Substantial Niagara

Brockport to Niagara Falls, NY Thursday, April 29, 2021

The title of today’s blog is a medical pun. The substantia nigra is a pigmented part of the basal ganglia of the brain that plays a prominent role in Parkinson Disease. A number of family and friends, some of whom I hope to visit on this trip, suffer from PD, along with celebrities such as Michael J Fox and Muhammad Ali. It’s a devastating and progressive condition of tremor, rigidity, and dementia that is difficult to treat. One of the most promising methods is to place electrodes into the substantia nigra.

The Niagara escarpment is a substantial step, or shelf, that arches for many hundreds of miles through New York, Ontario, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The Niagara River drops 167 ft over it between Lakes Erie and Ontario at the famous falls, and the Erie Canal climbs it at Lockport, NY.

Ever since Little Falls a week ago, my canal route has been basically flat. There was the occasional small lock, but any elevation gained each day has been from forays to the side. This would change at Lockport.

Getting there was interesting. Rain was forecast all day, but hadn’t yet started when I left Brockport. I wanted to do as much of the stone dust towpath as I could before it got soft from the rain. There was a gentle tail wind, so cruising along was fairly easy, and I surprised myself by riding over 40 miles without stopping. I’d never done that before. The rain started very gradually, more as a heavy mist, and I resisted putting on my rain shell until the last 5 miles. The escarpment gradually materialized from the mist and looked substantial indeed.

It was hard to get a good photo in the rain. The road rises steeply, right next to the original “flight of five locks” that was quite the technical wonder when built in 1825. To the left are the modern locks, which scale the escarpment in two stages. I started to pedal up using my lowest gear, but was afraid my drive belt might slip in the rain so I walked up the rest of it. I was pretty soaked and tired at the top after 43 miles and 167 feet of climbing. Thankfully, there was and espresso shop right there, and when they saw my bedraggled state they made an exception to the “no indoor dining” rule.

Well I’d climbed the escarpment, might as well watch the Niagara River go over it. The falls were only 25 miles from the canal, and although it was raining steadily I still had that gentle tail wind. While drying out and having a nutritious meal of espresso and the most icing-laden cinnamon bun I’ve ever had, I managed to score a three star hotel by the falls for $56. Also had fun talking to Mary, who lost her long-standing job at Barnes and Noble and went back to school at age 50, becoming an optician.

The ride over wasn’t so bad, except for my right upper quadrant. My biliary tract was taking exception to my food choices.

I remembered that Sharon, one of my besties from college, grew up near the infamous Love Canal superfund site near Niagara Falls, NY. She’d moved to the west coast early on, is now a veterinarian in San Diego, I hope to visit her on this trip. But one of my many goals is to witness America’s dark side, so I figured, let’s see how close she was to that massive environmental disaster. It was on my way.

There was nothing to see, of course. The superfund cleanup was deemed complete in 2004, it’s just a fenced in grassland that’s still being monitored. Sharon’s home was about 30 blocks away, and although she tried to help me find it by texting, I was unsuccessful. So much for my attempt at stalking.

It was cool to bike the last miles along the Niagara River, and watch it slowly become roiled into the rapids leading into the falls. The hotel was two blocks away from the cataract itself, it was still raining, sightseeing can wait until tomorrow. I could hear the roar and see the mist from my hotel room. The hotel had a branch of the famous Anchor Bar, whose flagship restaurant was where Buffalo Wings were invented. I’ve been to the original, there is always a long line, so I decided to eat here. My culinary tour of New York was supposed to include local specialties tomato pie, a “garbage plate”in Rochester (Lindsay balked at that one) and Beef on Weck. At least I got the wings, which went well with the earlier cinnamon bun (not).

I passed 500 miles today, and sang the wistful Peter Paul and Mary song. The Proclaimers will have to wait, that song is really about 1000 miles anyway.

Distance 69.1 miles, 564 total. Time 8 3/4 hours with stops. Elevation gain 420 feet.