Canals, Rivers, Bays, Lakes...and Train Stations?

   Although our next day in Rochester was technically a rest day for me, Sue and I set off at a more relaxing pace, heading north along the Genesee River, with a turnaround destination of Irondequoit (uh·RAHN·duh·koyt) Bay and Lake Ontario. The previous evening, we had attended a Red Wings minor league baseball game at the stadium downtown, so we were really starting to know our way around.

   We were disappointed to find that the Pont de Rennes bridge was closed, not only denying us one of the best views of the Upper Falls (photo below) but also our planned crossing of the river. However, we did get to continue on past the Genesee Brewery, which is interesting enough, even to a guy like me (malt beverages and Celiac don’t get along). I do have fond memories of my father’s bright green “Genny” Cream Ale cans when camping.

   We descended to the Genesee Riverway Trail (GRT), crossing the bridge over Middle Falls, which have been obstructed by hydroelectric works. A short distance ahead, we did get a very nice view of the Lower Falls.

   Climbing up out of Maplewood Park, we met Lake Avenue at the impressive Eastman Kodak plant, now an empty shell due to the rise in digital photography and the company’s failure to adapt. The trail here became a paved lane up alongside the sidewalk, keeping cyclists safely out of the busy four-lane traffic on Lake Avenue.
   We missed our intended righthander down into Turning Point Park, as (we found out later) the GRT sign directing us that way had been hidden behind a tree. Continuing down Lake Street we eventually reached a familiar street name and met back up with the GRT further along our planned route. In a few minutes we reached Rochester Harbor, once a commercial shipping port but now mostly a location for pleasure boat marinas, restaurants and family activities, like swimming and fishing.
   After pedaling out the 2/3-mile Charlotte Pier, we took a photo in front of the light tower. Some folks call it a lighthouse, but it is definitely not that (unless you mean it houses a light).

   Circling back a bit we crossed over the harbor on the Pattonwood Drive bridge and eventually met up with the Lake Ontario State Parkway Trail. The going was a bit slow along the lakefront, as dozens of families were making their way down to the beach, but soon we were into the woods. Here the trail wound up onto the bluff and the community of Sea Breeze.
   We could hear the screams from the girls riding the roller coaster at the local amusement park as we coasted down to the swing bridge at the mouth of Irondequoit Bay. We knew the bridge was left open during the summer, and were frustrated to be denied an opportunity to ride out the causeway and down the east side of the bay back to the city. The constant parade of boats through the bay outlet made us a little more understanding of the situation, but we decided that a stop for some ice cream was needed to really make us feel better!
   Ducking under a nearby pavilion for a short period helped us avoid being hit by some of the biggest raindrops we’d ever experienced – they were cold, and they HURT! This shower was brief, but it was a bad omen.
   We grinded back up the bluff and hooked up with Culver Road, which would have had us straight back into our Park Avenue neighborhood. Halfway there and crack, BOOM…”Uh, let’s take some shelter!”
   For the next half hour, we were standing under the front awning of a closed restaurant, watching some of the heaviest rain and some of the dumbest driving through flooded streets we had ever seen. When things calmed down, we took a slow trip through back streets in order to avoid being drenched by the puddle spray of passing traffic.

   Monday had really shaky weather predicted (and delivered), so it was a forced rest day, but Sue and I had big plans for Tuesday. There were some possible storms in the early afternoon (never happened), so we woke up early and pedaled out together through the city and met up with the GRT right near the Blue Cross Arena, home to the Rochester Americans of the American Hockey League. The “Amerks” (est. 1956) are the second-oldest team in the league, behind only the Hershey Bears (1932).
   We found the GRT on the west bank to be more pleasant than the east, not only because the riding surface was better, but also because you were in closer proximity to the water. It reminded me a lot of Philadelphia’s Schuylkill Banks section, right on the river with skyline views. We were soon reversing the ride we did earlier in the trip, down the former Erie Railroad corridor, but this time we continued over the Erie Canal crossing and turned west to follow the waterway.
   Even if I hadn’t read some of the more recent history of the Erie Canal, it would have been immediately obvious, riding now high above its walls on the trail, that this wasn’t the original canal that used mules on towpaths to pull flatboats of cargo and passengers across the state! The original canal was completed in 1825 and was about 40 feet wide and 4 feet deep. Its commercial peak was about 1855, and it continued to be competitive with railroads for commercial traffic until the early 20th century.
   During this period the modern “barge canal” was expanded to 120 feet wide and 12 feet deep, and over half of the original route was abandoned. The canal used to come right through Rochester (photo below) on an aqueduct. In the 1920s the bridge deck was converted for road traffic and now carries Broad Street across it. The Erie Barge Canal crossing with the Genesee is now three miles south of the city.

   Commercial traffic on the Erie Canal declined drastically by the latter half of the 20th century due to competition from trucking and the 1959 opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Today the canal is used almost exclusively by recreational boats.
   Sue and I had done about twelve miles together when we split near the North Gates section of town, and I continued south on a railroad station search. My main goals were two Lehigh Valley Railroad stations (there aren’t many of them left), and two others that just happened to be along the way.
   My route wasn’t too different from the triangular route I did a few days earlier, but it was going to stretch out a lot further west and a bit further south. I was going to use some of the same roads and trails along the way, so my chances of getting misdirected were slim. I had a cue sheet taped to the top tube of my bike, and I had zoomed in on some of the intersections, using Googlemaps, just to familiarize myself and make sure ahead of time that the crossroads were marked!
   I pedaled through Westgate and eventually connected with Route 33A, then turned south, zigzagging over to use the Genesee Valley Greenway to reach Scottsville. The first of my stops was a neat little brick structure that was once the Scottsville Station, serving the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh railroad, but it is now a private residence.

   The next destination on my list was my main reason for riding out here, as the station was once at a location, Pittsburgh and Lehigh Junction, that is modeled on my home railroad layout. The junction was just to the west of Caledonia, where a branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad crossed the Lehigh Valley mainline. The little wooden station was built there in 1891, and when passenger service ended in 1961, the structure fell into a state of disrepair.
   The folks at the Genesee Country Village and Museum moved the station and restored it (though not in the correct two-tone gray colors) on their grounds, just north of the junction in the hamlet of Mumford. The Village grounds are the largest living history museum in New York State, and are billed as the third largest in the country.
   I had become so used to all the turns made while navigating the city, or the secluded forested trails I had been riding, and the long, rolling stretch of Route 383 that I rode out to Mumford seemed like it was never going to end. I honestly thought I was going to reach Buffalo soon!
   I had heard that the museum was closed to the public on Tuesdays but also saw on Googlemaps that there was a kind of back dirt road entrance I might be able to use, so I hoped for the best. Turns out it is the day the yard crew does maintenance on the grounds, so the front gate was open, and nobody minded at all when I pedaled through.

   Returning back through Mumford, I turned south on Main Street and caught the BR&P station, just outside of town. Very similar to the Scottsville structure, this station was currently a flower shop.

   I received a bonus station to my list when I headed through the center of Caledonia and spotted a former New York Central station there. Yes, another different railroad that served the area – are you getting a sense of the redundancy of rail lines that helped lead to the industry collapse in the early 1970s?

   I knew that long stretch back east to the trails was in the cards, but I had no idea of the HILLS that would be involved. Now, these really weren’t anything like what I experience regularly around home, but after days of pan-flat riding, they were a real changeup. One stretch of South Road, which led almost directly over to the Lehigh Valley Trail (LVT) at Wadsworth Junction, had a couple steep rises and falls that were almost roller coaster-like!
   Five miles along the trail, I was back at Rush and ventured into the station/restaurant to refill my water bottles. I was ducking off the trail here anyway, to head southeast on Route 15A about five miles to Honeoye Falls. The Lehigh Valley station there really had the look of a Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad structure, as that company was more known for its use of concrete for all of their buildings and bridges. This station was now a home to an artist, as the gardens had sculpture on display.

   When I thought about it later and looked at a map, I felt stupid that was only about fifty feet from a good view of the falls when I turned away north on Main Street (Route 65) and headed out of the village. I didn’t feel so bad later when I saw an image online of what I had “missed” - even Rochester’s Lower Falls were much more impressive!
   In a short time, I reached a trailhead back to Rochester Junction on the LVT, and I took the Rochester Branch north back towards the city. I couldn’t tell if it was a lack of maintenance or if this more grown-in trail had just been holding a greater amount of water from the recent rains, but the dirt track was very mushy, and there were a few moments when my back wheel lost traction and spun out a bit.
   It was interesting to me to experience the route the railroad once took “out of the woods” and back into more urban surroundings, but the trail kind of fell apart awkwardly once it passed under the New York State Thruway. I negotiated some piles of rocky fill near a business park development, which was a real contrast to the pleasant winding path through the fields of Veterans Memorial Park in the town of Henrietta that I had experienced just a few moments later.
   Unfortunately the trail came to an abrupt end at the busy office park and mall area around Hylan Drive and the interchange with I-390. With nearly seventy miles under my belt for the day, I wasn't about to look around for a scenic route, so I just sucked it up and made my way over to Route 15 for the return “home”.
   I was a bit surprised that there were no bike lanes on the street when I neared the University of Rochester, but perhaps, with the network of trails on the river side of campus, the on-road slot seemed unnecessary? Maybe it's just because the intelligent college student knows better to stay away from the busy state highways.

One more Rochester article to come…

Pedaling In A (mostly) Gravel Wonderland

   A few weeks ago, Sue asked me if I might have any place in mind where we could get away for a few days. She suggested it might be somewhere fairly simple for planning and not too far away. I had been keeping the Rochester area in mind for a while, mainly because I had heard about the incredible development of rail trails in the region.
   I am very familiar with upstate New York, as the Finger Lakes were a favorite vacation spot for my parents, and my brothers and I accompanied them on many camping trips to Seneca Lake. Years later I took my own family on a couple nostalgic trips there and then “upgraded” to wonderful cabin stays on Cayuga Lake when my boys were older.
   Over the years, I have learned even more about the geography and history of this region through my interest in railroads. I’ve previously mentioned my model railroading interests, and my two favorite companies, the Lehigh Valley and Erie Lackawanna (previously the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western) both cut through this land on their respective routes from NYC to Buffalo.
   However, I have also become aware of the growing popularity of the Finger Lakes as a vacation spot and the unfortunate, associated rise of costs for accommodations in the region in the past decade. Through some research of locations a bit farther out, we found that Rochester itself had some very pretty neighborhoods with attractive Airbnb options, both visually and financially. A great thing about being near the small city would be various things to do/see, especially if used as a day-trip base to the lakes or Niagara.
   An added plus is that Rochester wouldn’t involve a ton of driving time, and we wouldn’t have that “travel guilt”, feeling pressed to do something since “we came all this way”. We could relax if we liked, and the comfort of the home-like surroundings would allow us to just sit around, read on the porch, watch a movie or take a nap.
   We selected an apartment in a lovely large house (photo below) within the Park Avenue section of the city, southeast of downtown and about a block west of the well-known Cobbs Hill Park. The house was also within walking distance of the shady trails around Pinnacle Hill, where we enjoyed hiking, despite a couple brief showers, during our first afternoon in Rochester.

   We found the city to be very cycling-friendly during a casual spin later that day, as it has relatively light traffic compared to the east coast cities in which we’ve become accustomed to riding, and there are usually on-road bike lanes on the major arteries. We took the Genesee Riverway Trail (GRT) a few miles south on what was mostly a former Lehigh Valley Railroad corridor, then crossed the river near the University of Rochester. The bridge was a wonderfully re-decked girder structure that once carried Erie Railroad trains over the Genesee, and the trail on the west side follow that company’s roadbed back downtown.
   These paved trails were spotty, as far as condition, with some sections showing severe cracking and upheaving from flooding and nasty winters, but Sue and I were riding our trail bikes, which deal with rough surfaces much more easily than skinny-tired road bikes. During our handful of rides, we mostly saw folks riding hybrids or even mountain bikes, so the residents must know better…and really, in cities you tend to see less of the racing-style bikes, anyway.
   After watching Saturday morning’s Tour de France coverage, I set out on a big, roughly-triangular 50-mile route I had preplanned at home. It was going to take advantage of the many gravel rail trails in the area, much of it involving railroads in which I am most interested.
   This time I took neighborhood streets to meet the GRT near the U of R campus. Just a short distance down the river I crossed the Nielson Bridge, which is just north of the crossing the Erie Canal makes with the Genesee.

In this image, the Genesee runs from upper left to lower right,
and the Erie Canal is lower left to upper right

   Shortly after crossing the canal on a high-arching concrete bridge, I veered right on the Genesee River Trail. I passed an interesting airport fire training facility, then there was a bit of an on-road connection. Using NY Routes 383 and 252, I eventually met the Genesee Valley Greenway (GVG), which is actually a continuation of the former Pennsylvania Railroad line that we followed on the River Trail out of Rochester. I was now just south of what was known as Genesee Junction, where the east-west New York Central Line connected with the PRR north-south line, as well as parallel Baltimore and Ohio tracks just a short distance to the west.
   In fact, before I made the turn onto 252, I was stopped by a CSX freight train on that former NYC line. Normally I would enjoy watching a train or two, but this was an incredibly long train of rather boring intermodal cars, and I was out baking in the sun after already working up a good sweat!
   Thankfully the GVG was a wonderful shady “tunnel” of incredibly well-groomed, crushed stone which had to be about 15 feet wide! I imagined this might be a bit of a snowmobile highway in the winter, and later found out the trail, which is actually a state park, does in fact allow such use in designated sections.
   I learned later that this corridor was also shared by the Genesee Valley Canal, part of a network of waterways that ran from Rochester to Mount Morris (near the current-day Letchworth State Park) and beyond to a connection with the Allegheny River at Olean. At one point I passed a marker near the remnants of the canal’s No. 2 lock.

   At Route 251, I made a short detour east to reach the former Erie Railroad station at the town of Industry. The building was now the site of the Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum, which featured vintage locomotives and rolling stock, as well as passenger train rides.

   I returned to the GVG and in a few miles I reached Wadsworth Junction and my turn eastward onto the Lehigh Valley Trail. This 14-mile segment of gravel was to be the highlight of the ride for me, as I knew nearly all the names of the little towns along the way from years of railroad research. The large iron truss bridge that once carried the Valley trains over Erie tracks at the junction had been long-ago dismantled, but I was soon crossing high above the Genesee River on a similarly impressive structure.

   The Lehigh Valley Trail was not of the quality of the GVG, but that wasn’t really a bad thing. The trail was mostly a path of fine stone dust but often became dual tracks of hard dirt, which I pedaled over quickly on my Bianchi. The trail was following the course of the Honeoye (pronounced “honey-oy”) Creek, as I soon reached Montesano’s Pizza, which is in the former LV station at Rush.

   I was a bit sad when I pedaled across another large truss bridge and neared Rochester Junction. The site was once occupied by a unique, two-sided station that served the east-west main line and the branch north up to the city. Unfortunately, the station burned down in the mid-‘70s and all that remains is the triangular concrete foundation. I’m thinking of coming down here using the Rochester Branch of the Lehigh Valley Trail later in the week.

This 1971 photo by Paul Templeton shows the passenger platforms on both sides of the Rochester
Jct. Station, the left serving the main line, the right serving the Rochester Branch

   The peacefulness of this trail segment reminded me of one of the reasons the Lehigh Valley and Erie Lackawanna were abandoned, as it is really secluded out here beyond the Binghamton-Elmira corridor at the PA/NY border. In contrast, the former New York Central main line followed the thriving communities along the Erie Canal, and cities like Albany, Syracuse and Rochester provided necessary business for Conrail, the only surviving entity of the collapsing northeastern railroad scene during the 1970s.
   After entering the town of Mendon, I turned back towards the northwest on the Auburn Trail, part of the Pittsford Trails system. This was once the Auburn and Syracuse Railroad, nicknamed the “Auburn Road”, which later became part of the Rochester and Syracuse, then eventually was a branch of the NYC.
   Although the pathway was nicely built on fills that easily crossed terrain that otherwise seemed unusually hilly for this area, the sloggy surface was what appeared to be recycled asphalt. There were larger broken chunks of road material strewn in with a stone that was the perfect size to get lodged in the tread of my tires and provide a constant pinging as pieces annoyingly kicked into the underside of my bicycle’s down tube. Although I didn’t enjoy the idea of paint chipping from my frame, I did laugh later when I took off my helmet and discovered a couple pebbles falling out of my helmet. I knew exactly where they came from!
   The riding was definitely slower in this thicker surface, and I actually welcomed a couple spots where the trail development had been interrupted and I had to detour onto smoother neighborhood roads. Near the busy crossing of the Erie Canal near Pittsford, I made an error and missed the not-so-obvious connection back to the Auburn Trail via the tiny Frog Pond Trail, but it did give me the opportunity of seeing the canal’s Lock 32 in operation!
   I was at first disappointed to find the trail surface wasn’t too much better on the north side of the canal, though it did have an obvious reduction in the big asphalt chunks. However, the last couple of miles of the Auburn Trail that paralleled Interstate 590, between Allens Creek Road and Highland Avenue, were a wonderful, wide and smooth-paved lane that rivaled any of the rail trails on our regular home routes.
   It seems that I had narrowly avoided a pop-up shower, as the roads around Cobb’s Hill Park were puddled. Luckily, I didn’t get a lot of road spray, since there were plenty of dry spots under the trees that lined the streets back to our Park Avenue apartment – boy, that sounded posh!

More to come…

Voyage à Vélo sur Six Sentiers

   Roughly translated, the title is "Six Trails Ride" in French, and I'll get to the subject matter after a brief shop update. I have MANY bicycles hanging in my shop rafters, just looking for a new home - the prices on my FOR SALE page are just a starting point, so let's make you a great deal!

   A new project is in the queue, this one is in honor of a great opening week of Tour de France racing. I recently purchased a very rare Peugeot 1100 Team Line bicycle frame.

   A Peugeot catalog page supplied by the seller shows bikes equipped with the Mavic Zap system, an early, mostly unsuccessful electronic shifting set-up. Zap was released in 1992, so this frame would fit into that timeline.

   The frame was built in partnership with Vitus and looks very similar to their Carbone 9 frames, produced at the end of the 1980s. These frames similarly featured carbon tubes bonded to aluminum lugs.

   My plan is to use mostly French parts on this frame, primarily Sachs-Huret's "New Success" 8-speed component group, which featured the early drop-bar "Ergo" brake/shift levers, developed with cooperation from Campagnolo. Some of the New Success group, such as the brakes and crankset, were rebranded products from Modolo and Campagnolo, respectively.

   My friend Mike introduced me to his riding pal, Roger, last summer, and I soon learned that they liked to climb, as they took me on a few punishing excursions into the hills along the border of Montgomery and Berks counties. They hadn't let up this spring, as they led me and my buddy Chad (who also likes a ton of ascents) on a particularly grueling route up to French Creek State Park and the surrounding area, to the tune of 40 miles and over 4000 feet of climbing!

   I'm generally of the "longer route, medium amount of elevation"-type of rides, but I have to admit that their brand of torture has improved my climbing immensely. I find myself pedaling much more quickly over the short, punchy climbs that I routinely face in my neck of the woods, and I recover much better from each effort, as well.

   Last weekend I decided to treat them to a route more of my preference, based on the legendary (among my crew) "Five Trails Ride" that features several area connecting paved pathways. The 52-mile loop started on the Schuylkill River Trail (SRT) into Phoenixville, then took to roads, following Pickering Creek out to Rt. 113. We then headed out to Lionville to reach the Uwchlan, Struble and Lions Trails into Downingtown. We would pedal east on Route 30 a bit, then weave our way on back roads to Exton and ride the length of the Chester Valley Trail Chester Valley Trail (CVT) to meet back up with the SRT for our return to our starting point.

   The Six Trails version started similarly but cut across Phoenixville on the SRT, then followed streets out through Kimberton. We veered southwest into the village of Birchrunville to meet Horseshoe Trail Road, where the climbing really started. Roger and Mike were fairly familiar with the terrain up to this point, since they had participated in the Iron Furnace (charity) Ride a couple of weekends earlier, and it traversed many of the same country lanes.

   It was hot and humid, so I tried to maintain a fairly relaxed tempo until we eventually crested at Conestoga Road. From here I took the lead, since the guys didn't know the roads too well, and circled Marsh Creek Reservoir on Fairview and Little Conestoga Roads. I was wearing down after a very long pull on the front, about five miles of undulating streets, but I knew the second half of the loop involved more of the designated trails, less turns, and I figured that I could count on the guys to take the majority of the wind while heading our mini-peloton the rest of the way.

   Mike enjoyed the newly-paved Route 282, which winds mostly downhill along Brandywine Creek towards Downingtown. There had been some rain overnight, and the heavy tree cover left a few wet patches of asphalt - I was careful to keep slightly off the left of his rear wheel, so that I didn't get hit in the face by the spray coming from his tires.

   The route duplicated the Five Trails loop once we hooked up with the Struble (photo above) and Lions Trails, and Roger took off like a rocket, at one time pulling us along an empty stretch of the CVT at 30 mph! We ditched the trail at King of Prussia and took residential roads, the majority of which had Revolutionary War-themed names, over to Heuser Park, where we met the Schuylkill River West Trail to head back to Valley Forge.

   After crossing Sullivan's Bridge, we were back on the SRT, and Roger jumped on the front for another epic pull. However, with the majority of the 58-mile loop in our legs, Mike and I were pretty much toast! When Roger swerved over to let me come through, I could only manage a measly four or five seconds in the wind, and said, "Nope, not happening." I turned around to see that Mike had also faded and left a good gap, which gave me some relief that I wasn't the only one nearly spent.

   The last three miles were taken at a very leisurely pace, but we could see some dark clouds rolling in, and it was obvious the wind had been picking up for a reason, so we didn't mess around too much. As we were wiping down and changing into some dry t-shirts for our respective drives home, we all agreed that knocking off about 10 degrees and 30% humidity would have been ideal, but still, a great time was had!