July 23, 2015

The Pedalshift Project 026: Bicycle touring upstate New York

31 minutes

Just me and the mic doing a little followup and giving an overview of a very fun upstate New York bicycle tour along the Erie Canalway route. It's an all sleep-deprivation podcast after a long weekend roadtrip too!

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Who else has some early bike touring overnight stories to share? Send your pics, audio or a quick tweet - all welcome. Email the show [email protected] or call the brand new Pedalshift voicemail line at (202) 930-1109.

July #podcastapalooza

Pedalshift invades the Rose City and The Sprocket Podcast 245 (part 1 || part 2).

The Erie Canal preview, episode 024

The Amtrak adventure with Andrew and Stephanie, episode 025

Volume 3 of Pedalshift Tour Journals podcast (wrapped up)

This show... hi!

Follow up

More on the Oregon Outback - listen to Donnie Kolb's interview with OPB.

Bicycle touring upstate New York

Want to see NYS? Do this.

Don’t expect canal the whole way. Lots of road sections.

Lots of small towns with charm.

Fascinating infrastructure.

Great history.

Biking quality - pretty top notch. Trails are in excellent condition. The worst parts are still pretty great.

Access to water/food - easy, but there are long stretches where there are no water sources directly on the trail. Didn’t carry food - picked up a spare meal as needed.

Camping - more expensive generally than other options (C+O and west coast) and wild camping availability was a bit overstated in my opinion. Free camping on the lock properties was excellent.

Good encounters - not a ton of bike tourists (although there were 600 two days behind me!). The ones I met were great.

Prime time - Summer was a good time, but upstate NY can be muggy. The ideal time may be in September for warm days and cooler nights or October for foliage.

BIG thanks to Tour Journals listeners and social media followers for tagging along! Special thanks to Rochelle in Albany (@lilithny on the Twitter machine) for some good tips and FOTS Ethan Georgie for his Canajoharie story, because I might have done the same without it.

Speaking of… FOTS Ethan Georgie’s story has an explanation! FOTS Tony S explains...

Next tour

DC to BOS the hard way

Local transit only (no Amtrak, no BoltBus, etc.) plus a folding bike

Union Station DC to Back Bay Boston in less than 36 hours

The least efficient, most ridiculous bike and transit tour... ever

Music

The Pedalshift Project theme is America courtesy of Jason Kent off his self-titled solo album. Check out his band Sunfields' new release, Habitat, wherever cool music resides.

...more

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By Tim Mooney

4.7

177177 ratings