Last July Charles and I joined some friends for the Bon Ton Roulet in the Finger Lakes region. This year that group decided to do the Bike Ride Across Georgia, and we decided to do our own trip on the Erie Canalway Trail. This is my first time carrying my own stuff in panniers instead of just putting it a luggage truck. Which means I’m finally getting a chance to use some of those rack eyelets on my gravel bike. Charles is still carrying more than me, including the tent and the camp cooking gear. He’s very chivalrous. And far more experienced at this.

We left Rochester this morning pretty much on time and headed for the Blue Water Bridge and Canada. After long hazy drive we arrived in Buffalo ready for the adventure to begin. In only 30 to 40 short minutes the bikes were packed up and we were off.

I spent many hours leading up to this trip creating our daily routes on Ride with GPS so we’d know exactly where we were going, what our mileage would be, where suitable restaurants are, etc. Things were going according to plan for a couple of miles, until we reached Ralph Wilson Park, where we discovered that the park and our route were CLOSED. Now what? Lucky for us, there was a helpful sign!

Fortunately we also had Google Maps, which did get us around the closure. It was a looooong detour though. Pretty sure that map was not to scale.

When we finally got back on the route, all was well. There wasn’t much to see leaving the city, but it got nicer. The trail was all paved and stuck pretty close to the water. There were a lot of Mayflies in the air for a long time, so I had to remind myself to ride with my mouth closed.

In Gasport, we saw this behemoth of a bridge.

After the detour and the late start and a few delays on the drive, we began to think we might be a little too far behind for the night’s planned camping. We decided it would be best to make camp at a Quality Inn instead. We did still eat our freeze dried meals using hot water from the Jet Boil, in the room (shhh).

Tomorrow we should be well rested and able to take some time to sightsee in Lockport, which I hear has some historic and interesting lock-based sights.

I’m trying a new thing this trip called Relive, which makes a nifty little 3D recap video with pictures dropped in based on location. Check it out:

I’m extremely tired, so that’s all for today. Hopefully tomorrow we’ll have time to do some sightseeing and take a few more pics!