Day 13 - tl:dr we made it to Buffalo

Just to officially finish this saga before we start planning the next one for summer 2025! We’re thinking next we’ll head to the Mountain West and Pacific Northwest

Some brief highlights, or maybe just -lights:

-if you have a lightweight aluminum bike frame, be careful about leaning it against anything unstable when it’s laden with saddlebag luggage. I spent the final day riding with a bent left handlebar…

-if you find yourself in Buffalo you MUST pay a visit to our favorite bar and restaurant, Lucky Day. Go to every restaurant that they tell you to, they are always right.

-Pitch Perfect movies are the perfect mindless thing to watch after a day in the saddle when you need a break from Rugrats.

Day 12 - FIGHTING THE WIND

We bike out of Bushnell’s Basin (the quaint neighborhood of Pittsford in which we lodged), and of course start our day by missing the turn to get back to the trail. Once remedied, we immediately set our minds on breakfast since we didn’t feel like paying for it at the hotel. Luckily, there are a number of trailside shops and restaurants from which to choose. We settle on a nice, sunny cafe with bike racks and outdoor seating.

It’s another day of second-guessing our turns. Marty, at one point, gets ahead of Becca but then accidentally turns onto another trail that heads up to Rochester. He is a man so he never asked for directions. When he calls Becca, she immediately asks, “did you bear left at the fork back there?” And resolves to wait for him at the next bridge. We stick together the rest of the morning, and trust the signage (when we can see it) over the smartphones.

What a perfect place to open one of these stores! Get a taste of Becca’s BPMs in the background.

We stop for second breakfast in the little town of Spencerport. While Marty watches the bikes, Becca proceeds to order what turns out to be the best cycling snack ever: a peanut butter and banana wrap with honey, and a frozen lemonade to drink. We’re running low on snacks, so Marty proceeds to buy everything in the store, including pre-packaged pickles.

Not long after leaving, we encounter a new foe. Continuous headwinds along the flat gravel bike path that hugs the Erie Canal frustrate us for the rest of the day. It is taking twice the effort to ride half as quickly, or at least that’s how it feels. We envy the cyclists going downwind in the other direction. Becca forgets about the BPMs and breaks out the emergency motivational Lizzo tracks. She forges ahead, allowing Marty to draft behind her, while belting out messages of positivity and self-love. The wind sounds in the below video do not do justice to our struggling.

Alas, even Lizzo is no match for the hardships of today. Somewhere along this stretch Marty runs directly over a helpless frog. He hears the crunch of its tiny skull beneath his wheels. He can no longer make fun of Becca for having murdered an innocent chipmunk on our honeymoon ride. Also, the trail-side ice cream place in Albion is inexplicably closed. As an alternative, Marty suggests the electrolyte-filled dill pickles. Becca hates pickles but needs the energy.

At last we reach Medina, our penultimate stop on our way to Buffalo. Tonight’s lodging is a boutique hotel in a 150-year-old downtown building. It started its life as a hotel in 1876, then was converted to a high-end shirt factory before being repurposed as multi-use office space and a cocktail bar (aptly named the Shirt Factory). Our luxurious “micro-loft” hotel room would rent for $5000/month in certain NYC neighborhoods.

Having stayed in many towns like this, we immediately plan our dinner around whatever restaurants are still open. Tonight’s fare is epic mac-and-cheese, spinach stuffed bread, Caesar salad, gas station ice cream, and a bottle of local wine. Since our room has a proper eat-in kitchen, we bring the food back and enjoy it alongside more Rugrats.

We’re gonna need some of that to survive another day in the saddle!

Day 11 - Doing it for the Points

Mark has instructed us to be ready for breakfast at 9. We don’t know what exactly that entails, but we eagerly await his knock on the door. Expecting to be led downstairs to the eat-in kitchen, we are instead escorted to the driveway. Parked outside is one of Mark’s limousines: another Rolls-Royce. This is a surprise, to be sure! He chauffeurs us to the main drag of town and parks outside the local diner that had already closed by the time we rolled into town last night. The second surprise: he’s treating us to breakfast! We give him a surprise as well; when he asks how our bums have been faring with all this cycling, we tell him about our new wardrobe addition (or really subtraction), and he lets out a thundering guffaw only befitting of someone with such an epic mustache. No one else in the diner bats an eye, they are clearly used to him and his vivacity. Favorite quote overheard at breakfast: “They have callouses on their asses!” How does he know?

Once we are sufficiently full of omelette, we are driven back to the mansion to pack up. Marty hoses off the bikes. Becca stops at the post office to ship home some items we’ve deemed extraneous. It’s good to have a little more space in our bags and fewer ounces of gear for the time being. She holds on to her book, still optimistic that maybe there will be time to read. Spoiler alert: There won’t be. We’re writing this on the Metro North back to CT Sunday, and she didn’t crack it once, not even on the 10+ hour train rise from Buffalo to NYC.

The cycling begins with a return to on-road riding along old route 31. Here again there are discrepancies between what Google Maps thinks is Empire State Trail and what the turn-by-turn directions from the EST website say to do. We eschew both and do what has served us best so far: follow the mustard- and blue-colored road signs designating the trail.

We ride for a long while before stopping for lunch long past our halfway point. Monday is clearly a dark day in Palmyra. The recommended spot for vegetarians closed 15 minutes before our arrival and other restaurants aren’t open today.  Fun fact: this town is thought to be the birthplace of the Mormon Church and features many historic buildings.  We just want a place to sit and eat our leftovers, so we settled into an outdoor picnic table at Mark’s Pizzeria.  On the box it says they’re “simply the best.”  It’s fine.  The townsperson we talked to had recommended the other pizza place. To be polite (and to be able to use their bathroom), we order some mozzarella sticks and clandestinely eat our leftover pizza from last night alongside them.  A gaggle of blonde toddlers gawk at us from inside.

The riding in the afternoon hugs the Erie, but becomes more scenic as we pass many small towns whose names end in “port” and watch passenger boats pass under their adorable bridges.  In Fairport we are greeted by an exciting sight: a banner reading “Cycle the Erie Canal.”  We learn that a large group of cyclists has just left Buffalo heading the opposite direction.  Most of them are crossing paths with us in Fairport.  We take a long ice cream break and Marty has a walk around while Becca meets virtually with her therapist.  Only 7 miles to go until tonight’s hotel in Pittsford, on the outskirts of greater Rochester.

The best part about the Hilton Garden Inn was that the pool was open!  Relaxing in the hot tub is just what the doctor ordered.  Remember when Becca was held captive by a timeshare salesman last time we booked with Hilton?  Well this time she had the wherewithal to simply “go ahead and give me the pitch, I’m only here for the points” and proceeded to put the lady on speakerphone, mounted to her bike while she continued to ride.  We were also enticed by an offer of 500 points for spending $25 at the hotel restaurant.  Challenge accepted.  You don’t become Platinum Elite® by skipping out on these opportunities. Favorite quote overheard at dinner: “Before you have children it’s important to have health insurance.”  Preaching to the choir, dude!

DAY 10 - THE HAUNTED MANSION

Today we manage to wake up in time for hotel breakfast. After all, it’s included. Becca still has yesterday’s unused meal voucher and is able to gift it to another hotel guest.  She is a benevolent Platinum Elite® goddess after all.  A family speaks French at the table next to us.  Our initial plan was to make it 60+ miles to Newark, NY today but we’re quickly learning that most of the hotels in that town are either already full or out of our price range. We spot what looks like a decent B&B in the tiny town of Clyde, only 45 miles away.  Why hadn’t we noticed this place before?  Probably because you can’t book online and as millennials we are inherently averse to talking on the phone.  We risk it, and when the mysterious man on the other end says his cheapest suite is available tonight, we pounce.  Guess we’ll be staying at the “historically haunted” Erie Mansion.  Get it?  Eerie?

We suit up in our awesome new Mello Velo attire and head out. Becca has new sunglasses and a new style of bike gloves with less padding and more “grippy” that she hopes will help alleviate the blisters between her thumbs and pointers. On our way out of Syracuse, we hug the perimeter of Onondaga Lake and pass through the New York State Fairgrounds.  There’s an entire network of smaller trails in this area, so we are constantly checking signage and maps to make sure we’re headed the right direction.

It’s a lot of off-road riding this morning until we reach the sleepy town of Weedsport.  We stop at a drug store for restrooms and more snacks just as it begins to rain again.  Fortunately, we are able to wait out the heaviest of the deluge under an awning.  We enjoy a lunch of leftover vegan poutine, caramel cold crew M&Ms, and blue Powerade. Sidenote: we have concluded that blue is the best flavor, across all sports drink brands, whatever flavor “blue” is, don’t @ us. After an hour the skies and radar are looking more forgiving, so we decide it’s time to continue.  After all, we told the strange man we’d arrive at his haunted mansion between 5:30 and 6:30, and we’d hate to keep him waiting.

In the afternoon, we are mostly riding on local back roads.  We go faster on the pavement but have to share the road with some cars that do not give a wide enough berth.  But we survive.

Despite the rain delay we emerge from a woody stretch of trail and arrive in Clyde earlier than anticipated.  A woman sticks her head out from what looks like a beautiful solarium and asks if we are tonight’s guests? We say we are, and she instructs us to come around the side of the house. What a relief that we won’t have to lug our steeds past the front lawn full of random statues and up the ornate front stairs!

Our host, Mark (the mysterious man from the phone earlier), welcomes us and directs us to store our very muddy bikes next to two pristine Rolls-Royces in his garage.  He has a whimsical look in his eyes, and a mustache that puts Marty’s to shame. He beckons us up the side stairs to the “Red Suite” where we’re staying.  Everything in the room that can be red is red. And not just red, but “Red Light District,” if you know what we mean. By this time it’s a little past 5:00, and Mark has a group coming for a tour of the rest of the mansion in twenty minutes. For $20 per person, we are welcome to tag along. Becca gets herself cleaned up in record time and when Mark knocks again at 5:30, she follows him out…

The Erie Mansion is as bizarre a place as Mark Wright is a person.  It’s easy to see why folks would think it’s haunted, even before hearing the ghost stories (or having the ghost of the Red Room drop the shower wand on your head as it did to Becca). It is 12,000 square feet and has 43 rooms. It was built by the prominent Ely family sometime in the 1800s, but fell into disarray after the children abandoned it. Every inch is now full of some of the oddest memorabilia Becca has ever seen, all of it collected and curated by Mark. He has everything: snake skins that stretch over 10 feet long, multiple Harley Davidsons parked in the living room, bearskin rugs in most rooms, and in the Honeymoon suite is the largest bed Becca has ever seen. The house has multiple doors and staircases that lead to nowhere, plus secret doors that DO lead to places hidden behind bookcases and inside of closets.  The basement is a veritable dungeon, complete with a graveyard of fake headstones, shackles from the pre-civil war era (arguably problematic), and a wine cellar.  Mark grew up a few towns south of here and bought the empty mansion for a song decades ago.  Between stints buying and selling houses, he made his career owning and operating a limousine company that caters to celebrities, hence the classic cars all over the property, and the “wall of fame” on the 2nd floor landing covered in signed 8x10s. If you ever find yourself in Clyde, NY, the 90 minutes of entertainment one gets from talking to this man and looking around his creepy place are well worth the price of admission.

Once Becca returns upstairs, we realize our dinner options are few.  It’s Sunday evening and this town has gone to bed.  Our leftovers and snacks having been consumed, we turn to our friend Google Maps and are thrilled when PaPa’s Pizzeria is both open and willing to deliver from down the street.  It would crush our sprits to have to go out in the rain again.

We cuddle up on the red couch for more Rugrats and some slices.  Bedtime in the red four-poster bed (which boasts a mirrored ceiling, gay erotica in the headboard bookcase, and erotic figurines on all the shelves) is soon to follow. Becca makes a note to send Mark her red makeup mirror to add to the bathroom decor.

DAY 9 - ADVENTURES IN SYRACUSE

We sleep in a little and watch some “Rugrats” in bed before enjoying breakfast at a place down the street called Kubal. Tony and Kim had recommended a few bike shops and Becca is relieved that the first one we call says we can just walk in.  It would have taken no time at all to bike there, but given Becca’s tire situation and the fact that our butts are REALLY feeling the pain, we opt to make the several-mile journey on foot. A quick diagnosis reveals that indeed there is a tiny hole in Becca’s tire tube, so luckily that’s an easy fix.  They ask us how the bike has been holding up otherwise, and Becca confesses that she’s still a little uncomfortable with her handlebar position.  Basically, the bike she was forced to buy last second after the theft of Marina back in 2021 is a size or two too small, so swapping certain parts out for longer/taller ones is our temporary solution for this trip until she saves up for a new bike.  The mechanics go to work, we head upstairs to the retail section and end up going on a not-so-little shopping spree. Mello Velo in Syracuse is great! Wait till you see the pix of us in our matching outfits :)

This hotel is nice.  It has three pianos.  Marty plays one while Becca asks some questions at the front desk. Thanks to her Platinum Elite® Marriott status we are allowed in the upstairs “members only” area that overlooks the historic lobby below.  We abscond with pockets full of free snacks.

For dinner Marty has selected a brewpub that specializes in poutine (including a vegan version).  As is our custom, we sample many beers and get our recommended daily intake of grease.  Becca’s friend, Amelia, is an alum of Syracuse University and insisted that we visit Funk ‘n Waffles.  There is funk.  There are waffles.  We are tired and filled with carbs, so we don’t stay past the opening band’s opening song.  A day off well spent!

DAY 8 - The real #deflategate

Becca’s back tire is even squishier than yesterday. We’ve definitely got a slow leak on our hands. We will have to wait until our day off in Syracuse to permanently fix this. We top it off with air once again and hope for the best. Good thing we bought that new portable pump back in Yorktown.

For the first time we are really having trouble following the trail: going the wrong direction, several wrong turns, and second guessing correct turns.  Some patches of looser gravel slow us down on a day when we’re trying to make a dinner appointment.

It is another day without much cover from the brutal 90-degree heat, and we are unknowingly sunburning pretty badly. Wearing a tank top was a bad choice on Marty’s part; you’d think he would have remembered how poorly it went for Becca a few days earlier.

We stop for a water break/photo op on Martin St. in Rome, NY. It’s a good thing we brought our own snacks because Rail and Canal, the trailside restaurant we had hoped would have snacks and waters, turns out to be a sketchy-looking dive bar that isn’t even open yet. It looks even worse in person than on Google Maps. We eat our granola bars, check our tire pressures, and continue on for a few hours of on-street riding.

Upon rejoining the trail, we see more of the usual: canal locks, beautiful waterside vistas, and of course another duck fight. Today is a mixture of trail vs. street riding. As well-maintained and marked as the Empire State Trail is, there are inevitable road closures that neither the official website nor Google Maps is privy to, and therefore some detours are unavoidable. We hit one such detour in Oneida, NY. The first construction worker gives us directions to take a long on-road way around—and we’re about to reluctantly do what he says—when a second worker comes after us with better advice. He says if we go down a nearby dead-end street, we’ll find a closed bridge that is totally safe to just walk our bikes across. Lo and behold, the shortcut works, and when we reach the other side of the closed trail, we are able to impart our secret wisdom to some oncoming cyclists. The first construction worker sees us again and wonders how we got there so quickly? We simply say “someone gave us a tip” and continue on our way.

On a stretch of proper trail between Durhamville and Canastota, the dreaded rain returns. We’re pros at this by now, and quickly pull over to extract and deploy rain coats and saddlebag covers, all of which have been packed strategically for easy access. Becca thinks that’s the closest to lightning she’s ever been. You can hear her apprehension and frustration on the forthcoming GoPro footage. The trail is elevated a few feet from the residential street below, so pulling over isn’t really an option. We just have to get out of these trees as quickly and safely as we can. It’s a relief when we pull up to the big iron gate that marks the trail entrance in Canastota, NY. The rain is lightening up, but we’re drenched and need a break. We hobble over to Three Pines Restaurant down the street, chain our bikes to the bench out front, and head inside.

At least this time the TVs are all playing the same stupid game show, something about Americans and word association. We make use of all the emergency towels we have with us. We also change out our wet socks for dirty but dry ones. It’s gross, but it helps. The one lady working there even turns off the A/C to stop Becca from shivering. They make us “pizza” on a sliced baguette because they ran out of pizza “shells.” It hits the spot.

The rain truly begins to let up, so we head back out, but we are nonetheless running behind schedule. The approach into downtown Syracuse is lovely, with thoughtfully designed and well-maintained bike “islands” in the center of 4 lanes of traffic. We even have our own bicycle-shaped traffic lights to help us safely traverse from one island to the next. Alas, ignorant cars and trucks still manage to pull too far forward at red lights, blocking our lane and forcing us to waddle around. Becca gives them a piece of her mind, but they don’t hear over the sounds of their own egos. We take note of a few bike shops on the way. Might have to backtrack to one tomorrow.

At last we reach our Marriott, in the former Hotel Syracuse building. It’s very charming and we are immediately glad we splurged for this. No time to admire it now, though, we’ve got to clean up as quickly as we can so Kim or Tony can pick us up and bring us to their home to Cicero for a mini family reunion.

It is so nice to see Uncle Tony as he pulls up to the hotel.  Becca hasn’t gotten to see any of Marty’s extended family since his sister’s wedding in 2019, since of course they were virtual guests for ours. We pile in and eagerly start catching up on the drive back to the house.  Thankfully, Aunt Kim, Grandma, and Grandpa hadn’t waited for us to eat. Amazing taco bowls satiated our appetites and warmed our hearts. Plus Kim is kind enough to let us do a load of laundry while we eat, so that we don’t have to pay whatever insane amount the hotel probably charges. We can’t believe that on Sunday Kim, Tony, their sons Anthony and Ben, and their respective partners Kyle and Katie, are all running a 15k road race in Utica. They, on the other hand, can’t believe what we’re doing.

Upon being dropped back downtown, we wander into Shaughnessy’s, the pub attached to our hotel (recommended by Kim) for for a beer and to people watch. We get a sense of how many events this hotel can handle at once: to our left, folks attending a Warhammer convention; to our right, some well-dressed guests we suspect are attending one of the two or three weddings that the hotel will host this weekend.

A well-earned rest day awaits us.

DAY 7 - Beating the heat (or not)

Miraculously, we are checked out, packed up, and ready to ride by 9:00am. We are about to set off from Amsterdam, when a cursory squeeze of Becca’s rear tire makes Marty go “Nope!”  #deflategate for real this time.  It is almost completely flat.  We can inflate a tire, sure, but if there is a puncture we feel we’re screwed. We use our new portable pump to get it as full as we can and listen for slow leaks. We hear nothing, and the air seems to hold, so we cross our fingers and sally forth.

Upon rejoining the trail, we immediately pass one of those public bike repair stations, and avail ourselves of it for first time. It has every basic tool a biker could need tethered to it by heavy metal cables: Allen keys, tire levers, screwdrivers, wrenches, and to our delight, a proper floor pump! You can scan a QR code which takes you to dero.com/bike-repair, where there are helpful YouTube video links for the basics. Marty learns the difference between Presta and Schraeder tire stems (among us we have both kinds).

After 2 hours (and 20 miles) of riding, we see a sign that says “Restrooms and Water up ahead. Blessings on your travels!” We find a delightful oasis in Sprakers Reformed Church’s community room, which serves as an outpost for us to eat “elevensies” and take a quick bathroom break. The 20 or so parishioners have set up a mini-fridge full of cold waters, a tray of granola bars, and a guestbook complete with maps for us to stick a pin in where we are from. We proudly tag Norwalk, CT. No long lunch/beer stop today; after all, we have a dinner date to make.

We eat some pretzel bites and dispose of some of our food that has not survived the journey, given the infrequency of mini-fridges in our various hotel rooms. Knowing we’ll be facing the sun and the heat, we plan to take extra breaks and be vigilant about hydration. We decide to book hotels for the next three nights just to get them done, which inspires an accounting of our expenditures so far and…<gasp>. Turns out a bike trip twice as long as our last one runs about twice as much…but we’ve been saving for this so we will be alright.

More canal locks dot our trail along the Erie as we do battle with the hot sun. A mere 10 minutes after our “lunch” (granola bars from the church), we stop for the first ice cream we’ve seen all day: Skobby’s in Little Falls, NY.  It’s a great setup with Adirondack chairs, lawn games, and a giant smoker out back, no doubt working on some meat for the lunch customers. His ice cream was meh, but tasted great under the circumstances.  “Skobby” himself drove by where we were sitting in the shade to do some market research: where we were riding to, how far this trail goes, etc. We encouraged him to be a part of what we hope will be a burgeoning trail-side hospitality infrastructure.

Becca attempts to meditate in a scratchy hammock on site before we head out, but during the final two hours both brain and body begin to fry.  Even the magic of BPM cannot keep her completely tethered to sanity. We take “afternoon tea” in Ilion, NY, and buy a cup of what tastes like a bottle of Lipton poured over ice. In other words, it’s delicious. Becca finds a shady tree to meditate for real, a feeble attempt to ground herself and avoid freaking about the heat. A few miles later, we are riding on-road to Utica and it is HOT. AS. BALLS.  We are grateful when there’s one last stretch of off-road trail that offers some waterfront views and a little bit of tree cover.  Some ducks are very annoyed to have to make way for us.  They hiss in displeasure. GoPro proof forthcoming.

At last we arrive at our Days Inn on the outskirts of town. We’re staying no-frills tonight so we can splurge for a swanky downtown Marriott this weekend in Syracuse (we plan to take our next day off there as well). Becca’s cousin Laura lives in nearby Clinton, so she picks us up and, given that she has been reading our entries, decides to take us to a local brewery.  Of course it’s trivia night.  There is one trivia guy who must do all the bars in Greater Utica, because she played this same round of questions with her family the other night. We whisper the answers to each other at the bar. The food and the hops are almost all local. The Empire State Flatbread Pizza and the Lumberjack Lager are standouts. Marty treats himself to a souvenir tank top.

Before long fatigue is catching up with your weary travelers.  They head home, write this blog, and collapse.  Another long day tomorrow, but after that: our second planned day off!  Pray that Becca’s tire holds up for one more day till (at least until we can get help from a proper bike shop if needed)…

DAY 6 - 47 MILES ON THE ERIE CANAL

In hopes of getting an earlier start than has been our custom, we push our alarms to 6:30AM.  IT HAS NO EFFECT WHATSOEVER.  Over breakfast we learn the hard way how many hours it takes to beam GoPro footage from one device to another.   More squabbles about tire pressure delay our departure until 10:30.  We have no particular need to leave early but could have benefitted from optimizing our time shaded from direct overhead sunlight.  Today’s section of trail offers little to no tree cover, and it’s a scorcher out here.

We have the option 5 miles down the road to either continue north along the Champlain Valley Rail Trail or to turn west towards Buffalo.  As planned, we opt for the latter.  The Champlain section of the Empire State Trail would be on our “bike-it list” except for the fact that 99% of the time one is riding on-road next to cars. We are relieved when we leave the streets of Green Island, NY (fun facts: not an island and not especially green) behind and get back to off-road rail trail cycling on the Erie Canal Greenway.

The morning passes monotonously but pleasantly, with long stretches of uninterrupted trail riding and not much in the way of rest stops or street crossings. We stop for a snack and a meditation break in a parking lot in We-have-no-idea-where, NY. Becca looks enviously at a man unloading a kayak from his car. It would be an excellent day to cool off on the water, but we press on.

In Schenectady, NY, we take a proper lunch break at yet another local brewery, as has become our fashion. Druthers Brewing Company is just off the trail that leads through a mall/condo complex reminiscent of places we’ve been before, like The Waterfront in Pittsburgh or Blue Back Square in West Hartford. The beers are great, and the food portions are a great value, aka they are ENORMOUS. We engineer a way for Marty to carry the leftovers in the lids of his saddle bags. Becca gets us a hotel in Amsterdam, NY for the night, and we feel hopeful knowing we will only have to endure 2-ish more hours of grueling sunlight riding today.

We pass canal locks that remind us of the C&O Towpath from two years ago.  These are where many cyclists choose to camp for the night.  The thought of roughing it nightly is even less appealing than in 2021.  We pedal faster to get to a well-earned hot shower and soft mattress.

Once we’ve settled in, we realize we’ll need to cross the Mohawk River to run our errands.  The nearest Lyft appears to be in Canada but the concierge tells us to call Amsterdam’s finest freelance local cab driver.  William arrives in his clunker and asks if we’re in a hurry.  We say “no” and he offered to give us a driving tour of the town so that he can pick up another fare.  We arrive at a “pot party” (essentially a grey-market open-air cannabis bazaar inside of a warehouse) to chauffeur home a local.  She has clearly been sampling the wares.

After stocking up on sunblock, burn cream, and contact lens solution we decide not to call William for a ride back.  Apparently he owes a favor to his friend who needs to move his recently deceased dog :( This turns out to be an excellent twist of fate because the walk home, while long, is mostly downhill and winds through a handsome park featuring memorials, public art exhibits, and a gorgeous view of the sun setting on the Mohawk River.

We arrive back at our hotel, having finished our hand-packed ice cream cones from the Stewart’s gas station on the walk back. We dive into the leftover Mac and cheese from earlier, compile our thoughts, and begin to steel ourselves for tomorrow. We will need to put in more miles than today to make it to Utica in time for dinner with Becca’s cousin and her husband. Wish us luck!

DAY 5 - A well-earned day off!

This morning there is no alarm, but our bodies wake up around 8:30. We hurry downstairs for the much-hyped hotel lobby breakfast and it’s…decent but nothing special. As today is the Fourth of July, much of the hotel staff has the day off, which we support wholeheartedly.

Our only order of business today is to do more laundry, since of course we got drenched a second time yesterday. We walk a decent distance across town to where two equally squalid coin-op laundromats compete for business. A google review makes it clear that we should walk the extra block to pay $2 per wash instead of $4. We agree. This part of Albany has seen better days.

“There’s an idea for a Pixar movie: what happens to the clothes you lose in the laundry?” Becca proposes, upon noticing that a pair of her underwear seems to have been left behind. TMI Side note: nobody told us until now that you actually aren’t supposed to wear underwear with proper padded biking shorts, so it’s no great loss.

The server at the Hill Street Cafe near the laundromat offers us a big table and the Wi-Fi password so that we can work on the blogs over lunch while we wait for our clothes to spin. The Yankees game plays in the background. We finish up and head back to the hotel, spending the rest of the afternoon alternating between blogging and napping. Technically the festivities at the state capitol start at 5pm, but our very helpful hotel concierge, Ananda, assures us that we should wait until 7:30 to head over.

It’s raining again so after some deliberation under the hotel awning, we agree to skip the official festivities. We are in no mood to get drenched again, and they end up postponing the fireworks to tomorrow night anyway. This is the kind of downtown (like Hartford) that absolutely shuts down at night and on holidays (which makes sense given most of its business revolves around government), so after calling 6 restaurants we are thrilled to finally find one that is still open for dinner. We promptly hail a Lyft and our driver laughs at our whole journey and at how much our butts hurt. It was funny except he dropped us off a block early in the heavy rain.

Becca’s cobbled-together party outfit. The shirt is from the 2019 women’s World Cup during which, as is printed, “USA BEAT EVERYBODY.” Both the suspenders and the “NY” in the Yankees hat logo are rainbows. Half 4th of July, half NYC Pride?

We arrive at the Albany War Room, a place that prides itself on having the finest sushi in the capitol area…cool? We slide into 2 seats at the bar, get a quick food order in before the kitchen closes, and sympathize with the one clearly overworked bartender juggling glasses and plates of food. Like we said, it’s the only place open, so everyone is here. We hear at least 4 languages being spoken, plus groups of every age range. Three TVs behind the bar each play different content, and we alternate between being heavily invested in Reuters Newsreels, Deal or No Deal reruns, and the on-screen lyrics, because on top of everything else, it’s karaoke night at this bar.

Becca somehow convinces Marty to duet with her on the NSYNC classic, “Bye Bye Bye,” and we bring the house down. Later Becca solos on one of the many Amy Winehouse songs we still want to perform with a band someday. She gets a huge high five from the bartender and we decide we’d better quit while we’re ahead. The bar is long and not very big, so we have to walk right through the “stage” to make a polite exit while someone else gives a Lil Wayne song his best effort. At least he’s having fun.

The rain has stopped, so we walk home to the hotel and call it a night. The real adventure continues tomorrow…

NY’s State Capitol Building after the fireworks got rained out and everyone went home…

Day 4 - the storm itself

Most of this story will be told in forthcoming GoPro footage. For now, here are the major plot points.

We have to finish drying the last bit of laundry this morning before we embark for Albany. We eat a delicious self-serve breakfast while we wait.

Rolling hilly roads lead us to the town of Hudson where we stop at the hip Kitty’s Cafe where Becca says “it looks like all of Brooklyn is in here.” It’s right next to an Amtrak stop, which is exciting.

We meet the Albany-Hudson Electric trail, which features our first sustained gravel bike paths of the journey. Progress is a little slower, and the sounds of crushed rocks under our tires (and nipping against our skin) accompany the scenic stretches of trail. There is little to no tree cover today, so the sun beats down on us mercilessly, and we make an effort to drink water every half-mile at minimum. We press on for some 15 miles before stopping to catch our breath at a picnic site full of campers who are also seeking refuge in the shade, playing board games while waiting to be picked up by their respective adults. “Where are we?” we wonder. The back of a counselor’s T-shirt reads, “Village of Kinderhook” so that settles that. A five-year-old boy asks Marty how old he is, and upon hearing the answer, assures Marty that his mom is “WAY older than that; she’s 35!”

Becca has declared the theme of the day to be QUEENS, so with some motivation from Beyoncé, Britney Spears, and the cast album of the Broadway Musical SIX, along with encouragement from Marty (who insists we can make it to Albany tonight), she takes an early lead, flying off into the sun, singing along at the top of her lungs as she pedals.

At Smile’s Soft Serve Ice Cream in Nassau, Becca calls to book a hotel room and patiently listens to a sales pitch for a timeshare for at least 20 minutes more, just to earn us 500 rewards points. An old man walking down the street ominously points to the sky and says “it’s getting darker.” We will soon discover he is not talking about the sun setting…

We know there is a chance of rain, but feel more prepared after having endured yesterday. The moment the sprinkles start, we stop to add the covers to our bags. Becca figures why bother with the raincoat, she is already sore and enjoying the cooling sensation after riding in the sun all day. We may have been ready for another moderate rain shower…but what we got was something much more “biblical.” Thick drops of rain fall in heavy sheets as we continue on the paved bike path. Within a minute Becca has inadvertently abandoned Marty, thinking he was a couple hundred feet behind her, when actually he has stopped riding and is unaware of whether to continue. Turns out contact lenses have the slight edge over glasses for seeing through this nonsense. Becca doubles back, and our 2 weary cyclists are reunited and ready to press on, albeit slowly and safely. Marty likens what he is seeing to driving through the rain with no windshield wipers. Becca wishes the water-repelling charm that Hermione uses on Harry’s glasses during rainy quidditch matches could work in real life. She keeps singing along to Britney Spears until her phone dies in the middle of a song called, aptly enough, “Till the World Ends.” It will all make sense with the GoPro footage.

At last we leave the AHET and East Greenbush, NY behind. The last 3 miles to Albany are on-road riding. Becca has done this part before, so the feeling of “home stretch” is palpable. The final cross of the Hudson River from Rensselaer into Albany involves walking bikes up a ramp, riding a protected bike lane on I-90, then walking the bikes down a walled-off yard-wide bit of street, since the proper bike descent is being renovated. It’s not the prettiest entry, but we make it. When it’s finally safe, we pull out our last device that still has any battery (Marty’s phone) and get GPS cycling directions to the hotel, which Becca listens to from her jacket pocket (still raining, after all) and then yells/signals back to Marty. She is now also wearing his rear light on her back to make it easier to see where to go. We make a feeble attempt to dry ourselves off, but luckily the hotel lobby is already full of “wet floor” signs, so we don’t feel like we’re fouling the place up excessively.

Once the bikes are safely stowed (not in our room this time!), we head out for vegan wings and a black bean burger at a pub around the corner. A local band plays some song called “Peanut Butter” that is obviously an inside joke among the regulars at this place. We love it when the band’s set ends at 9pm and the room quiets down considerably. Then it’s home to the Hampton Inn to watch some TV, and fall asleep knowing tomorrow is our first full day off!

Day 3 - THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM…

We ride north, bypassing downtown Poughkeepsie and make our first crossing over the Hudson River toward New Paltz. After about an hour in the saddle, we stop for second breakfast and to check out Historic Huguenot Street. Becca discovers a family crest with the name “Deyo” on it and sends it to her friend Mike, who has the same last name. Turns out he had the same crest in his family home farther west in NY State growing up. Coincidence? Maybe not!

After our snack break (and Becca doing a 5-minute guided meditation inside an actual wigwam on site!), we hit the saddle again, propelled by the power of new 160-bpm workout remixes that Becca finds us on Apple Music. It’s a lot of road riding but safe and pleasant to bike through.  After our longer lunch stop at Kingston Standard Brewing Company (and booking a hotel for the night), the much-feared rain arrives.  We have rain jackets and waterproof covers for our saddle bags, but regardless we are quickly rendered soaking. It’s amazing how the forces of nature can change your best-laid travel plans and how, in the moment, it can be difficult to decide whether to wait it out or press on. Nevertheless, we persist.

After a team huddle under a very small New York State DOT awning to assess our options (and use Google maps without our phones getting drowned), we decide to press on, crossing back over the Hudson as planned. This time, there is none of the relaxed pageantry of the morning. Marty follows mere inches behind Becca’s back wheel in first gear as passing traffic sprays cold puddles across the enormous, steel deck of the Kingston-Rhinecliff bridge.  Normally, bikes are supposed to ride on-road with the car traffic, but with the visibility being so treacherous, we decided flaunting the “no bikes on the sidewalk” policy was the only choice that guaranteed our safety. We are grateful that a soaked DOT worker on a moped waves us on rather than making us divert into the road. As the storm clears we pass through Bard College, stopping for ice cream in Tivoli to fuel our final stretch.

As we fight off a little more rain and finally roll in to Germantown, Becca exclaims, “we made it!” at the top of her lungs. The evening diners at Central House (where we will be staying for the night) offer their vocal congratulations, and are impressed when they hear we have ridden all the way from Poughkeepsie today. Miraculously, we discover a 24/7 laundromat across the street, and are able to restore our clothes back to a dry state.  Wiped out from the travails of the day, we skip a formal dinner at the inn, but lay out a very farm-to-table spread to enjoy while we wait for the dryer to finish: “emergency” apple slices from home, a bottle of farmhouse ale brewed in Kingston, and local cheese and crackers that Becca purchased at Tivoli General.

Day 2 - the power of bpm

We wake up in Mt. Kisco and enjoy a decent egg sandwich from the hotel bar. As we pack up to set out, we hit our first mechanical problem of the trip: Marty wants to top off the air in his tires, but our sad little portable pump seems to be doing more harm than good. We detour to a gas station and feed at least 8 of our precious quarters to a machine that claims to send the money to “Feed Starving Children Charity.” Neither of us knows if we believe that to be a real cause or not…but we get our air and get riding.

In order to prevent a future #deflategate, we drop by a bike shop in Yorktown, NY. The salesperson inside helps Marty select a newer, more robust pump with a built-in gauge, plus some tiny CO2 cartridges that can fully inflate an empty tire tube in case of a flat. Becca buys us a smoothie to stay cool, and then we return to riding. Hobbit meals are totally the way to go on adventures like this, so don’t be surprised if in future posts you see references to “second breakfast,” “elevensies,” or “afternoon tea.”

The riding gets a little harder today, but we have one big breakthrough. After much effort, Marty is finally able to mansplain Becca about why she should be riding in lower gears and maintaining a higher RPM. To keep them on pace, Becca finds a workout playlist of dance remixes of songs bumped up to 160 bpm that was designed for peloton classes or something. To say it does the trick would be the understatement of the trip. We maintain an excellent pace for the rest of the day, Becca often sailing far ahead, propelled by the energy of singing along to Taylor Swift, Blink-182, and Coolio. She quiets down while passing a stranger on a serene bridge, but he yells out, “don’t stop! Keep singing!” Video forthcoming.

Lunch is at the Southeast Grille in Brewster, NY. We know there is some on-road biking ahead, but it’s confusing to know if the trail we see is construction that has been completed since the maps were published, or a different trail that will take us the wrong way. Eventually we get re-oriented and continue on, Becca finding new BPM-matched workout playlists to pass the afternoon. Marty is amazed that after the few months in NYC that he spent working on a startup with just this idea (use BPM-matching to spice up workouts for runners) he has finally got a perfect client.

Follow the Butt!

Over lunch, we decide to book a hotel on the outskirts of Poughkeepsie for the night. This means that we will have to ride another 32 miles before calling it a night, but with food in our bellies and 160 BPM in our ears, anything is possible! We leave Westchester County behind, and enter Putnam County. We pass through Hopewell Junction, NY, where alongside the trail is a small museum that commemorates the many rail lines that used to run through the town. The museum is closed, but they offer a public restroom and vending machines with some much needed Powerade! The candy machine eats our quarters and gives us no Reese’s, so we eat the first of our “emergency” packets of trail mix. The boost is enough to get us to our destination, which again requires quite a bit of on-road riding. We remain hopeful that in the next few years more trail tourism will lead folks to open hotels that are convenient, or at least start offering a shuttle service to and from the trail like our amazing host Rick did in Connellsville, PA.

Once we’ve cleaned up, we discover that the hotel does not have a restaurant/bar, as Google suggested. No matter; Marty picks a local brewery with an awesome food menu and we summon a lyft. Our driver on the way back points out the buildings of Vassar College, and tells us about his past life as a history teacher before semi-retiring back to his hometown and picking up rideshare driving. We crawl into bed with apprehension, as there is quite a bit of rain in the forecast for tomorrow…

Sampling the beers at Mill House Brewing Company in Poughkeepsie, NY, plus a delicious spinach risotto and a spicy cauliflower bowl, both made with local ingredients!

Day 1 - GETTING OUR GROOVE BACK

Hello from hot and humid Albany on the 4th of July! We’re sorry we’ve kept all 5 of you avid readers waiting, but we’ve just been too wiped out to write and compile photos at the ends of our long days of riding. So here comes some highlight and photo dumps from the first leg of our journey! We have now completed the 200.5-mile Hudson Valley Greenway Trail, and are taking America’s Birthday off in the Capital of NY to rest our butts and quads. Tonight we plan to enjoy the fireworks and a free concert by Sheila E. in Empire State Plaza.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Without further ado, here is Day 1 of riding!

Locating the official trailhead (because Becca insists on a proper photo op) took a minute or twenty. But right away we appreciate how well-maintained and well-marked the trail is. Our arms and torsos are sprinkled with the corpses of a hundred tiny flies that permeate the hazy summer air around the Hudson River. The luxury of riding in a dedicated bike lane runs out as we leave Manhattan and enter the Bronx. And while more signage would be appreciated, lack of signage is a very easy way to tell that we’re wrong :) Over the next few days, the blue and mustard “Empire State Trail” logo becomes our best friend, our North Star, the thing we use to cling to sanity in the face of athletic torture the likes of which we haven’t experienced in 2 years. But enough dramatics.

After a stop in Van Cortlandt Park at the northern tip of the Bronx, we meet the Westchester South County Trail, a lovely off-road experience that we will travel on for the rest of the day. In Yonkers, NY, the trail happens to run through the back parking lot of Sound Associates, Inc. one of the “Big Three” audio rental shops that supplies gear for Broadway shows (if you really want to go down a rabbit hole, you can learn more about sound shops here: https://soundgirls.org/shop-prep-101/). Becca has spent many a work day up here looking out at the trail with longing, so to finally be riding up to here feels momentous. We stop to say hello, and while there aren’t any show crews building, Joe and Kevin from the shop staff welcome us in and offer us bathrooms, water, and leftover bagels.

Feeling refueled, we press on to Captain Lawrence Brewing Company in Elmsford, NY, which Becca had identified as a perfect spot for a late lunch on a previous training ride with some friends. Ever paranoid after the debacle last time around, we sit outside so we can watch the bikes. Marty’s eyes perk up and he runs inside after a familiar face passes by. Turns out it’s Joe from his freshman dorm floor at NEC! We decide that this is a good time to solidify our lodging for tonight and it’s a good thing; when we call our first choice hotel and ask if we can bring bikes it‘s a resounding “…no.” So we opt to bike a little shorter distance than planned, and somehow surmount the challenge of some BIG on-road hills to arrive at a lovely hotel in Mt. Kisco, NY. The pool may be closed, but the bar is open, and after a shower and some well-earned local brews, we collapse into bed.

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Day 0 - FROM CT TO CT TO NYC

Well, folks we are at it again! This time we’re upping the mileage. Over the next 14-ish days, our quest is to bike 2 of the 3 sections that make up the 750-mile Empire State Trail. We are starting at the bottom of Manhattan, proceeding north to Albany, then turning west and following the Erie Canal to Buffalo. All told it’s gonna be about a 546-mile journey, riding between 40 and 60 miles each day. We are looking forward to it immensely, so wish us luck, and thanks for following along!

More cool info about the trail can be found here: empiretrail.ny.gov

Our journey begins with a family visit to Eastern CT to pay respects to our step-grandmother, who passed away at the age of 91 after a long, full life. It’s a sad occasion, but good to get to see family before we set off. Then of course there are always last-minute things to do, plus a random eye doctor appointment that Becca realized she had scheduled months ago before we finalized the trip dates…but we manage to fit it all in. Finally, around 5pm, we’ve checked the list 3 times, turned the AC to a warmer temp, confirmed the plant-sitter, held the mail, and are feeling ready to go. Cleo got dropped off at the cat sitter on Wednesday, so the house is feeling pretty empty, and our bikes are looking pretty full. We decide to treat ourselves to one last local handmade ice cream at Sweet Ashley’s before riding the few blocks to out Metro North stop.

Since Becca rides this train to work a lot, she is apprehensive about fitting the bikes. Summer brings more crowds, which is great for supporting the NYC economy, but not so good when you’re trying to fit 2 very full bikes on a train with no vertical racks. But the conductor instructs us to just jam into 2 sections with fold-up seats. We do our best and thankfully no one complains. We collaborate on today’s NYTimes Spelling Bee, tossing Becca’s phone back and forth across the aisle, each entering a word at a time until we hit the elusive “Genius.”

Getting out of Grand Central is, thankfully, not too stressful. Becca gets us to Lexington Ave, and we very carefully bike the few blocks south and east to catch a ferry down to Wall St. We figured this would be more scenic than the subway at rush hour, and less stressful than attempting to bike the city streets. Both statements prove to be true, and we are relieved when we arrive in time for the 8:02 East River Ferry.

Going under the Williamsburg Bridge

It’s smooth sailing until the penultimate ferry stop where we notice the blue and red flashing lights several police watercraft patrolling lower Manhattan. Sure enough, POTUS is in town. We watch as the president departs in his helicopter not 1000 yards from us as we wait for the Coast Guard to let our ferry proceed. The NYC transit worker whose shift was just unexpectedly extended is NOT happy about the delay.  After some 40 minutes of waiting and a surprise boat transfer, we continue to our destination: Pier 11 / Wall Street. Our headlights gleaming through the smoky dusk, we pedal towards our cycling journey’s start.

Getting held up by Pomp and Circumstance…and Secret Service



A regular at our hotel is unable to contain his curiosity at our getup. The concierge helps us stable our bikes and is happy to recommend a taco place that will give us a 15% discount.  We opt for a closer place that gives us a 10% discount. Tomorrow the grind begins.