Al's Blog-o-Sphere

Well, it’s Spring 2014, even if the weather has been reluctant to let go of winter, and it’s time to start planning the cycle touring for the season.

It’s been on my mind a lot, but the weather hasn’t been cooperating. The Bikepacking.us group held an alumni tour on the C&O Trail recently, and I could have gone, but didn’t get in on it. In retrospect, I should have, the weather turned out fine for it, with just a light rain the first night after they had made camp.

But they scared me away with talk of 50 mile days and single-track bikes. From the looks of the photos I saw, it was no worse than the GAP trail and better than the Greenbriar, plus they scaled back their mileage a bit as well. I probably should have done it. Continue Reading…

Okay, I got carried away and put a bunch of photos here. I suppose some words would be nice too.

Our group set out to ride a section of the Erie Canalway Trail and decided to begin in Albany and ride west for two days, turn around and ride back. Three nights camping on the trail at two campgrounds. The first night, we met at a hotel in Rensselear. Continue Reading…

I promised to continue the account of my trip, so here it is. If you missed the first part, you can read it here.

So, on the first day, we got as far as River Bend Campground. In the morning, we all packed up and got ready to head out for the rest of the way. The weather was sunny and it looked like it would be a warm day.

We start out near the bottom of this map and go nearly to the top. Our destination is Dravo Cemetary Campground. It’s convenient that these map segments seem to fit our day’s travel! Continue Reading…

I recently found more information about NY bike Route 517. Apparently, after a couple of years, they finally got around to adding it to their website.

State Bicycle Route 517 is a signed on-road bicycle route that extends 90 miles from the Pennsylvania State Line near Jamestown to the Hamlet of Olcott. This route connects with Pennsylvania State Bicycle Routes , the NYS Canalway Trail and the NYS Seaway Trail It also intersects with State Bicycle Routes 5 and 17.

You may have seen these signs around and wondered what they meant. Or not. They are easy to miss. The Bike Route 5 signs have been here for a long time along Route 31 in this area, and some information about them was found online, but the 517 and others were a mystery. I wrote here about it a while back.

So, having found some real, official information about this route, I decided to ride it the other day and see what kind of a bike route it was. I had already formed some opinion on it just from my own knowledge of some of the roads I had seen the markers on, but kept an open mind as I headed out from the northern end of BR 517 where it begins, in Lockport, about a block from where I live.

[Photos to be updated soon] Continue Reading…