions are where we are following the canal and where there are bumps and climbs are where we are not adjacent to the canal and are climbing a ridge that the canal had bypassed.

Lunch was a bit pass 41 miles and we were ready for something to eat. Frank had driven the SUV to lunch and picked up additional lunch items and Chris was going the drive the SUV to the hotel.

After lunch we were following the original route of the canal that was built in 1812 (the canal was rebuilt, re-routed twice more with the final updates made in 1932). The original route and second route has fallen into disuse with many portions choked with plants. Some older routes have been turned into parks and outdoor museums.

Shortly before 3 PM we pulled into the town of Jordan and much to our surprise we the trail cut through a park filled with bands tuning up, floats making last minute preparations and crowds of people. We had stumbled on a Memorial Day parade that was minutes from starting. I stopped, took some photos and proceeded. At one point I crossed a street that was lined with people expecting the parade at any moment. So of course, I couldn't just cross the street, I needed to go down the street in one direction before heading back in the other direction while waving the entire time. After that I exited the street and was on my way.

It was many miles down the trail that I caught up with Chris, Mike and Douglas as we had become separated when I stopped to take the photos at the parade. At this point the trail was still in excellent condition and the temperatures were in the low 70's and the ride only got better and better.

Sometimes you will start a ride, looking forward to the next coffee or bite to eat, but there are magical days when you just don't want the day to end and as we winding down our last 5 miles or so and started to enter the outskirts of Syracuse, we just didn't want the day to end. It's this kind of day that you live for and want to get back on the bike to do it all again.

For those of you keeping count, we add two more "port" towns today, Weedsport and Port Byron.

Today's photos

Here a port, there a port, everywhere a port port

We must be cycling through the state of "ports". Yesterday we cycled though Lockport and Middleport and today started in Brockport, Spencerport and Fairport plus more "ports" to come. I guess I need to do some Canal history research, but my first guess is these "port" towns were established to support the building of the canal and stayed to support the operation of the canal. If we come across a canal museum, I'll see if my first hunch is correct.

Regarding the biking conditions, today was a bit warmer, starting in the low 50s and warming to the upper 50's. A great riding temperature, even if you do need a jacket.

There are six of us on the ride and we're using Chuck's SUV to carry our bags, picnic supplies and people when necessary. For example, we used the car to shuttle us to our motel in Brockport when our reservations in Albion fell through last night. So that means that one of the six riders need to move the SUV as the ride progresses. This morning Douglas drove the SUV to the picnic stop and I drove the car to this evening's hotel in Palmyra.

Tomorrow we head out to Syracuse, about 71 miles. We'll see if we can get in earlier than than the first day out of Buffalo.

Today's "Epic Ride Weather" summary is in the following image.

 

Today's Photos

Late Start, Late Finish

The first day of any tour can be a crap shoot. All sorts of issues can prevent a smooth and timely departure. This tour was no exception. There are six of us all rendezvousing from multiple parts of the country; 1 from the East Coast, 3 from the mid west and 2 from the West coast. One of the riders, Chris, was scheduled to fly from San Francisco yesterday (Thursday), but airplane mechanical issues prevented him from arriving until 10 AM this morning and by the time he arrived and had the bike ready to go and everything packed into our SUV, it was close to noon. Today's route was planned on being 65 miles. With the late start, we knew it was going to be a late finish.

So with the threat of rain and temperatures in the upper 40's we headed off. Of course everything is becoming more and more electronic and recently my biking buddy in California Richard introduced me to this nifty tool called "Epic Ride Weather". It will reach into your ride planning tool of choice and based on your start day and time, it will predict the weather conditions along your ride including temperature, precipitation and wind. Comparing the actual conditions and the "Epic Ride Weather" predictions, I would say that the predictions were very close to what we had experienced.

The late start prompted us to skip our planned coffee stop at 16 miles and continue on to our lunch stop in Lockport at 34 miles. We reached Lockport at about 3:30, too late for the planned coffee shop, but Chuck had found a restaurant called "Big Ditch Brewing Company". After a nice lunch, about 4:30, we headed off to Albion, our destination for today and about 30 miles. If we want to get there by dark, we would need to hustle. The road surface for the remaining 30 miles was packed gravel and with the recent rains, in some spots there were puddles that needed to be avoided, but still a fairly good surface to ride on, even with my road bike with skinny tires.

We were about 10 miles from Albion and the sun was getting low in the sky when we received a call from Chuck who was driving the SUV. He had arrived at the hotel and called us to say the there was a mix up in the reservations. The hotel had expected us yesterday, not today. Even worst, they did not have any openings this evening.

The plan was for the 5 riders to meet Chuck at the hotel in Albion and in the meantime Chuck would make some calls to find alternative rooms. A hard task at 7 PM on the Memorial Day weekend. By the time we arrived, Chuck has found a Motel in Brockport, about 15 miles further along the Erie Canal. After a couple of car shuttles and getting a bit to eat, we finally arrived at the hotel at 10:30. A late start and late finish indeed.

You count your blessing and tomorrow we'll get up, have breakfast and have another great day of cycling.

   

Today's photo album

The Clock Is Ticking...

 Four Days out and the clock it ticking.... All the motel reservations are made, plane reservations completed and now the final packing is in progress. I dropped off my bike with UPS last Thursday (5/15/25). I made the shipping arrangements with BikeFlights to deliver the bike to my hotel in Buffalo. It's scheduled to arrive tomorrow. I have an electronic tracker on the bike and it shows that it's currently in Syracuse NY, about 150 miles from Buffalo. Looks as if it will be waiting for me. The location trace that my bike has taken is in the image below:

I'm getting excited to depart. I have 3 cycling trips scheduled for this summer. The second will be to cycle the San Juan Islands in the Pacific Northwest. We'll be flying in and out of Seattle. The third will be an European trip starting in Paris and terminating in Milan. This will be a summer of travel.