We left on Tuesday the 20th, I had unrealistic plans about leaving early lol. Instead we were still packing in the morning and I ended up working until we left at about 12.

First stop was stopping by my parents' on the way to Tonawanda.


Then we rode down the rail trail to the canal. I always passed this sign and wanted to ride to Rochester, now I was.


First stop was Lockport. We stopped for vegetables at some cafe, I think I had a quinoa black bean bowl that was OK. We also got an iced coffee from Steamworks which is a coffee shop that chose an interesting name.

I don't remember the last time I was in Lockport but I definitely didn't remember that there were Lockport Caves. Are they just part of the canal lock?


Next up was riding to Medina. I got a flat somewhere in between but luckily had the repair kit and new pump, was able to fix it pretty quickly.

I love Medina as far as small towns go mostly because I have a totally healthy obsession with sandstone. The downtown is cute and suprisingly bougie.

Terry and I of course stopped for Mexican at Mariachi de Oro in Medina. They have a nice healthy veggie fajita, and Terry had grilled cheese and cactus tacos. Gulped down a jamiaca/hibiscus drink with it. Would definitely go bvack again






Typical trail between Lockport and Rochester


At some points you are crossing over creeks in a sort of canal aqueduct.


Here is the only road that crosses underneath the canal. Somewhere shortly before here a man came riding up and asked if we wanted to camp in his backyard. We should have taken him up on his offer. We decided to keep riding to a town called Holley instead, because I had read they had a town park with bathrooms and showers.

So last year I finally bought a touring bike (e:joe,60796) but I really hadn't gone very far on it outside of Port Colburne and Niagara Falls.

I had a ton of vacation days and not going anywhere populated due to COVID. So when the weather looked nice with little rain for a week I managed to convince (e:terry) to come a trip across the Erie Canal trail.

The trail itself is about 350 miles if you go from canalside to Albany.


It's mostly flat since most of it follows the existing or old canal.

We really committed to going on the 20th, leaving the 21st. I felt like we were going to be woefully unprepared somehow but figured there's towns across the way.



We each brought two panniers.

Packing list for future trips:

Bike tools

• multitool
• tire lever
• patch kit
• two 700cx35 presta tubes
• adjustable wrench
• portable frame pump, bought the Topeak road morph G on recommendation from Ricks

Clothes

• 4 shirts
• bike shorts and sporty shorts
• regular shorts
• 5 pairs of socks and 1 pair of underwear
• towel
• hat each
• 2 rain jackets

Sleeping

• 1 pillow
• light blanket
• heavy 4 person coleman tent
• light blanket
• two inflatable sleeping pads

Food

• purple cabbage
• cliff bars
• cashews and almonds
• 2 metal water bottles

Misc

• Paul's old macbook air for work emergency
• big ol power brick, 50,000mAH
• chargers/phones
• Terry brought kindle and switch
• sunscreen

Mascots
Twixxie and Ernie the sheep for trip mascots :sheep:

The tent was the heaviest and bulkiest thing but I didn't want to commit to buying a lighter one if this worked. I figured there should be water along the way to hobo wash our clothes/selves.

It all fit pretty well in our bags and actually we had a lot of room left over.
Tent and pads had to be strapped to our rear racks but bungees did the job.

(e:terry) and I checked out the woodshop at the Foundry last week, and took the basic safety class.

I had a ton of fun. I have pretty much zero knowledge about woodworking, so when we were able to take this scrody piece of wood, mill it to a perfect rectangle, and then route and finish it into a cutting board it was pretty amazing to come out and feel the end result.

The great part about it is they have all the tools and stations set up and organized. I don't think I would have tried it if you have to buy all the tools.

I'd consider going back and getting a membership to learn more but I want to have a specific project to work on before I do that.

Here are some pictures of Terry planing his wood. It's pretty butch.

It's only up from here everyone. (e:terry) and I went on the Wassail ride. Last bike ride on the shortest day of the year. We sang the channel four holiday song as the unofficial theme.

(e:twisted), I am working on getting estrip infrastructure ready. We severely neglected the server and host estrip was on, to be expanded on in another post!

I don't really write anymore. This is partly due to working to much, partly conflagration of the world we're living in right now and firehose of news that comes along with it.

But anyways I wanted to write about my bike. Around a month and a half back on a Fwednesday night ride, my poor Trek FX 7.1 bit the dust. The rear drop out snapped right off at the axle! Only 8 years old - I guess I might have killed it by pack mule-ing groceries.



Here it is in it's final moments, looking undignified.


It was my first real bike and first real purchase that took me to my first job, on my first dates, around at school and everywhere!
Here's baby-faced me with it in 2012:


Luckily I was able to find a warranty claim on it with Trek. They sent me back a new Trek FX 1. I thought it was time to move on to a touring bike though, so I traded it in and now I am riding this beautiful Surly Trucker.

Drop handlebars and a steel frame have changed my life - same weight as my old bike and it doesn't even flinch at a pothole or a full load of groceries. I've already ridden to Niagara Falls on it with (e:terry).