Blog #8: July 15-23; Midland, MI to New Hartford, NY

Stats

• Days since last blog: 9

• Miles traveled since last blog: 648

• Total miles ridden: 3280

• Miles home: 290

Home Stretch!

We’re excited to be within striking distance of home. We are due back this Wednesday, July 27. We’ll be highly motivated as we Ride for Home! This will be my last blog from the road (so there’s light at the end of the tunnel for my loyal readers, as well!). I’ll plan to do a wrap up post after I’ve settled back home and made more sense of the whole experience. Thanks for following. It’s been great to be able to reflect with you all!

Oh Canada!

Since I last blogged, our cross-country ride became cross-continental when we crossed by ferry from Algonac, Michigan into Ontario. We then rode for 3+ days near the northern shore of Lake Erie. As close as we were to the lake, it was mostly out of sight, except for where our route took us into port/beach towns like Port Stanley, where we spent the night a week ago. Surprisingly, the slight detours into these towns often involved very steep 200-ish-foot descents to lake level and similar ascents back to our west-to-east route. These short climbs have been some of the steepest of our trip. (Thank you, 1st gear!)

Our three-day stint in Canada was timely. With apologies to Michiganders, we were ready to turn the page on a stretch of relative bad luck for us (see previous blog post) and what started to feel to me (less so to Josh) like an assault of angry and often vulgar right-wing political signs, flags, etc. After spending most of the last 7 weeks in deep red territory, these cumulatively started wearing me down: We Speak Smith and Wesson; F—k Joe Biden!; Our Governor is an Idiot! (referring to Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, who a group of crazies plotted to kidnap); a caricature of Trump peeing on Biden; Say No to Critical Race Theory; etc. At our hotel in Midland, MI, an older man came to breakfast with a tee shirt that read “FAMILY” with a different fire arm on top of each letter. Family values?

Josh was playing some of his music as we rode through corn fields in Michigan one morning last week. His favorite musician Zach Bryan sang, “There’s got to be more to this than being pissed off all the time.” I agree, Zach! But that seems to be the prevailing sentiment among so many.

We had an interesting interaction with two older white men in Yale, Michigan. One of them was wearing a baseball hat that said something like “You’re damn right I’m pissed off!” (I assume he and I are upset about different things, but I opted not to inquire.) And yet the two of them were as nice as could be. They were impressed with our undertaking – both the cycling and that we were raising money to address homelessness. They didn’t seem pissed off in that moment but I’ll take his hat at its word. It was nice to connect, but I assume we then went back into our divergent worlds, with completely different understandings about what’s wrong with the world.

In any case, I needed a break from all that, and Ontario mostly provided that - but not entirely. We saw a handful of “F__

_k Trudeau” signs, an indication that the U.S.’s pissed off epidemic has crossed the border, with no vaccine on the horizon!

New York

We crossed into New York a few days ago at Niagara Falls. As those of you who’ve seen them know, the falls really are awesome! On the other hand, the city of Niagara Falls, Ontario is completely out of control – kind of Canada’s answer to Las Vegas! Too bad Teddy Roosevelt and his Canadian counterpart didn’t make the falls and everything around it an International Park 100+ years ago. But there I go again with my Big Government solutions to commercialism run amok!

We have really enjoyed our few days in New York State. We’ve mostly ridden along a really fabulous bike trail that runs along the Erie Canal. The surface is mostly finely crushed and packed stone, but about 20% of it is paved. The riding is faster on the paved portion but it has all been great. The shade and proximity to the canal has made it a little cooler, and the canal runs through pleasant historic towns that sprung up and/or grew in the early and mid 1800’s when the canal was built and for 40-some years played a transformative role in the nation’s economy. After a long period of dormancy, after railroads supplanted the canal as the preferred means of transport, communities along the canal and the State of New York invested in the 300+ mile trail and on improvements to the canal itself for recreational use. Now the canal is lively with boats, walkers, cyclists and businesses. The collective ambition and the impact associated with the canal 200 years ago and with its rebirth as a recreational corridor reminds me of the Barney Frank quote: “Government is simply the name we give to things we choose to do together.” The guy with the, “You’re damn right I’m pissed off!” hat would probably disagree.

There was a cool moment along the canal a few days ago. To our right was the canal, with kayaks and larger motor boats passing in each direction. We shared the path with walkers and other riders. There was a freight train rolling along on tracks to our left. Josh, aspiring bike racer and competitive guy in general, decides to race the freight train, kind of like John Henry (the fictional super powerful mineworker who took on the steam drill, not the owner of the Red Sox and the Boston Globe). Eventually, the freight train prevailed but I was appreciating all that was going on around me: the lively and pleasant Erie Canal corridor, the history that surrounded us, and the realization that my son, who not long ago I taught to ride a bike, was now keeping up with a train for a few hundred yards. Very cool.

Fellow travelers

We’ve had a few more encounters with fellow cycling travelers in recent days. Last week we caught up with another father-son combo in Michigan. They started in Fargo and were on there way to Bar Harbor, ME. They were riding a tandem, and get this: his son is 10 years old! Kevin, the father, rode cross-country last summer with the boy’s twin sister, who, if my math’s right, was 9 at the time. Wow! They peeled off on a slightly different route after our short conversation. I’d love to run into them again to learn more about how it’s going.

We also crossed paths with a man named Dee, who is probably in his late 60s, who was 6 days into a ride from Cleveland to Bellingham, Washington. He’s camping pretty much every night, which is more hard core than me and Josh. He’s done plenty of touring in the U.S. and in China. We gave him a heads up about Frankenmuth, MI, a Bavarian-themed town – or was it a theme park? - he was about to ride into it. It had taken us completely by surprise! We thought he had a right to know about the accordion music, sausages and smoked meats he was about to encounter.

Later in Michigan, we had a nice conversation with a 72-year-old man named Steve. He’s done several 24-hour cycling marathons, on which he typically covered over 200 miles. He’s “retired” from those extreme events but still rides. He also told us about and showed us photos of his collection of mid-20th century bikes. He said he brought them to a antique market a few years ago to sell them but deliberately over-priced them and returned home with all of them. That would put him somewhere on the continuum between buff and addict.

We met up with and rode most of the way from Rochester to Syracuse with a 39-year-old named Rodrigo. He’s a sommelier – a wine expert – for some restaurants in Denver. (Now, be honest with me Rodrigo, are those $300 bottles of wine really better than Two Buck Chuck and if so why?) Rodrigo is in the home stretch of his San Diego to Portland, Maine ride and it was great to get to know him.

We also ran into a young man from the Bronx who is doing a round trip from the Bronx through Toronto and Montreal. And, get a load of this: he’s doing it on a single speed bike – the kind that urban bike messengers use. And to think I was boasting that I didn’t use my first gear until 2,000 miles into my trip, leaving me with only 19 gears. This dude only needs 1. You go, Mark!

We’ve also met several Canadian riders, who mostly are traveling in pairs, doing various long distance trips.

Finally, we’ve kept in touch with our friends Christian and Mason (who almost blew away with us in Sand Spring, Montana last month) and Randy, the retired college professor referred to in previous blogs. They’re ahead of us – I think they’re in Vermont on their way to Bar Harbor, Maine. We learned that they amazingly ran into each other at Niagara Falls last week. Small world, this community on wheels!

All these encounters make it feel like cross-country and long-distance cyclists are a dime a dozen. Ho hum.

More Random Observations

Based on my observations, Americans have a stuff problem. We’ve seen many properties filled – make that littered – with equipment, tools, vehicles, trailers, boats, etc. in various states of disrepair. Some are set up like sculpture gardens – like an exhibit of rusty mid-20th century farm equipment or of Ford pick-up trucks. Other collections look like a handy member of the household is just hoping for a few free weekends to repair and bring these things back on line. Maybe it’s just that these large things are too expensive to dispose of. (Maybe they haven’t heard that their local NPR station will take them off their hands! They must not listen to public radio…)

The other symptom of our stuff problem are the ubiquitous self-storage facilities. Storing stuff that people don’t know what to do with is BIG business. Maybe America needs to hold a giant, nation-wide, nationally televised yard sale.

On the Ontario side of Niagara Falls.

Locks on the Erie Canal in Lockport, NY.

Riding along the Erie Canal Trail between Rochester and Syracuse.

Our new friend Rodrigo is on his way to Portland, Maine, having started his trip in San Diego.

Self storage is big business.

One of many vehicle/equipment ‘sculpture gardens’ we’ve encountered in our travels.