2023 Erie Canal Bike Tour

The start of the Erie Canal Trail in Tonawanda.

The basics

As with any bike tour, there's more than one way of doing things, so overall impressions are worth noting to help future travelers on the same route. The actual Erie Canal mileage, from Tonawanda to Albany, is 350 miles. Tack on 10-12 miles if starting in Buffalo, riding the Shoreline Trail to the start. The prevailing wind is from the west - our journey was west to east - though we encountered headwinds 3 of 7 days. We had allotted more days to finish, but averaged 50 mile days to avoid a forecasted, unchanging, rainy day. We were lucky to have not encountered any rain at all. Leaving a car in Albany, we took our bikes and gear on Amtrak to Buffalo, stayed a night in a hotel, and set off the following day. In general, it was a positive experience and highly recommended, especially if you enjoy history.

Why did we choose the Erie Canal?

The trail has been complete and popular for many years. Living within 3 hours by car from Albany, the route is not far from our home. Vacations usually took my husband and I further field, by plane, or to the C&O Canal region. It took the pandemic to open our eyes to nearby trails and/or regions easily accessed by Amtrak. Impressed with other segments of the recently completed Empire State Trail system, the Erie Canal route was the next logical goal. We chose May to avoid the crowds and potential difficulty securing accommodation.

Learning History

I am most intrigued if cycling and history intersect. As we learned from excellent historical signs, central New York was once the breadbasket, so thus the impetus to move crops efficiently to the Atlantic coast. The canal was started in central New York in the 1820s, and construction went both directions eventually connecting Lake Eric to the Hudson River waterway. In some regions the canal was enlarged three times and/or sections were abandoned and wider canal sections rebuilt as traffic increased. The canal trail follows all three portions, depending upon the region. From the bike seat, we were often privy to new canal, old canal, railroad (our trail often was on a former rail line) to nearby highway with trucks hauling goods, spanning 230 years of moving goods to market.

Flora and fauna

Spring was in full force with blooming trees (apple and cherry), pink and white honeysuckle bushes, wildflowers (trillium, buttercups), and fragrant lilacs from adjoining properties. Flower petals swirled in the ever-present breeze.

In the central portion it was evident that farming is still king, Corn, grain, and abundant apple orchards (in white full bloom) as far as the eye can see. Large double-tired tractors were constant companions in the fields.

We encountered a few snakes on the trail: a black and white variety that we couldn't identify, and a dark mottled kind that I later identified as a watersnake. Canadian Geese and goslings were ever-present and we often had to ride single file to gently move them off the trail, the guard geese, mouth open honking, often flapping their wings. There were muskrat, beaver, great blue herons landing and taking off from the old canals pea soup-like waters, woodchucks scampering across the trail, a few deer, blue jays and one Baltimore oriole.

Route navigation

There was impressive signage and navigation through cities, most notably in Syracuse where there was phenomenal in terms of moving bicycles through congested areas.. Overall there is no shortage of Empire State Trail and Erie Canal signage, or on Buffalo's Shoreline Trail. It's hard to get lost.

Accommodation options

We opted to camp as much as possible, but found that campsites weren't abundant within two miles of the trail, and our personal barometer to average 50 daily trail miles didn't align well with private campsites and/or lock camping. One would need to stagger between 20 and 70 miles between camping sites. Beside staying in Buffalo, we stayed in hotels two more nights, one because of cold, the other because of lack of accessible camping.

Trail towns and signage

Communities embrace the canal trail with parks and parking access at most road junctions. The amount of parks was astounding though 90% didn't provide trash cans, portolets, or water. We had to get creative with acquiring enough water: take advantage of store bathrooms, in one instance walking into a diner, where a waitress kindly filled my bottles.

With abundant park access, information in trail towns was lacking. Intersections with small town main streets left us guessing: did they have a store, bank, public bathroom, bakery, ice cream place, eateries? We wondered why towns didn't capitalize on tourism dollars with simple direction signs.

The recycling dilemma

As with most travel, recycling is difficult. Coming from a state that recycles everything, even required composting, we know it's as easy as providing dual trash/recycling containers. We didn't find recycling receptacles in parks, town centers, campgrounds or hotels. It left us baffled.

Free camping the first night along the canal.

Trail surfaces

In general, we guess the overall trail surface is 60% stone dust, 30% paved. The remainder is a mix of double-track and rougher gravel. There is an ugly on-road 20 mile detour away from the canal on a semi-busy, hilly of course, road made bearable to us at least, by a wonderful tailwind and reasonable road shoulder.

I had a love/hate relationship with paved trail sections, especially around Rochester. When pavement is smooth it's wonderful, though when they become buckled, they are jolting, cracks often hidden through sun dappled surface, sending me cursing and standing on the pedals. I preferred the smooth, predictable stone dust portions that was the predominate surface.

Equipment review

My Bassi Rachel step through, overall, performed well. It's fairly lightweight, setup tubeless with V-brakes, which helped when I needed to remove the front wheel, and suspend the bike from it's rear wheel on Amtrak's closet-like vertical hook storage. I used two rear panniers in conjunction with a Jack-the Bike Rack on the handlebars, which housed my sleep system. At first I loaded the three components into a duffel on the top, hoping to contain all, but after the load shimmied on a 2 mile ride from the train station to our hotel in Buffalo, I moved two items beneath the rack to distribute some of the weight closer to the wheel. I repurposed the duffel bag for food, attached on the rear rack, which proved more versatile. The Jack Rack sits too high on Rachel's long head tube, so I'll be investigating other removable front end solutions for a future adventure. The tubeless tires were efficient and comfortable, requiring air in the rear wheel two or three times. The lack of tread though, caused me to slip on newer trail sections with looser gravel. Because of possible toe overlap with the front wheel, I experimented with Power Grips foot retention. I found them awkward and used them very little.

Because the mid-May weather ranged from 31-75F, it was difficult to pack the right amount of clothing, though I did pretty well. I discovered the low end of my Cosmic quilt - mid 40s - and supplemented with extra layers and wool socks. We stayed indoors on the coldest night. I wished I had brought overmitts in addition to my thin gloves. I used every clothing piece, except for the unneeded rain gear, and layered when needed. I brought 2 padded shorts, 1 padded knicker, 1 unpadded knicker, long unpadded tights for sleeping in and/or as a layering piece, cotton t-short for sleeping, 1 wicking bike top, and a lightweight longsleeve sunshirt, a baselayer, and a breathable, semi-windproof jacket, plus a thermal full zip layer (I wore these latter two a lot). I brought a couple other items, but the point is, we encountered a diverse range of weather that made the layering system a good idea.

Parting thoughts

I am happy to have completed the trail in 7 days without ever really preparing ahead of time. However, in hindsight, to appropriately enjoy the region and spend less time on a bike saddle, I would've preferred to slow down and ride around 40 miles each day. I had 4 more days of vacation so there was no hurry. I wished we had stayed at a couple locks and went to a museum.

The Amtrak route continued on from Buffalo and ended at Niagara Falls. Had we realized, we would've started from a more scenic location as it was the same distance to the start of the Erie Canal.

I'm interested in reading further about canal history. Any historical fiction suggestions?