Erie Canal Forum

Good morning all. I am in the process of planning to cycle the canal from Albany to buffalo sometime before the end of Autumn in 2024. I have family in buffalo I am going to visit. My intention is to camp on the trail. As I am flying in with my bike I do not actually want to carry a tent. In the campsites along the trail are there any that offer one night hire of tents.

That's not really a thing here, and certainly not frequently enough to cover you for the whole trip.

Agree with Bill. I’ve not heard of tent rentals and certainly not in all the small towns you’ll be stopping at. If you’re set on not carrying any gear (or you don’t have a support crew carrying it for you), I would just “credit card camp” and stay at motels/BNB’s.

Thanks for both comments fellas, I have plenty of time to plan, so will now look at bed and breakfast along the route and weigh it again st carrying tent and sleeping bag.

Slainte Mhath

You may want to buy a tent and sleeping bag in Albany. Then donate it to good will in Buffalo.

Good call on buying tent and then donating.
Cheers DK

Hey there! We are not rent campers, so won’t comment on that. But, September 2022, my husband and I rode the Albany to Buffalo thru trip. We were the ONLY riders going East to West. There are a few spots along the way that the tailwind you may benefit from when going West to East would be helpful, but I can honestly say that the last 130 miles or so into Buffalo were by far the prettiest! We are glad we chose this direction, although the vast major of riders go not.
I have our entire itinerary I can send if you want. We stayed at motels or hotels over the 7 nights.

Let me know if you are interested in our itinerary and I’ll be happy to send it along. If do, you might provide an email I can send it to

Pat Ness

Pat from Greencastle I would be interested in your itinerary lafrancedonna@yahoo.com thanks!

If you haven't yet discovered this site.

https://empiretrail.ny.gov/activities/camping

Lots of good information and a free map to order.

https://empiretrail.ny.gov/trip-planning

Thank you Pat. I would appreciate having a look at your itinerary.
Bill

Williammckay596@gmail.com is my e mail

Thank you Pat, I would appreciate your sending me your itinerary. Can you tell me do you ride on city streets as you go through Syracuse? My email is Jmccartney@ithaca.edu.

Pat, I would love to see your itinerary too!
sarah.bansen@gmail.com

Plan to cycle the entire trail in June Buffalo to Albany. How many additional miles am I adding if I elect to go to Niagra Falls?

Check out the shoreline trail.
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/2d03255fa1d24a9fb8fdf344d9eab651
27 miles round trip from Tonawanda.

Beautiful Story Map!

I was surprised to see it not suggest going over the two Grand Island bridges. I used to take that shortcut but that was over 30 years ago! :-) But that route suggested looks really nice.

Alternatively, if you have a passport, you can hop over the Peace Bridge into Fort Erie and take the Niagara River Recreation Route that follows the Niagara River all the way to the Falls.

John

Has anyone had any issues with bringing bikes into hotel rooms? I'm looking at a Choice Hotel. There is nothing on their web sites.

I would call the front desk and ask. If they’re near the trail, they will have had many guests who have arrived by bike so they’ll have a pretty clear rules.

The good ones have hoses outside to remove the grit off of your bikes. Most should allow them in the rooms or will at least have a separate storage room if not.

John

On our trip we will be staying in The Castle in Amsterdam which does not allow bicycles in the room. They do have a private secure parking garage for guests which is where our bikes will be kept.

Our itinerary also has us staying at Buffalo Marriott, Becker Farms Vineyard, Del Monte Spa, Red Roof Inn, Days Inn and Best Western. I called each to verify and they allow bikes in the room, at least the ones we have booked. So call and find out and make reservations accordingly. Enjoy the ride, stay safe.

We are planning on riding from Buffalo to Albany this summer. Are there any car rentals in Albany set up with bike racks that we can use to drive back to Buffalo? It would seem this would be easier than a train and good opportunity for a car rental company. I assume they could advetize their services on this site.

I was looking into car rental also but at this point I’m leaning toward renting a uhaul truck.
There are several along the way and can be dropped off at the starting point. For us that would be Lockport. Riding about 100 miles in two days loading the bikes and driving back.
Uhaul would be about $125

I'd be interested in learning about renting a bike rack, too. Never heard of it. How about buying a used one cheap, using it, and selling it cheap? Or, run an ad. Pretty sure there are alot of racks in garages no longer being used. Put an ask out on the trashnothing web site in Albany, and make an offer.

Or, how about rent a van and stash the bikes in it?

Just a few ideas.

The Amtrak train has become more rider friendly, and it's not expensive, but you need a reservation for the bike which locks your trip into certain dates. You can rent a van that will hold 2 or 3 bikes, or more bikes if you want to break them down, but van rental is expensive, and you are limited to pickup and return at airports. UHaul rentals are much cheaper, with many choices for pickup and return. The truck will hold several bikes, which you can roll on and roll off, but you will need to carry or buy quite a few ropes or bungees to secure the bikes to protect them from damage in the back. At ~12mpg Uhaul is not the green way to travel, and if gas prices become stratospheric again the cost of the gas might be significant.

I'd stay home.

We rented a minivan one way for the two of us when we rode the GAP. Cheaper than Amtrak.

I second Bill’s mini-van idea. I’ve done this before. Just put the back seats down and maybe remove your front tire(s) and they will easily fit. You will need to figure out how get from drop off/pickup point to and from the trail of course.

John

Thanks for the ideas! I will check into van and uhaul rentals.

Do you rent bicycles? or are you able to direct us to a shop that does?

That shop might not see your question here, but I am pretty sure they do not offer rentals.

Here is a link to all businesses that I know of, on or near the Erie Canal towpath trail, that offer bike rental:

https://bikeeriecanal.com/planner.aspx?scid=4&ecid=51&rt=0&rtid=1&svcs=|6|

If anyone sees errors in this list, or knows of others that I might have missed, I welcome your input.

Happy trails!

My group ( we’re in our mid 60’s)is planning to ride a large portion of the trail in early June. We are planning to start near Buffalo and ride about 50 miles a day for four days. What is the best starting point? Is it Buffalo or should we move East a bit? Can anyone recommend towns to overnight at about 50 mile intervals? In the past since we have 10-12 riders we’ve used RV’s. Are there camp grounds/RV parks within a short drive of each overnight town? Lastly, we are mostly road bikers and May look to rent some gravel/hybrid bikes at a shop near the end of our ride. Any recommendations?

Thank for any response. Remember ride fast, stay upright!!

Assuming you don't want to see Niagara Falls, you couldn't go wrong by starting at Lockport and riding to Rome, I think.

Brockport and Weedsport would be decent places to stop, with an approx 50 mile spacing. Not sure which town in between them would be best.

No idea on RVs or camping, sorry.

The Trip Planner link above and Google Maps can really help you nail down the amenities you want.

As road bikers, do you have an idea what it feels like to ride 50 miles on the gravel trail? 50 miles of gravel would be about 80 miles of road.

This is my itinerary from Buffalo to Weedsport. Although I do have a breakdown to Albany. The referenced mileage is from the zero mileage trail marker in Buffalo to the lodging facility. Lockport is a pretty good start as previously mentioned. We are doing the whole trail in a few months where we will take the train from Albany to Buffalo. Except for the winery we are lodging pretty much on the trail.

2.5 Arrive Buffalo 6:45 pm stay Buffalo Marriott 2.5 miles

43.1 Arrive Gasport
Lodging Becker Farms vineyard / brewery 1.4 mi from trail

103.0 Arrive Pittsford Lodging Del Monte Hotel & Spa

163.0 Arrive Weedsport Lodging Red Roof Inn

enjoy the ride. let me know how you broke down your ride.

Is this a place to stop and charge our batteries?
Are there any places on the trail to do this?

You should call and ask them. I would expect that they are a bike shop of some sort, rather than a charging station.

Will be first time on this trail. Is it fairly flat the entire way? Looking for best itinerary for 3 days of riding, about 125 miles total. What 125 mile section would you reccomend and where would you start. Better to travel east or west? Did the Gap trail last year and loved it. Any info would be appreciated.

If I had 3 days and wanted to do that distance, I'd start in Buffalo, and ride to Palmyra or Newark.

You are parallel to the old canal, which is so nice, and the towns along the way are great. Lots of older history.

There is also less road riding, and it's fairly flat.

If you have concerns about hills, try to avoid the section between Newark and Weedsport. Some people say it doesn't have hills, but when I was there, I was on hills. I guess it depends on your frame of reference. A lot of it is also on roads.

If you look through the bikeeriecanal site you will find an elevation chart to help in your planning

Hello, and thank you for this excellent planning tool> Highly useful and generally excellent quality tool.
I did ‘discover’ what looks like a serious discrepancy in the results using different parts of the Web-tool:
If I use the Mileage Chart and look, for example, at the distance between Buffalo and Medina, the result displayed is 51.4 miles.

If, on the other hand, I use the Trip Planner Tab and download the underlying data ("Download your planner info in Excel-ready CSV format: planner csv file”) the facility farthest along the Trail from Buffalo to Medina is 44.3 miles. That’s a big difference!

So for planning purposes (daily mileage), which number is accurate?

I really appreciate the option to download the full data set of Trail facilities. I’ve used this to create a planning too that really helps us (similar to what we did when planning the GAP-C&O Ride). Once I got the data arranged, I just input the ‘Day number’, and copy that number down until I get to our preferred mileage (~40 miles). Then I increment the Day Number, and repeat.

Anyway, this is overall a great utility. I will look forward to your explanation on why the Mileage Chart doesn’t seem to agree with the downloaded .CSV file.

This past June 14th, my brother and I began our Erie Canalway Trail bike tour and started from the Hampton Inn in downtown Buffalo. We ended that day at the Hart House Hotel in Medina. My 'Ride With GPS' App showed exactly 51.9 miles. Most of the other daily rides, when compared to the Planning Tool on the website, differed from between 2 and 8 miles, with some being right on the money. I'm not sure how the mileages were calculated, but some of them are not exact and you should be prepared for some discrepancy. All in all, it was a fabulous tour and I plan on doing it again. Have fun!

Hi Gordon, thank you for reaching out about the Trip Planner. I always appreciate anybody pointing out issues with the website like this, so I can get it fixed.

But with this issue I can't reproduce the problem. When I do a trip planner for Buffalo to Medina, the Medina businesses are all showing up with mileage in the low 50's, as they should be. I also tried Medina to Buffalo, and a few other combinations with other towns, but it's all looking correct.

Do you happen to still have the CSV file that you created? If so, could you please email me a copy to ray@bikeeriecanal.com - this might help me see what was going on at the time it was run.

Again, thank you for saying something about this - we'll get to the bottom of it!

Ray, would this old explanation that you sent me explain the difference? Sorry, you'll have to scroll down a bit.

https://bikeeriecanal.com/talk.aspx?tid=334

Hey Bill, you have a better memory than I do, I had forgotten about that issue!

Thank you for the suggestion - that would have been a good explanation, but it was fixed quite a while ago - all mileage measurements go to the trail's end in Buffalo, so no discrepancies.

It looks like the trip planner is also giving the right mileage. I haven't heard back from Gordon, but all the numbers coming out of the planner are currently correct: 50-ish miles from the trail start in Buffalo to Medina.

Again I appreciate anyone pointing out anything that doesn't look right, but at this point it's all working correctly to the best of my knowledge.

As always, thanks for running a great site, Ray.

What would you recommend for tire size and type for the canal trail...riding the full distance.

We have ridden all of our trail miles on 2.0 or 2.2 inch tires, with no flats.

Many people would recommend narrower tires, but then end up with flats.

We cycled 3 days on 28mm road tires (90 pounds pressure) with paniers on our bikes..no problem on gravel, stones, etc. Our bikes have Armadillo/Gatorskin / kevlar tires (you can still get a flat if you run over a nail or sharp glass).

Rode 2x with Schwalb Marathons 700/35. No flats both trips

Hi! Will be doing the Erie Canal this June. Previously, road the GAP (Twice) and C&O. We use our hybrids with 700c wheels. For the GAP, I upsized the tires to 36mm, but that was mainly for the C&O (which in parts was a mess).
Honestly, it's mainly the Tire - not the width. Schwalbe Marthons are awesome - and 32mm widths should be more than adequate, even with full panniers.

While I don't tour the canal, I ride it numerous times a week from spring thru fall, thousands of miles, on 700x25. Of course a wider tire may be more comfortable.

Have ridden various sections of the trail several times on Schwalbe 32x700 without any major issues. Riding the sections of hard pack during or just after rain gets a little squirrely.

The sections east of Brockport between Sweden Walker road bridge and Henpeck park in Greece can be bad after a rain, as mentioned by Yankee John.

Doing the ride from Buffalo to Albany this June and wanted to know if there was info on restaurants that had bike racks to secure our bicycles. Looking for about 4 steakhouses or pubs (on the nicer side ) were our bikes would be secure.

Info on your favorite restaurants along the way would be nice.

Cycling the Erie Canal, Revised Edition: A Guide to 400 Miles of Adventure and History Along the Erie Canalway Trail (Parks & Trails New York)

Available on Amazon... pricy but worth it.

I know of no steak houses located on the canal. Try camping and grilling them yourself.

Did you try researching it on the internet? That may be your best bet.

Based on a rides in 2019 and 2020, no more recent experience:
There is a steakhouse in Newark on the south side of the river with racks and an outdoor deck and good food.
The is a restaurant at the public boathouse in Utica on the south of the river just east of the interstate overpass that is pricey but is a nice location and good food and bike racks. I noticed it was closed the summer of 2020.
There is also an outdoor beer garden in Utica at the old Utica Club Brewery near the trail that does not have bike racks but lots of spots to lock your bike to a post.
There are two Italian restaurants in Amsterdam a block down the hill from Castle with excellent Italian food. Lorenzo's is next to the trail parking and has outdoor seating. Parillo's is an old family style Italian restaurant and more run down appearing on the outside but the food is good. Neither has bike racks, but there are bike racks at the southern terminus of the new Amsterdam Gateway Overlook pedestrian bridge. This unique bridge is a must see attraction.

Thank you for this info! (Especially Utica!)

I don't remember seeing a single bike rack at a restaurant on the trail.

Google Maps is really good for scouting out restaurants, because it has the ratings and recent reviews. You'll find some great places. Always have a backup, because restaurants come and go quickly sometimes.

This one is right on the trail. Bike rack nearby, you can eat out on the patio and keep an eye on your bikes.

https://www.lorenzossouthside.com/

Thinking of memorable places that we ate at on the trail, I came up with these.

Buffalo
The Dish at Canalside. Hearty food washed down with a Big Ditch Hayburner.

North Tonawanda
My Tomato Pie. The best lemon vinaigrette dressing in the universe on some kind of salad my wife got. And a meatball sandwich.

Medina
Fitzgibbon's Public House. Bangers and mash, or whatever.

Brockport
Barber's Grill and Taproom. Burger and fries at a table out on the sidewalk.

Pittsford
Simply Crepes for dinner.
Ice cream at the dairy.

Weedsport
Lunkenheimer's

Canastota
The Mexican restaurant

Rome
Sugarbeets

Amsterdam
Shorty's

Thanks everyone for your input. Ride safe. Bob