Day 49 – Little Falls, NY to Latham NY via NY Route 5 and Erie Canal towpath, 19 Jul 2014

Map and Pics:  Click Here for Map and Pics.

Miles 3541 to 3618, 77 miles, 2100 feet of climb, max speed 33 mph, avg speed 14 mph, slight headwind. More gorgeous riding weather.



Boats, Rivers, and Trains along the Erie Canal



What more could a 59 year old little boy want? Trains! Canals! Old Forts! Bridges! Bikes! Rivers! Historical Sites! Today was an easy ride. Better said, today was the calm before the storm. Tomorrow and the following day we take on the Green Mountains and then the White Mountains. Today was spent switching between banks of the Mohawk River doing our best to avoid high traffic corridors. As we go east we are moving into a much more industrialized area (like going around the GE Research Facilities). One thing for sure is that rural roads are in much better shape than the urban ones.

Rail to Trail

The Schenectady section of the Erie Canal Tow Path is paved and suitable for road bikes like ours. West of here the towpath is crushed rock, mud, or sand. Such surfaces require fatter tires common to mountain bikes, and would quickly ruin our bikes. On the towpath were hundreds of riders, walkers, joggers, and birders. The result is that our speeds in those sections were cut down to less than 10 mph. That is okay with me. It gives me much more time to talk to people – and I did! There were over 140 bikers in the organized eight day ride of the Erie Canal Tow Path from Buffalo to Albany sharing the path with us this afternoon. They had just as many great stories and thousands of bug bites. Currently most of the canal is swampy stagnant water and a major provider of the state’s mosquito population.



T-Shirt Swap



Tonight was the riders’ T-Shirt swap. It was played like ‘Dirty Santa’. Unlike many other times, I got exactly what I wanted – an Alzheimer jersey that Dan brought. My T-shirts could not have gone to better folks, the two that helped me the most on this challenge. Frans picked up my Chief Ladiga Rail to Trail shirt. The Indian logo on it will certainly be a novelty in Holland. My other T-Shirt went to Claire. Claire is our strong lady rider who provided me with Aleve pain pills in Kansas and Missouri. I was ready to pull myself out of the ride due to my worn out left knee back then. It was really bad, but between good coaching on how to ‘spin’ and good medicines I made it. Ask me again about my knee next Tuesday after the Green and White Mountains. There is no ‘coasting down to the shoreline’ on this trip. The cross country challenge ends with two of its biggest trials.

The gem of the day belongs to the State Trooper I met along NY Route 5. All of us bikers appreciate the work they do to keep us and others safe. I stopped to told him so.

Bottom Line: We are so close nothing can stop us now. Ask me again tomorrow though. We are looking at over 5000 feet of climbing tomorrow.