I wonder why I thought this part of New York is flat. It isn't, in case you are wondering. I wouldn't exactly call it hilly either, but I had rollers a good part of the day and strong headwinds all day. Overall the day was great, but I had a really low energy start. I'm not sure what I did to cause that - probably a combination of not sleeping well last night (I woke up every 2 hours!) and maybe not eating enough last night. I don't think I can blame breakfast this morning since I ate the same thing yesterday and it worked then. I stopped at the Pultneyville Pickle for Gatorade, juice, a fresh banana strawberry muffin, and another banana. That apparently did the trick, because I felt much better after that break. It might have helped that I sat there and talked to people for close to an hour too. I got some route advice, and decided not to follow the Adventure Cycling route for most of the day. I had already decided not to ride on the Canal Trail (which follows the Erie Canal) for the full 90 miles that the Northern Tier route called for since a good chunk of it isn't paved. I knew the section through Rochester was in good paved shape, so that's where I planned to ride it. What I didn't realize was how far south the route took me on the way to Rochester. It dipped south and then came north again. So - first I opted to stay on a numbered road (county route120 to state route 21) out of Pultneyville instead of following real back roads and dealing with navigating. I really prefer fewer turns. When I ride a route where you turn every mile, I always think I'm going to miss a turn. Then, instead of going all the way south to Palmyra, I turned west at Marion, following county route 207 to state route 441. When I was just north of Fairport, I turned south, then rode west from Fairport to Pittsford. That's where I finally made my entrance to the Canal Trail. The end result was that I cut 8 miles off of the Adventure Cycling mileage for the day. And yes, 48 miles was plenty today! I owe many thanks for John Welch who I met at the Pultneyville store for suggesting that I didn't need to go as far south as my maps told me to go.
Most of the section of the Canal Trail that I rode was very nice. Unlike bike paths at home, this one is not overutilized, so it is reasonable to bike on it. There were only two things that got to me. The first was that the first lock I hit didn't have an exit ramp to go around it, so I had to haul my bike and trailer up a set of stairs. Ouch! Needless to say, I had to make several trips. The second gotcha is that it was hard for me to figure out where to get off of the trail to find a hotel for tonight. Of course, I could have called for directions, but I didn't! I knew there were hotels on East Henrietta, and one of the signed roads that the Canal Trail passed under was West Henrietta. I figured that at some point west turned into east, but the little tiny map of Rochester that I had showed only West Henrietta, so I figured the east half was far away. That was very wrong. It turned out that West and East Henrietta are parallel roads and are only a small distance apart. Luckily I didn't go too far past West Henrietta before I stopped another cyclist and asked.
It was another hot (95), hazy, humid day today. I did manage to get a few pictures of Lake Ontario, but the lake pretty much blends in with the horizon.
One of the cyclists I met on the Canal Trail told me there was an air show here today. I was too far away to see much, but I heard the planes and I did see the Blue Angels fly by.
I've been seeing a bird fly by for the past couple of days. The bird has an orange body and black wings, and I just had to call my mom to find out what it is. She said it's a Baltimore Oriole. That's pretty cool. I don't have a bird book with me, but sometimes I can still find out what it is that I am seeing.
I finally got a glimpse of Lake Ontario. It was so hazy out that the lake and the horizon seem to blend together.
Imagine my horror when I came up to these stairs on my fully loaded bike! The only way to continue on the canal path was to climb the stairs, so climb I did. It took 3 trips to haul all of my gear up the stairs - the bike, the panniers, and the trailer.
