A First Time Rider's Experience of Cycle the Erie Canal

PTNY Greenway Trail Program Associate Erica Schneider had her first experience on PTNY's Cycle the Erie Canal tour this summer. And she loved it!

I sleepily opened my eyes and flopped over to turn off my alarm, which was brazenly announcing at the ungodly hour of 5:30 am that it was time to get up. As I sat up in my sleeping bag and pulled back the mesh door of my tent, I saw that folks were already up and at it, stuffing tents into stuff sacks, spraying on sunscreen, and making their way to breakfast. I collapsed back onto my sleeping pad for one last moment of Zen before getting ready to start the 400-mile adventure from Buffalo to Albany along the Erie Canalway Trail with 750 of my new best friends.

This would be my first time participating in Cycle the Erie Canal, although I had done some self-supported bike touring in the past (you can read about my experience biking across the country last summer here). But this summer, I was setting out for the first time on PTNY’s annual tour from Buffalo to Albany, armed with phone and camera as the tour’s media manager.

I had never ridden with an organized tour before and didn’t really know what to expect. With 750 riders and volunteers, would the trail be crowded? What would happen if my bike broke down on the trail? What was the overnight situation like? And maybe more importantly, how could there possibly be enough showers? And once at camp, would there be anything to do after riding each day? These were the questions that were running through my head as I stared up at the roof of my tent and prepared for that first day of riding.

Now having joined the exclusive group of Cycle the Erie Canal “end-to-enders,” I can safely say that I had nothing to fear! For anyone out there who’s perhaps wondering the same things I was, I’m going to lay out my experience and hopefully take a little bit of mystery out of the equation for those hoping to join in the future.

The trail will not be as crowded as you think

PTNY’s Cycle the Erie Canal is the largest cross-state bike tour in New York, drawing riders from all over the country (this year drawing folks from 40 states!) and the world. Despite the tour’s large size, I found that the trail never felt overwhelmed with other cyclists. In fact, if not for coming together at the end of each day at camp, I never would have known that there were 750 cyclists out on the trail each day.

Since the tour was self-paced, you could leave at any time in the morning, go at whatever speed you felt like, and stop whenever you wanted. Together, all of these factors meant that riders naturally spread out across the given mileage for the day. The only scheduled aspects of the ride were meals and rest stops, each of which were open for several hours. So if you wanted to ride with others, you could seek them out, and if you preferred some solitary soul-searching time (the trail is great for that), you could have that too.

There will always be a helping hand if your bike breaks down

One of the more appealing aspects of the tour (especially for newer cyclists and first time long-distance riders) was the comfort of knowing that should something happen, help was easily available from a variety of sources. Our teams of experienced volunteer Bike and Car SAGs (“Support and Gear) were a quick phone call away with the former being on two wheels riding along the trail often passing by before the Car SAG reached the rider in need. Whether the issue was mechanical or physical, these volunteers efficiently transported riders to the official bike tour mechanic or to the comfort of the overnight location.

As I pedaled along and saw a vehicle pass me by with the yellow SAG flag flapping away, I was assured that assistance was always accessible. Luckily, I never needed any technical assistance, but I knew that if anything happened, I was in good hands!

Camping at the Tent City is a blast!

This was one of the hardest things for me to picture before coming on the ride. Over the last 23 years of organizing the ride though, PTNY has perfected the “tent city,” and I was excited to see it in practice. The sites of these famed tent cities included the grounds of schools, public parks, or in the case of Rome, the grounds of Fort Stanwix National Historic Site. All of these locations had big open fields with space for hundreds of tents, and usually a building (think community center or school) that was open to the cyclists, with bathrooms, electricity, and, sometimes, air-conditioning.

The biggest thing that struck me was how many options you really had for how to spend your nights on the tour. If you had your own camping gear and wanted to keep your costs low, you could set up your own tent at the end of each day and pack it up the next morning, to be transported on the luggage trucks while you biked to the next site. If you wanted a little more luxury, you could opt to pay extra for Comfy Campers to provide you with a tent, air mattress, fresh towels, and artisanal coffee in the mornings. The best part? They would set the tent and air mattress up for you so when you rolled into camp sweaty and tired, your humble abode would await.

For those who preferred a little more shelter from the elements, “indoor camping” accommodations were provided at most locations, usually in the school or community center gym. Although this afforded a little less privacy than a tent, you were sure to be warm and dry. And, of course, for those interested in a real bed and private shower, there was always the option to book local hotels or bed and breakfasts at your own expense, although this option required securing your own transportation to and from your hostelry of choice and meant you missed out on some of the camaraderie at camp.

For my part, I chose to bring my own tent and gear, which was a great option for me. It gave me the flexibility to choose where I wanted to set up each evening (sometimes even finding a patch of shade!), although most days as the sun beat down on me at 4pm as I set up my tent, I did look longingly at the Comfy Campers with their tents all set up, wishing someone would set up my tent for me.

There are plenty of showers to go around

This was one of the first questions that came to my mind when planning for this trip. What was the shower situation? When I’m out on my own, I might not care so much about how I smell on day three of not showering, but at dinner each day with hundreds of other folks, it was nice to be clean and less offensive to those around me.

At most overnight locations, there were a few indoor showers available, usually in a gym locker room, or connected to the pool (yes, some overnight locations had pools!) However, I tended to opt for the shower truck. The shower truck had two sections, one for men and one for women, and each side had about seven stalls and an area for changing. You could always count on the shower trucks to have great water pressure, hot or cold water depending on your preference that day, and hardly any wait time. Even when there was a line, I think the longest I waited for a shower was 10 minutes.

Good times await after the ride each day

Although I knew I’d be spending the majority of every day biking, I definitely wondered what there would be to do at the end of each day. Especially on the shorter days when we only rode 40 miles, I started to think about how I would fill the remaining hours. I need not have worried. I discovered that I was never bored, and often didn’t even get to do everything I wanted to do. At each overnight location, there was always something fun to do, whether it was listening to a local band, learning more about the Erie Canal at a history lecture, grabbing a cold beer at an on-site beer garden, or my favorite, taking a shuttle into town. The tent cities were usually located a bit outside of town, so there were always shuttle buses to take the weary travelers into town, often stopping at various locations to check out everything the community had to offer.

Beyond these scheduled events and things to do, I found that my favorite part of every evening was meeting and talking with all of my fellow travelers. The kind of people that bike touring attracts are adventurers, always ready with a tale to tell. I can genuinely say that I ended the tour with some new lifelong friends, and this first tour with PTNY will stay with me forever.

Want to know more about Cycle the Erie Canal? Visit our website and make sure to subscribe for updates about next year's tour.