Revisiting my never-released 2015 bike tour journal of the Erie Canal Trail through western and central NY with some perspective from 2020. In part one we set the table with some history (personal and the canal) plus kick off with the pre-canal ride entries from Batavia to Rochester, NY.

News & Housekeeping The C&O campsites are still closed as I sit here, but I went out for a mini Mother's Day hike with Kimberly and the pups and it all looks great. It'll be there for us!   Speaking of... great news! The new surfacing is still going down, and the expansion will connect up Swains Lock with White's Ferry which means (a) the cruddiest stretch of the trail will be fixed and (b) that means MM 17-72 will be smooth riding, representing about 1/3 of the total trail. Great stuff and yet another reason to ride the trail when we can!   Hey, the SprocketShift happy hours continue! We've done four live shows and the date of there next one is posted at pedalshift.net/happyhour. Check it out... a tight 40 minutes on one topic and we always get kicked off Zoom in a comical way. Tour Journal: The Erie Canal Trail Revisited Since bike touring adventures are on pause, but the desire to be on them isn't, the Pedalshift Project is proud to dust off never-releases tour journals of past rides! For the next several weeks we'll be revisiting my 2015 tour of the trail that started it all for me... the Erie Canal Bike Trail.   I'll pop in from time to time to give a little 2020 perspective on the ride. I'm going to be listening to this for the first time in years, so in some ways it'll be like riding it all over again.