Rough start, great finish

Syracuse to Lyons NY. Monday April 26, 2021

I knew I would have to pay the piper. Cutting yesterday short meant having to cycle 56 miles into a bitter headwind today to make up for lost time. I left my sinfully sumptuous hotel by 8 AM, and was a bit startled to find myself in big city Monday morning rush hour traffic, it’d been awhile since I’d dealt with that. Luckily, I have a crazy bright rear flasher to use in such situations.

This time I followed the Erie Canalway route out of town, or tried to. I was happy to thread my way through a series of bike paths, protected lanes, even a beautiful stretch along the rapids of Onondaga Creek, tucked into the cityscape, until the marker signs abruptly stopped and I hit a dead end. Had I missed a turn? I backtracked half a mile to the last Canalway sign and confirmed that nope, the signs just stopped. Maybe they’d been vandalized. Having to search around in that traffic, in 25 degree windchill, wearing so many layers of gloves it was hard to peel them off and mess with the cell phone—well, chalk it up to paying the piper. I eventually found the signs again, excited that the route was going to take me by the city’s restored Onondaga lakefront when I got shut down again by a Trail Closed sign. Rats! I could see a spanking-new bikeway arching ahead over a graceful bridge, but I knew better than to skirt around the sign. Probably lead to another dead end.

So here I was, marooned in the same tangle of industrial highways I followed yesterday to the Destiny USA center, complete with the sewage treatment fumes. Muttering, I peeled off my sweaty/icy gloves and got Google Maps to show me the way out of there. It took me on a wide loop through miles of shoulderless, broken glass-strewn congested thoroughfares. I could glimpse the lake between warehouses, and took comfort that if I’d been able to get to the lakeshore, the headwinds would have been brutal. The Canalway is promising, but not quite ready for prime time.

After an hour of this I was thankfully back on the stone dust towpath, with trees mitigating the wind, and things slowly started looking up. At 25 miles I passed the Weedsport motel, if I’d pushed on last night I would have gotten there at 9 PM. Despite my morning ordeal, I was glad I’d opted for the Crown Plaza.

The watered canal and towpath went on for 25 miles, really quite beautiful. I only passed occasional walkers/bikers on this chilly Monday. The sweaty/icy gloves thing prevented me from getting any pictures, but they wouldn’t really have captured the bucolic serenity of the scene. Next came the longest stretch of road miles on the Canalway, 15 moderately hilly miles with expansive views of farmland, then back on the canal for the home stretch.

Anne and Carl have opened up their lovely home to Warmshowers, and what a gift it is. Retired engineers from the EPA in DC, they have restored an 1840s farmhouse to tasteful elegance, a working farm with cattle, chickens, pigs, geese, and sustainable agriculture. Anne estimates they grow/raise 80% of what they consume. They have a solar array that overflows into the grid and gives them free power year round. I was so impressed: after years of talking the talk in DC, they are walking the walk. They served me a farm-to-table feast, and our conversation lasted well past sunset. They are active cyclists and have 3 tandems.

I write this snuggled down in a four poster bed. What a finish!

Distance 57.7 miles, 407.8 total. Time 9 hours with stops. Elevation gain 964 feet.