Day 1: Buffalo to Rochester

The drinks from the night before came back to haunt me in the morning. My alarm went off at 6 30, when I wanted to be up, I rolled over and shut it off. I woke up again somewhere around sunrise, rolled over and slept some more. Finally around 8 30, I rolled over and realized, shit I need to get going. It took me some time to pack my bags and get going (plus my host Brian woke up and so I chatted with him for a bit too), by the time I put rubber on pavement, it was near 10 AM.

The steed before setting out.

One last look at the city.

Going under the Peace Bridge

Once again I tread the familiar Riverwalk (not going through the city to Amy's Place for breakfast as I wanted, being too late), heading north towards Tonawanda Creek, the last leg of the old Erie Canal journey before Buffalo. A light snow had begun to fall, finally, I get some of the white stuff I traveled across the country to see. Luckily though it wasn't a blizzard and by the time I hit the Tonawanda Creek, the snow had dissipated.

The Tonawanda Creek path in Amherst.

Empty pathways in the cold.

My first look at the manufactured section of the canal.

After about an hour and a half on the road I was jogging along fairly nicely with a decent tailwind. The bike path was fairly clear and dry and swerved back and forth, then a wet corner struck. I leaned into the corner and my wheels slipped out from under me and I went down hard. Less than two hours in and I already found myself on the ground. My right wrist and knee took the brunt of it, but after taking a second to check myself out, I was fine. My bike on the other hand needed a little love, my brake levers were pointing inward. But I was prepared and pulled out my tools and fixed that up too. From there on out I took the corners much more timidly.

Niagara Produce in Lockport

The last lock of three in Lockport, I should have gotten a better picture of all three, oh well.

I reached Lockport around noonish and grabbed some food from a supermarket, this is my first vegan tour so it would be interesting to see how eating would be. I passed a Subway, a vegan fast food staple, but figured that to be a last ditch effort, instead I found Niagara Produce, a nice little produce market and deli. I grabbed some fruit and some trail mix, I suppose this would be my future tour compromise, living by markets instead of fast food, probably for the better anyway.

Middleport

Medina 

Waterfall behind Medina.

From Lockport the towpath began. I was now on gravel, which oddly enough made me more confident about staying upright. The canal path looked about the same all along, not changing much. Middleport was the first town I hit, I checked it out found a nice coffee shop, considered coffee, but since I had just stopped in Lockport I decided to press on, figuring the next town would most likely have coffee as well. How wrong I was. I somehow circumvented the Medina downtown and watched the Main St pass by from across the marina. The next few towns were tiny little towns that lacked any sort of business district. Albion was my only hope. I recognized the name (as I had with Medina) so I figured it would be a larger settlement. As I approached Albion I looked across the canal and realized why I recognized the name, on the south side of the canal was a large institutional brick building behind a series of chainlink fences, the last topped with razor wire. That's why I know the name, Albion State Prison. It's strange to think how this could make a town recognizable. The downtown was fairly large compared to the others passed, the largest actually I've seen on the canal (besides Lockport), but it was empty. Two blocks long and one block wide crowded with storefronts lying vacant. Albion was a bust as well.

Along the path were a lot of wide open grassy fields like this one.

I was so excited to reach Albion.

All these shops made me hopeful. False hope

By Albion I was forty miles from Lockport with no stop and my toes were starting to get icy. My feet felt like ice blocks just spinning dead weight in my toe clips. I kept spinning and passed the tiny towns of Holley and Eagle Harbor, seeing no sign of any commercial life, I just kept  going. Once I reached Brockport the sun was nearing the horizon, I decided to skip Brockport too, in hopes of reaching Rochester before nightfall.

Brockport turning on their lights before I was even finished.

I didn't. The sun was down as I crossed into the suburb of Gates, where I reentered the roadways. I stopped first at Wegman's a regional (and awesome) supermarket where I feasted on the hot bar (vegan friendly) before meeting up with my friends Mike and Sam. Even just walking off the bike for a couple minutes and getting some food in me made me feel better and riding the two miles from the supermarket to my friends' apartment I rode out of my saddle happy to put the first day behind. Day one was a series of lessons learned, leave early to get enough sunlight and stop for lunch. Two days off in Rochester before my next day of riding to Syracuse.