Empire State Trail Day 2 - Buffalo to Albion

As I found out the hard way, day 2 of a bike trip is notorious for having issues. I woke up early at the Best Western in On the Avenue in Buffalo and had a tasty hot breakfast. I consciously tried to stay at hotels with a hot breakfast so I could load up on food before a long day riding. I was so hungry I even ate their sad excuse for a bagel. They had a few Nature Valley bars which I snagged and then hit the road. My first leg was Buffalo to Lockport, about 32 miles. I didn't wear bicycle shorts for this leg and by the time I got to Lockport my butt was screaming! Yes, now I know that was extremely dumb.

spooky photo of me at the border

The Empire State Trail in Buffalo is mostly on a protected two way bike lane on Niagara Street, hugging the water. The signage seems overkill in some areas, probably cause someone decided to follow the MUTCD to the letter. That being said, I enjoyed riding this bike lane thoroughly and the landscape plantings seemed well thought out.

Niagara Street Bike Lane Buffalo

As you bike northeast past Buffalo you enter Tonawanda and the beginning of the Erie Canal Trail. The Empire State Trail from Buffalo to Albany mostly follows the Erie Canal Trail. While the sign below was informative a major complaint of mine was the lack of signage saying how far you were from towns. Some areas had good signage (e.g. Lockport) but most areas had nothing. Lack of signage was a theme on my trip which I will get into on a later post.

North of Tonawanda the Empire State Trail is partially on road, but shoulders were generally wide and I felt safe. As you get closer to Lockport it turns back into the Erie Canal Trail. I appreciated some caring citizens in Lockport beautifully planted the bicycle medians. This was a nice touch.

By the time I arrived in Lockport, my ass was on fire. Between a new saddle, not training properly for the ride, and wearing underwear and regular shorts, I was in a world of hell. I now know I was being a complete dumbass and asking for trouble. The seams of my underwear were massively chafing me and beginning to get really red and sore. I was on the verge of an implosion. It was also extremely humid which did not help my situation. As I arrived to downtown Lockport I popped into the first restaurant I saw: Tom's Diner. Let's just say neither Suzanne Vega nor Jerry Seinfeld were regulars at this Tom's Diner. Mediocre diners in Upstate NY would be another theme of my trip.

While no one was in the diner and there was ample space for me to store my bike, the manager wouldn't allow me to bring my bike inside with me. I was able to get a seat near the window, but it still made me nervous to keep my bike outside unlocked.

The diner food was atrocious, I had the saltiest driest beef on weck in the world. It was a sodium holocaust. It's a shame cause I've heard beef on weck can be very tasty.

look at the top of that MFing roll! the fries were hand cut so it wasn't a total loss

I also had a chicken soup with actually was cream of chicken, not what I wanted on a sweltering day. After a botch of a lunch, I was able to recharge at Steamworks Coffee with a delicious iced cold brew. I highly recommend Steamworks, and the ladies working there let me bring my bike inside the shop. I changed into my amazon mountain bike shorts in the bathroom at Steamworks, but later I would learn that this may have been too little too late.

Lock 35 Lockport, NY -- "Flight of Five" Locks

After a near implosion in Lockport, my afternoon ride was about 30 miles from Lockport to Albion. This was split up into two sections because of a phone crisis.

East of Lockport there is not much. Lots of cornfields and a series of small canal towns that end in -port (Gasport, Middleport). What surprised me in these areas is the lack of signage for things to do in these towns. Maybe there is nothing going on in these places, but I wouldn't know. Somewhere east of Middleport the 40 dollar SP Connect+ case I bought that fits right into my bike stem broke. 2 days on the road and this POS snapped right off as I was trying to click it into the stem mount. On top of my ass being on fire and profound glandular issues due to 3000mg of sodium for lunch, now my phone case was shot.

After cursing the phone case sitch, I got on my way again. My ass now was hurting so much I could barely ride. I was getting off my bike every mile or so to take a rest. This last stretch was pure torture for my butt. In addition to chafing, my tailbones were getting rocked too. It felt as if every large stone I went over was shooting pain in my tailbones. A lot of this section of the canal east of Lockport is coarse stone dust, which is quite bumpy in spots.

Medina was the only semi-interesting town in this area, which had a waterfall going underneath the Erie Canal. One important note here is the condition of the trail here is horrible. Tons of cracked pavement and with a couple mistakes you could easily fall into the canal.

hit a rough patch and you could easily go for a swim

Riding towards Albion you pass through a big farming area, and the most northern point of the canal. There are tons of cornfields as far as the eye can see. In this area I caught a tremendous headwind, and felt like I was pedaling for an eternity to get to Albion. I probably was biking no more than 8 mph here.

somewhere near albion

I chose Albion for a hotel stay because it was one of the only towns in all of Orleans County that had any places to stay. I chose to stay at the Dollinger Motor Inn...mistake.

While I did notice a number of people with bicycles outside their motel rooms, I figured out quickly they were using bikes as their their only mode of transportation, not because they were bike touring. There were people repairing cars in the parking lot and also grilling. I also heard people partying in the parking lot later in the night. I kept my blinds closed the entire time.

if you stay at cheap hotels along the empire state trail...you will see people grilling in the parking lot

Albion doesn’t have much of a food scene, especially if you have to walk from Dollinger's. What looked like a promising mexican restaurant catering to seasonal farm workers was closed on wednesdays. Instead I went to the Village House Restaurant, another bastion of mediocrity. I had a chicken soup again (better than lunch but nothing special) and meatloaf with gravy and broccoli, low risk. There were some extreme high risk items on the specials menu which I passed on.

A Topps supermarket was within walking distance of the hotel so I stocked up on zone perfect power bars for the next day. After dinner I crashed in my hotel room. The next day I woke up with a bunch of its bites on my legs. To be discussed in my Day 3 post - Albion to Newark!