Erie Canal Tour
 

Hello, Have any of you done the Ride the Erie Canal Tour run by New York Parks and Recreation? It's 400 miles and goes from Buffalo to Albany. They haul your gear...etc. I'm already signed up to do an inn-to-inn ride around Lake Champlain in upstate New York and the Erie Canal ride look like it might be interesting.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

In a word, do it. You'll be glad you did. Especially with a group. The surface is generally quite good.

We (partner and two kids) have done the ECT half a dozen times. Several years ago it was our first family ride with our older (then teenage) son. He had a fine time, as there were some other riders his age. It was good ride for the adults also. The ride is very well organized, great support, generally relatively easy riding, good scenery and routing, lots to do along the route - trying to think of a down side. Well, this year our now 15 yo son (who first rode ETC when he was 10) - said he wanted to go somewhere else this summer. However his older (20 something in the service brother)- said he was hoping to get leave then - so he could go.

I did the tour two years ago, with my partner's son who was 18 at the time. We're both novice tourers and not terribly strong riders either. We both had lots of fun!

Thank you all for your input. Looks like a go for me.

I rode the Erie Canal last year and I think you'll enjoy yourself. The route is obviously flat and the surface is good hard packed gravel in most places. I found 25mm to be ok, but for comfort you might want to go with 28mm or higher. There were some sections that were under construction so I had to carry my bike. Riding from Buffalo to Albany you'll have the prevailing wind at your back. I was dumb enough to ride in the other direction and the day from Rochester to Niagara Falls was tough as I was riding straight into the wind coming of Lake Erie

FWIW, I hope you explore Lock 15 at Fort Plains, NY.

Rode it in '12...

Best time of my life.
Buffalo airport, dropping off rental car.http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=369185http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=369186

and leaving canal to go to the airport...

uhm, Rochester to Niagara Falls? That's a damn long ways...

First time I tried the ride, the canal had stones the size of grapefruit... 3 tubes and 2 wheel true-ings. I ran out of tubes... The local bike store was closed 20 minutes before I carried my bike to it... Hey on you bike or under it... right? But that was '97....

The ride is quite nice now...

Rochester to Niagara Falls is about 80 miles so not an enormous day. The free camping at the canal locks is also really convenient.

We did our own Erie Inn to Inn tour and "shadowed" the PTNY folks. At our common overnight stops there were always some of the PTNY folks who were avoiding the camping experience. Some folks use an every-other night strategy, this takes some planning because there isn't always lodging near the PTNY encampment which is where their dinner was.

I have ridden the length of it several times unsupported. PTNY puts on a great event and I highly recommend it if you are a novice at touring. If you have done some touring on your own it is a pretty easy route to follow since most is on the canalway trail (PTNY paints their route markers on the road sections) and it is pretty much flat the whole way except for a couple of small hills in my 'hood.

All of you must be much more tolerant to limestone dust than I am, as I have done the sections from Port Byron to Rome and end up plastered in white dust. Water bottles. Clothes. Chain. Everything. I also have found doing these sections on anything smaller than 28's to take so much concentration that it lessens the pleasant.

This is not saying not to do it, only to prepare to be chalked.

I experienced the same thing with the limestone dust but considered it only a minor nuisance. Daily wipes, a lube or two, and a good drive train cleaning at the end of the trip should do it.

I have socks on my stainless steel water bottles for insulation and evaporative cooling. The socks are cut long enough to protect the bottle top from dust. I agree with you about tire width.

Did this 2 years ago. Wonderful time. In one town, at a ice cream stop, they had a free bicycle wash.
We were welcomed in every town. Take the canal barge tour, very interesting though the box lunch was $5

I didn't notice the "chalk" that much and found the path from Rome to Syracuse to be nice, fast riding on 25mm tires. There were some sections with some mud and rubble, but nothing that lasted long enough for me to seriously wish for wider tires. I often chose to ride the canal path over the road alternative as it was usually more protected from the prevailing wind.

The best value meal for me was at Dunn's Pastry shop in Canastota; pizza, an eclair, a Mountain Dew and coffee for $4.02 and the drinks each came with a free bag of chips!

Most of my riding on it has been July and August, so dry weather may compound the dustiness. I have no other time of year comparisons.

I rode Fayetteville to Rome and back several times on my single speed hybrid on 28's, and if you could stay in the track, 17-18 mph is easy and pleasant. However, I found that the foot traffic (and horse traffic east of Canastota) forced me to perform a fair chunk of riding in the loose crap alongside the packed center lane. Horse hoof prints also pound the snot out of you. :D

I rode west of Syracuse on one trip with 23 front / 25 rear, and hopped onto the Canal trail to get out of the wind, as you mentioned. With the thinner tires, and less travelled / packed down trail, 13-14 mph was my highest comfortable, and it was twitchy enough that I opted to return to road and wind quickly.

There may have been other factors involved, but that is the detail behind my earlier post. Just my experience with it.

I roll with 26x1.5 (37mm) tires semi-slick tires and full fenders. Very little dust for me.

I have done the Erie Canal twice self supported and have nothing but good things to say about that ride. I did Lake Champlain last summer and really didn't care for it much. There is really nothing to see on the NY side.
All the rides are done on crazyguy HERE

I really think you will enjoy how good NY Bike organizes this tour.

Again, thank you all for your input. Capejohn, your ride descriptions are excellent (I've been reading about your rides and enjoying your pictures for the last 45 minutes). You sounded like you enjoyed the Lake Champlain ride. Definitely signing up for the Erie ride and looking forward to doing both rides this summer.

We rode as a family trip (not on the tour, but same route). I find this far better than the GAP and C&O. Have considered the group trip but for 8 of us it was expensive so we did it ourselves instead to save $$. Very enloyable and lots more places to stop than the C&O & GAP.

Having ridden both I have tried to weigh which one I like better, but its a toss up for me. The Erie ride has lots of history and I found the engineering of the canal very interesting, the Erie ride also provides more lodging and food options if you're doing a CC tour. The GAP has tunnels and grand viaducts along with some beautiful scenery and you can't beat the 15+ mile downhill ride/coast (west-east) into Cumberland.

I did the Erie Canal tour in 2012 and had a great time. It was well run and inexpensive for a SAG supported bike tour. The history of the canal was very interesting and there were lots of places to explore. Best of all we only did from 50 to 74 miles a day so you were not exhausted at the end of the day.

Wow! You have caught my attention
 

Wow! You have caught my attention. I'd really like some advice.

I did GAP/ C&O three years ago, and enjoyed it - bumps and all. Now I am searching for another great route for summer 2014. I would park the car somewhere along the trail for a solo / self-supported / return trip. My goal for 2014 is 850 miles, so I will probably need to a bit of drive-park-ride and then drive again to hit that number. I will probably include other trails in the process.

My big trepidation is that one-quarter of the ECT is "on-road". My normal practice is to take dedicated paths (like C&O / GAP, KATY, trails in WV, etc) and completely avoid road traffic.

As I live in Ohio, I would be approaching from the West; The trail looks more fragmented the further east one goes. How trafficky is this route when it's not off-road?

Research so far on ECT: the Traillink site, PTNY's book "Cycling the Erie Canal Trail."

any advice appreciated.

Daytoncapri

I found most of the off-trail route (on-road) traffic to be very light, with decent shoulders, around the cities you might hit some short segments with traffic.