Bikester 2 Albion to Newark

Thanks to all who read installment 1.  Earlier 2020 I posted about a water tour from west to east that included toddy’s portion of the canal here. Besides a difference in perspective, bike v. boat, the activity of the photographer is very different.  On a boat, your hands are free to grab the camera whenever you choose as you navigate;  on a solo bike, taking a photo means stopping, removing gloves, unpacking camera, and shooting . . . all antithetical to covering territory.

I departed Albion before 0600 because I wanted to make Newark, 67 miles away, a goal 20 miles farther than I had day 1. To achieve this goal, I wanted an early start. My helmet-mounted headlamp was adequate in the hour + of darkness I rode. Traveling then also meant no trail traffic, except a few runners, and no wind, which had plagued me the day before.

As the overcast day brightened, here’s what the lift bridge at the hamlet of Hulberton looked like. With a boat, you’d not be able to travel at this hour, because lift bridges like this are not open for the lifting business at this hour.

Camping happens at parking lots along the trail, as evidenced by the big blue bus identified here as steampunk steve.tv whom unfortunately I did not meet.

The trail basically looked like this.  It needs to be pointed out that during the first two complete days of riding, the trail follows an active portion of the canal, ie, to the right, a vessel under 15.5′ air draft can get from tidewater to the Great Lakes via that waterway. 

By the time I reached Adams Basin, I’d switched off my headlamp for another day, and I watched a maintenance crew start of their machinery for  another work day.

Next landmark was Spencerport, time for a swig of water, a stop, and a stretch.

Soon afterward, I was getting worried about finding the routes through Rochester.  The trail was mostly well marked, although there’s not the sense of the canal through Rochester as a trench cut through rock as you get from a boat.  I pedaled hard until I was through the city, found my way again after getting lost in Genesee River Park, I passed the strategically placed REI.

I stopped for a gelato right next to the boarding area for Sam Patch,

and realizing there were still over 20 miles to my destination, set out stopping at the Bushnell Basin info….

 

zoomed through a Fairport under construction because of the crooked bridge, and raced through the part of a county I grew up in, stopping only to photograph a sign for a place I never knew here.

 

There it is . . . my only photos from day 2 of the ride.

All photos, WVD, who slept in my erstwhile hometown that night.