Dinosaurs on Wheels

For the past week plus of riding over 800 miles through New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, I had plenty of time to think, to contemplate important things. Instead, I contemplated stupid things and thought of things I can't explain. Some sound like petty grudges, but likely it still means I can't explain them. I didn't solve much, but perhaps if I lay them out you might have answers for me: Most have to do with what was right in front of me across the top of my handlebars all week: Such as: Why does this statue look like it came from a romance novel? 1. What makes a prosperous area become a poor one? I rode through a lot of areas on my trip that have seen better days. Large areas of the state of New York look like their best days are well behind them. You can tell by the architecture of the buildings that some of the homes, when they were built a hundred to a hundred fifty years ago, were impressive. Beautiful brick homes, with porches, towers, and other features that...

As we have finished with the Empire State Trail, it's not correct to continue to call it that, is it? Well, the next part of our journey was to take us from Buffalo, the end of the Erie Canal and the end of the Trail, home to Lakewood, Ohio. This part of the trip would by necessity be on roads, not trails, so I can't really call it a trail anymore. Just the road home. We began our road home on Sunday. Staying at the luxurious condo in the sky in Buffalo, a far cry from the night before (or as you'll see, the night after...), the day began with rain. We've actually been really luck with weather this trip, in that we've had nothing but sunshine and some heat. Today that changed, but since we had no check-out time, we stayed until we saw that the rain had stopped. This put us behind about 2 hours, leaving about 9:30 in the morning, not our usual 7-8AM. We had about 74 miles to ride today, so time was a'wastin'. We wound our way through downtown Buffalo, fou...

Day 8 of our New York adventure started where we had left off ,of course, at the Hilton Garden Inn in Pittsford, near Rochester. We had a quick fill up breakfast at the hotel before hitting the road along the trail. We weren't exatly in Pittsford just yet, as it was a bit up the trail. It was a really nice piece of canal, with restaurants, condos, and shops along the water. This was much like Fairport yesterday. The waterfront is really nice - it's no Great Lake, but there are folks riding, walking their dogs, etc. along the waterfront. We circled around the south side of Rochester for a number of miles and it was actually pretty nice. As opposed to riding between Albany and Syracuse, where the route went past the old, old Erie Canal that hasn't been used for years, today we stayed along the working canal, meaning there are boats, for the most part pleasure boats, running up and down the waterway. This keeps the water much clearer, and it's nice to see people us...

Day 7 (have we been at this a week now?) started off early, as we didnt want to face the heat of the afternoon like we have for the past few days. A quick breakfast from the automatic pancake machine at the Tru hotel launched is on our way this morning. The trail was very close, so we were on our way by 7AM anticipating a long one. We actually put on a quick twenty miles before 9, so we felt ahead of the game. Looking at the map, I anticipated a lot of time in the sun, on local roads, not a whole lot of fun. While we did spend some time thos morning on roads, it was mixes with trails. As the day moved on, we ended up almost exclusively on trails, a long the canal. And while we cycled theough towns like Weedsport and Jordan, located on the old canal, rife with stagnant water, algae, etc. as we rolled along we spent more time on the modern canal, where boats currently travel. We saw a few boats, including a sailboat carrying its mast into a lock to get raised up to the level of the...

The last two days have been hot and heavy for the Ryan brothers. Yesterday, a trip between Amsterdam and Utica, reach 91 degrees, and with high, high humidity. The morning was fine, but the afternoon was just draining. Amsterdam saw us leaving and having a pretty good morning, covering 40 miles before lunch, spinning along in the cool morning breezes in the shade of the trail. We ended up about lunchtime in a town caled Little Falls, which was actually aross the river from the trail. There are very few clues to the services in the towns we pass. We went across the river to look for what we might find. Unfortunately it looked like all of Little Falls had gone out of business. Along Main Street we must have seen half a dozen for sale signs, with most bisinesses closed or boarded up. And it looks like it was all recently, too. Very odd. We found a small cafe called "A little place on Main," run by a husband and wife, where we got sandwiches and cold drinks, and a nice confor...

The past few days have gone by so fast I had little time to post anything. Saturday morning we awoke at our Hampton in Elmsford, had the hotel breakfast and hit the road. It was a really nice day again, and we continued to travel orth through the really nice trails in Westchester county. There were a lot of people out riding, skating, walking their dogs, etc. as you woud expect on a Saturday in August. We traveled through into Duchess County, where they had equally nice trails. Theirs had a lot of abandoned rail lines running along the road, so I guess they saved funds by just leaving the old railroad there rather than remove them. It kind of shows you how resilient the rails were, as they havent been used since 1970, and except for all of the weeds and some trees growing up within them, they almost looked like they could be used with a little polish. We got a late lunch at a sports bar in Hopewell Junction, expecting to go a good ways after lunch. But the heat and lack of shad...

Well, day one of our adventure is in the books. How far did we go today? Actually we went 500 miles today. Actualy we drove 470 miles in a rental minivan, then rode the last 30 miles on our bikes. First, before our adventure started, we enjoyed a pre-trip concert last night with Wilco at Cain Park in Cleveland Heights. It couldnt have been a nicer night, perfect temperature, a beautiful evening for one of my favorite bands. They call Wilco "dad rock," but I don't mind. It was nice going to a concert and not feeling like the oldest person there for a change. A double-set from Jeff Tweedy and the boys was a perfect way to start this adventure. It got us back home late with an early start time, but that's okay. This morning we woke up, loaded the minivan with our bikes and our bags, coffee, and hit the road. The trip went by quickly as Jerry and I caught up on family and political gossip, and even got a Facetie call from my nephew Brendan and his wife from Alaska...

It has been a while, I know, since Dinosaurs on Wheels has been together. Back in 2023, we tackled the Great Divide Mountain Bike route, from Banff in Alberta, down to the US/Mexican border. Unfortunately, only one of us finished (it wasn't me). Last summer, through the misfortune of Jerry's heart condition, he was unable to do any riding, so I kept my riding local. This year, we thought the same would happen again. However, days ago, Jerry received word from his doctors that he was cleared to ride. Good thing, because we had been planning a new trip for some time. This trip is a bit shorter and flatter than the previous rides we've done together. This time we are tackling the Empire State Trail. This route, through New York state, begins in Manhattan at Battery Park, follows the Hudson River north to Albany, then joins with the Erie Canal trail, the towpath for the famous canal, westward to Buffalo. From Buffalo it's less than 200 miles back to Cleveland, so ...