​I’d grown up learning about the Erie Canal in history class and singing the “Low Bridge, Everybody Down” song about good ole Sal. Recently, we were interested in doing some bike-camping and the Erie Canal trail was close to our home in Bennington and seemed like a good option. The Parks and Trails NY sponsors a ride each year  https://www.ptny.org/cycle-the-erie canal/annual-bike-tour and a couple of our friends had enjoyed riding on that in a previous year. This is a nice option, as all camping, gear transfer, and many meals are provided, however we decided to do it on our own. We knew that carrying all of our gear would not allow us to do as many miles per day as on the sponsored tour, so we decided to do half the trail and bike from Buffalo to Syracuse, approximately 200 miles.

The first hurdle was how to get bikes from Bennington to Buffalo. Amtrak only carries very limited number of bikes and we had not planned far enough in advance to book this. We tend to be kind of haphazard planners and do things more spontaneously, which usually works out, one way or another! After exploring different options, we drove to Syracuse, picked up a rental pick-up truck in Syracuse, parked our car at a friend’s house, transferred all our gear to the pick-up and drove to Buffalo. There we turned in the pick-up and biked to our budget motel.

So, what bikes and gear did we take? Our old, well-used, but great bikes are hybrid bikes with an 8-speed in the hub. Billy had 4 panniers and a big bag across the back (thanks to Andrew at the Bike Hub https://ourbikehub.org/ for outfitting him with a rack and new front panniers) while Ann had 2 back panniers and a front pack. We carried camping/cooking gear, rain gear, some food, bike tools, and a few changes of clothing. Our current bikes have dynamo hub in the front wheel which powers our front and rear lights. Bike Hub is going to set us up with a solution that will allow us to charge our usb devices while pedaling. A new addition on this trip for each of us was a brim made to attach to your helmet - they were wonderful to keep the sun off your face and neck - and came in really handy to keep rain off as well. https:// dabrim.com We also purchased the book “Cycling the Erie Canal” from Parks and Trails New York. The book was great as it had detailed maps of each 10-mile section of the trail along with things to see and do, travel notes and amenities.

So, off we went with rain predicted for the entire day. Luckily it was a warm, light rain and we had the appropriate gear to stay reasonably dry. Here, we encountered our next hurdle. Lodging and camping wasn’t as easy as it was made out to be in the book and on-line. It was advertised that you could camp on canal property by contacting the Lock Tender and that many small towns had opened their local parks for bike campers. Well…. apparently that was true in the past, but due to abuse (not from bikers!) this was no longer accurate. We biked down to a B&B on the off chance that they had something available which they did not. However, after talking with the owner for some time, Pat offered us a spot to camp in a pine grove behind the B&B. It was our first meeting with some wonderful people on our journey. https://gardenviewbandb.com/

We continued on and the miles rolled by. At times the trail runs right next to the canal, other times it takes off on rolling hills but eventually returns to the canal. Most of the trail is packed stone dust, some pieces are paved, and some portions are on public roads. We decided that we liked the packed stone dust the best (if it was dry!) as most of the paved portions have many tree roots that have cracked the pavement which made for a bumpy ride. Our hypothesis is that the rain can filter down through the stone dust so the roots don’t need to come up to the surface, while on pavement this is not true. Sometimes the path is shaded and other times not. We saw very few bike- campers along the way, maybe they were waiting for cooler weather! We had one very long, extremely hot day, where the path is on an unshaded road and we ran out of water, but a very friendly man working in his yard gave us a good resting spot and plenty of cold water. The prevailing winds blow from west to east and this was true on most of the trip.

Lodging and camping continued to be an issue, but we always managed to find some place to stay, even if we had to ride some miles off trail to get to a place. The trail is varied enough so that it didn’t get boring and the history along the way was fascinating. There are historic information signs along the way that give a good idea of everything from the building of the canal, locks, guard gates, and lift bridges, as well as to its former uses, and eventually its lack of use as most transportation moved to railroads. There were even aqueducts created to allow rivers to pass under the canal. We could picture the canal with barges full of grain and lumber, passenger vessels, mules on the tow path, all at the rate of speed of 4 miles per hour.

Some standouts for us were the town of Lockport with the “Flight of Five” consecutive locks with a 70-foot elevation drop, the town of Brockport which is super bike-friendly and allows camping, provides restrooms, shower, internet connection and has lots of friendly people in the Welcome Center, Red’s Twilight on the Erie RV Resort where they gave us a camping site with electrical access so that we could plug in our phones, as well as a couple of diners for very hungry bicyclists.
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All in all, you know that it must have been a good experience as we are planning to do the second half of the trail from Syracuse to Albany in September.
Day 1: Travel day Syracuse to Buffalo, ride Buffalo to Towanda hotel (10 miles)
Day 2: rain all day Towanda - Lockport - Gasport - Middleport - Medina. Camped at B&B backyard (30 miles)
Day 3: Medina - Knowlesville - Eagle Harbor - Albion - Hulberton - Holley - Brockport - Adam's Basin - Spencerport. Night at Sleepy Bear Inn some 5 miles away Motel (40 miles)
Day 4: Spencerport - Rochester - Fairport . Camped Ed's Twilight on the Erie RV Resort (25 miles)
Day 5: Hot, hot day, with thunderstorms building. Fairport - Macedon - Palmyra - Port Gibson - Newark - Lyons - Clyde - Alt route to Waterloo. Camped at Canalside Campground - OLD, pretty much unused campground. Rain at night (40 miles)
Day 6: Seneca Falls - Port Byron - Weedsport . Red Roof Inn (25 miles)
Day 7: Weedsport - Syracuse (25 miles) Picked up car and drove to Chuck's house