“I got close enough to the river that I couldn’t hear the trucks, but not close enough to hear the roaring of my mind”
We strolled out of our beds in Buffalo, shocking fellow guests users with the girth of our gear piled high on a hotel trolley. Entering traffic with some morning commuters, we found our way down past the art deco city hall and rode adjacent to the piers with naval ships and fancy schooners. A pleasant bike path heads North through some seedier sections of a slowly dying Buffalo, but clears up with some riverfront parks as it nears the start of the Erie Canal.
This canal route has been touted as essential for a touring cyclist, and our high expectations were more than met over our two day affair along the path that could take one from Buffalo to Albany’s Hudson River. Although there are sections of paved paths, and the occasional jog to a shoulder lane, the majority is a hard-packed composite of white clay under fine crushed rock. This mixture can add some skittish behavior to a wheel when wet, but our 1.5”, slick-faced tires had no problems (although a small decline in speed is to be expected). Usually alternating between underpasses and forced road crossings, the trail allows for long stretches of uninterrupted riding, and the scattering of small towns along the canal left us with no concern for running out of water.
While nearly all trestles are functional, a couple kids caught our attention up on a blocked-off bridge, and with the day in the 80 to 90s range, we figured they were up to some good. Most 60 year old guys don’t go barefoot climbing up old metal bridges to get a rush while cooling off, but then again most 60 year old guys don’t do anything with as much fervor as Dave. He’s unstoppable to the point of danger when he starts enjoying himself in an adventure, but they don’t make sedatives in an easily injectable thigh jabber.
Between our swimming and a long stop in the town of Albion (where we met the mayor, had some well-earned sandwiches at a café next to the drawbridge, toured a turn of the century dilapidated opera house with the coffee shop owner (we had to shimmy stairs and cross through a maze of ballet mirrors, a karate class, and a barber shop nestled under a staircase), oh and the bathroom was perfectly Twin Peaks in its blood walls and checkered floor), but our enjoyment of the day was catching up with our watches. (I clearly wanted to write pages on this day, but did some whittling for you all).
We rode hard, pushing through the last 25 miles with no breaks and no breath for talking, to reach Rochester where spaghetti awaited with another couple of my sister’s friends. Molly and Kevin are newlyweds who stalk the corridors of research labs on campus, and were excited to use the perks of a wedding: new table settings. As I described the spreading rashes on my legs, I may have tested the limits of their hospitality and their decision to let me sleep in their bed, but I’m happy to say everything is under control now. Sorry for the scare, guys.
Day 33: Rochester to Lebanon, NY. 132.3 miles. 10:20 in saddle.
“New York I love you, but you’re bringing me down”
This day’s route was estimated to be 115 to 120 miles, but following the canal and our attempts of circumventing Syracuse caused our second 130+ day to be far more taxing than the first. The canal trail initially continued as before with packed gravel, but we began to reach areas of dangerously loose gravel, sometimes sand, rolling dirt paths, and the occasional single track that begged for suspension and knobby tires. Flat tire number three hit me right as my legs were finally waking up, and I slapped on the foldable tire that had been lazily riding along in my pack for 3000 miles, leaving his glass-slashed buddy in a McDonalds trash bin. I will not admit eating at this establishment, but one of their new smoothies is exactly what we salivate over around midday. That, and a large coffee.
The final miles towards Syracuse dig deep into some wooded areas, and I-90 only makes its presence felt by long-off horns and rumbles that occasionally sneak through the trees to remind you that this is America; you can’t really “get away from it all” without serious effort (even then, I think the most you can escape from roads on this country’s mainland is about 30 miles, and you have to pay thousands to go down that river in Idaho to get there…) I need a fact-checker.
Turning south into Syracuse, at 5 pm on a Friday, and finding yourself on the street that connects a walmart to a kmart to a mall, can be a buzz kill, so I chose a highway that appeared to arch nicely around the south end of town, and would get us down to Highway 20. This would prove to be a poor choice as we faced some of the largest rolling hills we've seen, and at 100 miles into our day. I’ve come to realize why the big European Cycling races bury their hills into the end of the course (it hurts more), and checking up with the Tour de France, we out-rode them in distance on this day. Woot.
We had the option of jumping onto highway 20 much earlier in the day, likely a shorter route, but our map showed numerous ski hills along its path as it rode the waves of hills north of the Finger Lakes, which formed from glaciers dragging their toes as they headed south, hand in hand. Because we were working from a trucker’s atlas, which has no concern for elevation, we essentially climbed hills from mile 90 to 130, arriving at 11 pm at our destination. Although the shoulders were wide and the surrounding hills pristine and wild, we still managed to find the glaciers’ aftermath, and the highway designers’ careless straight up/down mentality of road construction. We hit our top speeds for the entire trip (43 mph, braking) and a laughable crawl up the mirror imaged ascent at the valley’s other side. Now we were riding slower than we would walk a 10k, and watching the sun drop out of view, with at least 20 miles to go.
But the last 20 miles were to be the most memorable miles of north America, and if I could escape to ride them in some zen state while on a lunch break or in lieu of studying, I would. Our path off of the highway was a haphazard zig through finely-paved country hills, and the road built up some trust with me while I could still see faintly- I would rely on its smooth perfection when darkness dropped. Dave had a headlamp and acted as engine, while I the caboose with back flashers (we were to see half a dozen cars over a couple hours), allowing me to drop off and extend our train, giving time to practice some weaving Dealy Plaza ballistics with my bike. The further back I dropped, the more I let the full moon’s scant illumination of black tar be a guide, and the fireflies that lined the shoulder (why do they do this?) became a predictor of turns. I didn't attempt to photograph anything, as it was permanently etching just fine. Perhaps the most exciting days afford no time for documentation.
The temperature dropped, the silence grew, and we dipped into fog banks and rose out to see the moonrise over ridges. It was cheesy, Tim Burton-designed, and altogether unreal. Our final drop into my great uncle’s village had me railing the breaks, because the hill bottom had a set of headlights, unmoving. As I neared close there was a bustle of movement in front of the lights, and I saw team of runners starting to stride, which made no sense at this late hour or location, but my mind reorganized it all when I caught the flash of glass lenses high above the lights; just another bespectacled man and his horse drawn cart to drive the Sleepy Hollow nail in. The sounds of hoofs and squeaky wheels would put us to sleep.
Day 34: Lebanon to Lebanon, NY. Rest Day #4.
“Thunder, lightening, tidal waves, the wind blew down my door”
Great-Uncle Curtis and his son, Tim, had stayed up waiting for us and watched horror films the night before, and our arrival was a quick collapse into the back room. Their house is converted from an old barn, and the cellar fumes of sties and coops still waft up through the floor, but I can’t remember a stitch of it from my visit as a ten year-old. Dave and I awoke on cots, with our possessions spread out around us in the back room, and my dad controlled his bladder all morning until Curtis awoke, because the pit bull of the house sat outside our door in attack mode. She howls to curdle if you aren’t sitting down, you carry black bags, move too quickly, or you try to extend hands of familiarity towards her. We spent most of our time in her presence sitting at the kitchen table under her eyes of scrutiny. Bagless. Turns out her happiness and aggression are expressed with the same tone of bark.
This day had zero bicycling, and a lot of motionless reflection on our quick month of pedaling. Hours passed slowly, and the four of us alternated between couches, rockers and chairs and did a fair amount of reading and napping. None of us were really in a conversational mode, and since Curtis’ hearing has been better (when we called the day before, my dad’s “it’s your brother, Everett’s, son” was heard as “Everett’s gone”) we were all pretty content in our silent coffee stirring. When Curtis’ wife, Jenny, a memory I do have from that trip sixteen years ago of the shining gracious woman she was, began to go downhill a few years back, she had the foresight to teach Curtis to cook for himself and Tim, and the dynamic she left behind has been a successful father/son duo. Tim gets to drive the Prius like a racecar though the perfectly paved backroads and do all the manual labor needed on the property, and Curtis deals with the food, shopping, and dog training (and all with a hip begging for metal backup).
When the evening set in, I walked outside with my camera to capture the cloud formations over a nearby farm and I watched as a lightning storm reeled in from the south. A good jog down the road, the orange was widening between the horizon and black clouds, quickly, so I walked backwards, failing to catch white light flashes and opting for a spotty video instead. Maybe ten seconds after the wind hit hard and I began to run, the rain wall overtook me and I ducked into the boot removing section of the porch. Another 30 seconds and a large maple tipped slowly and took out powerlines over the driveway I had just sprinted.
“You got your lightning storm now, didn’t you…” was Dave’s response, excited that he’d he get to hacksaw our exit from the homestead in the morning. With coffeed eyes the next morning, a local said he'd never seen such a storm of wind and lightening. "nope. never." This late in the trip, I’d given up on my wanting of all the possible elements, and settled with small columns of swirling dust in a field as good enough (the tornados I dreamt of did hit on this trip, but with loss of life, a few days ahead of us back in North Dakota). But with storms of rain, snow, lightning, wind, locusts, and mosquitoes, we weren’t far from seeing it all. How high do tropical storms climb the eastern seaboard, anyway?
More pictures:
O Thumper, you are in control, always.
The following three photos should be viewed as a triptych: the barn, the sky, the fallen tree.
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