Going Places, Near & Far: Cycle the Erie Canal Tour Affords Extraordinary View of ‘Real America’

Karen Rubin

To understand America, to really know its foundation, you only have to bike the 400 miles from Buffalo to Albany following along the Erie Canal Trail. Here, unfolding before you, are the colonial settlements and clash of cultures between Europeans and Native Americans. Here are the farm communities and factory towns that enabled the United States to march full steam into the Industrial Revolution and become a world economic power; where entrepreneurism thrived and immigration provided the human capital. Here is where you feel the progressive Labor, Women’s Rights, and Abolition movements percolate up through society. It’s the rise of big cities and even most improbably, the preservation – even revival – of small town America that makes you feel you have fallen into a scene our of “Music Man” (flags and all).

I had this opportunity, along with more than 600 others who joined the 17th Annual Cycle the Erie Canal bike tour, organized by Parks & Trails New York, a nonprofit organization which uses the annual event to raise awareness and money to complete the trail (now about 70% finished) and make it one of the longest multi-purpose trails in the nation.

This year’s ride was the biggest ever. Riders came from 36 states and a half dozen foreign countries, from as far as Alaska and Australia, Germany and Scotland. All of us had this extraordinary opportunity to see this broad swath of “the real” America that most travelers, including Americans, never see.

We ranged in age from 2 to 91 – the 91 year old being Stuart Lovengood, from Boyartown, PA, who already has done the ride four times and this year was riding with his daughter, son-in-law and 21-year old grandson. The two-year old rode in a trailer attached to her parents who were riding together on a tandem, like a train. There were grandparents squiring their grandkids (on their own bikes) and grandparents taking their 7-year old grandchild; a family with twin 7-year olds (each parent had one in a pedal trailer attached to their bike) and a 10 year old on his own bike; an adult daughter doing the ride with her father; and a slew of solo travelers (women as well as men – one woman said that she takes one trip each year separate from her husband) who merge into the community that instantly forms among us.

I was drawn to the ride initially for the opportunity to transverse 400 miles on a (mostly) dedicated, auto-free and (mostly) flat trail – enjoying the physical challenge of riding about 50 miles a day over the course of eight days, from point to point – while enjoying the support of having my gear transported, my meals prepared, and my overnights pre-arranged. (This is a ride for all abilities – you go at your own pace, and with the support services, if for some reason you can’t make a distance, you and your bike will be picked up by car.)

But this proved just one element in a thoroughly satisfying and layered experience, because you add on to this the intellectual enrichment of being so immersed in heritage, the long, long list of interesting attractions, sites and special activities arranged for us all along the way (special admissions), the camaraderie of the shared experience, the sense of community that we had camping each night, and the absolutely superb support system and organization of the trip, from the breakfasts and dinners provided each day, to the rest stops to break up the ride morning and afternoon, to the opportunities for swimming, showering (a shower truck was provided), recharging phones and computers, and in most cases, access to WiFi. We even had available a bike repair guy, massage therapists and hairstylist (in case anyone met someone special along the way, she jokes).

Each evening there was some special presentation, lecture or concert, and usually shuttle buses to take us downtown from our campsite. Our cue sheets which layout precise mileage of the route (and rest stops) also informed us of special places to visit along our way (in most cases with free admission and special hours), and the best places to stop for lunch.

This is the best of camping, really. We have the camaraderie of camping, but because this is hosted, the meals are provided so you don’t have to buy, prepare and clean up, and our gear is transported each day. Each day, breakfast was served between 6-8 am, and you had to be packed up and everything on the truck by 8 am, but some got up as early as 5:30 am and on the road as early 6:30 am.

Our campsites were typically school grounds and parks, and those who did not want to set up a tent, could have “indoor” camping inside the gymnasium or in one case a hockey rink. Or, if you wanted to tent but didn’t want to set it up and take it down each day, you could rent a service, Comfy Camper, to set up a tent for you – 133 tents were set up by Comfy Camper, looking very much like a military encampment. (PKNY also provides lists of bed-and-breakfasts and commercial hotels nearby.)

We were also supported by a legion of volunteers including SAG bikers who rode the trail and were available to assist any rider who had difficulty; SAG drivers who could pick up a rider and their bike with a car; a doctor who traveled along with us; a “safety enabler” who lectured us on safe cycling; and (bless them) the people who were responsible for painting the symbols for turning on the route and preparing the cue sheets with precise mileage.

All along the way, we are made to feel very special: our “send off” from Buffalo begins with a police escort through the streets to the start of the trail (which connects at Tonawanda to the start of the Canal Trail), and in addition to our rest stops (the first gives us a chance to visit the Buffalo Niagara Heritage Village (we also get coupons for Uncle G’s Ice Cream, a block away) and the Schenectady Historical Society, local towns set up stops for us along the trail – Brockport offers free stamped postcards and ice water; in Jordan, where we see magnificent murals painted on the canal bridge, offers refreshments and neon shoelaces; we get ice pops on the trail just past Jordan where the Mayor hands out pens, and on the trail in Memphis, we were handed ice pops).

In Seneca Falls, the Women’s Rights National Historic Park opened especially for us while the Women’s Hall of Fame and the “It’s a Beautiful Life” Museum stayed open late for us (free admission); same with Fort Stanwix in Rome, which even kept the visitors center open all night for us, while the Erie Canal Museum in Syracuse opened at 7 am for us and we were treated to a preview of an exhibit that isn’t officially opened until October.

Each day, they arrange for special activities – a canal cruise at Lockport, tours of Fort Stanwix in Rome, visiting the Syracuse zoo, free kayaking and canoeing on the Genesee River in Rochester, as well as nightly lectures, presentations or concerts; arranging shuttle buses to take us into town from our campground, arranging swimming almost every day. The last night, they organize a choir and a “talent show”, and a festive banquet.

Each evening we formed a new community, a new neighborhood would spring up where we set up our tents. People were so extraordinarily friendly – sitting around at breakfast or dinner, and finding out who they are, where they have come from. The tour brings so many people together from so many different places in life. At the Syracuse Zoo, I learn that birds have the ability to regenerate their cilia and recover their hearing from a rider who is an audiologist, and discuss Scottish nationalism with a Scotsman.

People are so pleasant and helpful to each other on the trail. We were given “license plates” with our name and where we are from on the back of our bikes so people who passed usually had a personal greeting, and pretty soon, you get to know people.

Even though we were 600 riders, except for the send-off from Buffalo, when we all started out together (with a police escort to lead us through the streets to the beginning of the trail), we left camp at our own time, and rode at our own pace, so we were pretty strung out along the trail. In fact, there were times when I was all alone (and so happy with the markings on the trail).

The tour follows the towpath along sections of the original Erie Canal and the “canalized” Seneca and Mohawk Rivers which, because the boats were not motorized but were pulled along by mules led by boys (called hoggies)  who walked 15 miles a day. (During one of our presentations, we learn that one hoggie grew up to become president: James Garfield). But the Barge Canal (the third iteration of the canal), the so-called “modern” canal, takes a different route. So at times, we veer off from the canal, sometimes finding ourselves in trees rather than riding along water, and sometimes following the old canal, now naturally filling with water or converted into some other purpose like a park, and sometimes riding along roads and rolling hills (or up the overpasses over highways). There were two long, gradual climbs in the Mohawk Valley and the 50-or-so miles we bike to and from Seneca Falls brings us through rolling Amish countryside that seems out of Currier & Ives.

Our route takes us to historic villages, rural pastures, old locks and abandoned aqueducts. Parts of the ride offer exquisite opportunities for discovery, to connect with heritage and give context to history; parts cast us into luscious scenery, nature, picturesque landscapes; and then there are sections (like when you are in the trees, on a narrow, overgrown trail) that give you space to to get in your own zone, your own head, hear the music and the rhythms and the conversations in your own mind . Very Zen.

You no doubt have learned about the Erie Canal in elementary school, when the teacher tried to convey why this was such a marvel, why it had such impact on how our nascent nation developed.

But it is when you travel (in this case, by bicycle) every mile of the Erie Canal Trail, that you really appreciate just what a feat it was to build such a canal, and its impact on creating and shaping communities, growing towns and cities (the “Mother of Cities”), inspiring new innovations, turning a subsistence farmer into a global purveyor, an incubator for new , progressive ideas like Abolition , Women’s Rights and Labor Rights and an artery for the transmission.

Most exciting of all, is how the canal is once again inspiring a new kind of social and economic revitalization, a repurposing of structures and reorganizing of societies – so in Seneca Falls, you look across the water to the massive Seneca Falls Knitting Mills, now vacant, but in its day, where young women had their first jobs out of the home and began the fight to control their own wages, which will soon become the new home of the Women’s Hall of Fame; in Cohoes, you see giant factories now repurposed to condos.

I love the historical markers all along the way, especially the ones with images – paintings, etching, photos, murals – which capture “then” and let you compare to “now.” At Schoharie Crossing, particularly, where you actually can see evidence of all three Erie Canals, you can see the same scene as it was 100 years ago; and images make it easy to picture Cohoes Falls as it was.

I love discovering something that is entirely new or unexpected – like the magnificent Tiffany windows in the Pullman Memorial Universalist Church in Albion, funded by the native son who got rich by inventing the Pullman sleeping car, and the Peppermint Museum in Lyons, devoted to H.G. Hotchkiss who founded the Essential Oil Company in 1884 on the banks of the original Erie Canal, or coming upon the Sims Store, a re-creation of a general store which would have served the boats along the canal, and the Canastota Canal Town Museum in a tiny house, once the bakeshop. And coming upon truly extraordinary sites like Fort Stanwix, where interpreters in period dress provide the best understanding of colonial America, the clash of cultures between European settlers and Native Americans, and the Revolutionary War (which I come to realize really was a civil war, of brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor), and becoming acquainted for the first time with important figures like General Nicholas Herkimer, a true hero of the Revolutionary War.

And as you travel, you pick up ideas and knowledge from one, and transfer to another, new insights and questions come, as if pieces of a puzzle that you assemble.

The trip provides equal exercise for mind and body.

History really does come alive when you see it where it happened, in context, the full connections and scope. And what you come away with is how meaningful the past is to our present.

The 18th Annual Cycle the Erie Canal ride is scheduled July 10-17, 2016. In the meantime, you can cycle the trail on your own – detailed information is at the ptny.org site, including suggested lodgings and attractions. For more information on Cycle the Erie Canal, contact Parks & Trails New York at 518-434-1583 or visit www.ptny.org.

 

Next: Lockport’s Remarkable Flight of 5 and Man-Made Caves

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