Craig's Big RIde

Today was a good day. I knocked off 88.2 miles while starting to build some elevation again before getting into the mountains of New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire. And it was a beautiful fall day to boot! I started the day below 400-feet of elevation in New Haven and ended at about 1700-feet of elevation in Old Forge with 5249 feet of climbing throughout the day. I'm going to post quite a few pictures, with explanations, of course, and then mention a couple non-visual things at the end of today's post. Shortly after my 8:35am start, I encountered a cemetery with a "Patriot Sign."  I saw a "Patriot Sign" at a cemetery yesterday and I was in too much of a hurry to stop. While riding past it, I noticed that it said, "At least five patriots are buried here..." That was either in Williamson or Pultneyville or somewhere around there. I passed over the Salmon River not far from the inlet to Lake Ontario (in Port Ontario) this morning. There were a coup...

I returned to riding after three rest days at my dad's house. And I also didn't blog much during my three off days. I logged 79.64 miles riding from Palmyra to New Haven at an average speed of 13.7 mph. It also felt quite hilly today and my elevation gain according to Strava supports that perception as I logged just over 4000 feet of elevation gain. Most of the day, I was riding past apple orchards. That's really the only thing I took pictures of today. Four rows of red apples ready to be harvested. Presumably the other rows of trees have already been harvested as I saw no fruite on them. Red and green apples side-by-side at another orchard. I can also share some photos of the (Erie Canal) Historic Lock 60 that my dad took me to yesterday afternoon. It was a nice warm afternoon to do a little exploring. This sign provides better history that I can. The gate wheel track on top of the lock. The spillway with a chamber on either side (double chamber on left and single chamber ...

Today was the third and final day of this break. From here, I will ride to the Atlantic Coast and end my adventure at the Portland Head Light. I’ve had an enjoyable and restful three days with family. Onward.

Today is the 10th consecutive day of riding. The first day of this stint of was a short day (31.1 miles to Manitowoc, Wisconsin) and today was a short day as well (38.6 miles to Palmyra, New York), but the eight days in-between were relatively normal-length days. I'm now at my dad's house and I'm planning to take at least a couple rest days before I make the final push to Portland, Maine. As an aside, I may or may not post a blog entry each of my rest days. Today's abbreviated day was another Erie Canalway Trail day. As with yesterday, friends and family had put out encouraging signs for me. At the final sign before my dad's house, he was waiting there for me. We took a quick selfie before he took the signs down before getting in trouble with the Department of Transportation. The only other thing I took pictures of today was the different types of boats on the canal: A large-ish sailboat heading toward one of the locks. A tour boat sans tourists. A cargo barge being...

The first challenge for today's ride was getting across the Canada/USA border on the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge. My instructions (as provided on my riding maps) were daunting, but it proved to be quite easy in actuality. I had to check in with the Toll Captain on the Canadian side. She told me to ride through "that gate" (she pointed), turn left, and ride across the bridge. Luckily, it was early enough on a Monday morning that there was almost no traffic. So I rode across the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge to get back into the US: The major part of today's ride was along the Erie Canal. I rode about 50 miles from Lockport to Spencerport on the Canalway Trail.     As I was getting close to my planned endpoint for the day, I came across a sign that was clearly intended for me. I have family in the area, so I was kind of expecting something along these lines. A while later, I came across another of "my" signs:   I found out that my dad and one of my brothers worked t...

Because I got a little bit behind yesterday, I wanted to take a more direct route to Niagara Falls today. Instead of following my Adventure Cycling Association map, I decided to use Google Maps to guide me. From my starting point in Port Dover, I told it to take me to my hotel in Niagara Falls by bicycle (i.e. not car driving directions). Generally, Google Maps did pretty well. From Port Dover, it routed me on lesser-used country roads; I saw very few cars. About three-quarters of the way through the day, it routed me through the city of Wellend. On the approach to town, I was routed on a couple short sections of dirt roads. The first one was fine. The second one was a dead end on active railroad tracks. Uh-oh. (I wish I had taken a picture, but I didn't think of it at the time.) There was a discernable path parallel to the tracks. I started walking my bike down that but noticed I was then going off route per the directions on my phone. I looked across the double set of tracks and ...

I rode along the north shore of Lake Erie all day today. But I usually couldn’t see the lake, being at times a mile or more inland and at other times, having the lake obscured by trees or even corn. I rode through many small port towns; I started in Port Stanley, finished in Port Dover, and rode through Port Bruce, Port Burrell, Port Royal, Port Rowan, and Port Ryerse.  The Port Stanley Marina. Port Burwell, Home of Mikel Gould, World Arm Wrestling Champion. The non-port town of Copenhagen, which bore no resemblance to Copenhagen, Denmark, which is a big port city. I also encountered consistent headwinds on the order of 15-to-20 mph sustained. About 48 miles into the ride, I texted Lailla and asked, “Which ‘Port’ is closest to Simcoe? That’ll give me a goal and I’ll probably request extraction there.” (Simcoe is where our hotel for tonight is located.) “Port Dover” was the answer, which was another 20 miles up the road from where I was at the time, but 15 miles short of my planned ...