Myself and 2 friends left Buffalo, NY, on last Thursday morning to cycle the whole length of the Erie Canal and cross most of NY state. We ended on Monday afternoon in Waterford, NY, (a little north of Albany) where the Erie Canal meets the Hudson River.
The route was approx 75% off-road, usually stone dust paths. The route took us along the "old" erie canal in sections then joined back up to the "new" canal. Our average was a little north of 75 miles per day.
We brought camping hammocks (hammocks w/ bug nets) and just camped along the canal wherever we could find a place. Had a rule to not eat at any chain restaurants, just local places, mainly diners.
We all had road bikes with 28mm wide tires, which were OK on the stone dust but that stuff really slows you down.
We had some interesting things happen along the way:
-We decided to sleep in a random park pavilion the first night and got greeted by the local LEOs but they were cool and let us be.
-On the 3rd night we slept in a little league dugout in a park that bordered the canal trail... woke up the next morning and noticed about 100 bees just hanging out on the ceiling
-Learned not to take advice from a drunk barfly at noon on a Sunday on local places to eat. "Now we don't have menus but I might have a chicken salad sandwich in the back..."
-One of my friends lost his wallet and phone near one of the aqueducts, didn't notice for 15 miles, went back and actually found them just sitting in the middle of the trail.
Packing all our crap on Wednesday night in Buffalo... Note the Kel-Tec P3AT in the foreground
Lots of cool old bridges...
View of the canal trail
Park pavilion first night
More trail pics
Erie Canal aqueduct... water over water, how does that work?!?!
More scenery
On the left are the new locks, on the right are the remains of the smaller old locks.
It was 80+ on the first 2 days, so we went swimming in the canal
Remains of an old aqueduct on the old Erie canal section
Seemed like a good idea at the time...
Success!