Eric Canal Bike Ride

I first signed up for the whole 8 day, 375 mile Erie Canal ride across the upper NY region.  Later, coming to my senses, I reduced that to half the ride, or two hundred miles, or from Buffalo and Syracuse.  The full canal riders are still out there, arriving in Albany sometime tomorrow.

This Erie Canal bike ride happens every year, for who knows how many years.  This year had a bit more historical significance because it was the 200 anniversary of the opening of the Albany to Buffalo man-made waterway, the mule and man made ditch that spurred the western expansion of the US, pushing both ideas and commerce westward in a fraction of the time and a fraction of the cost.

The ride itself, organized by NY Parks and Trails, was a well-run affair that was a roving migration of 800 bikers, and 100 staffers, mostly volunteers - sort of Grateful Dead meets bluegrass festival meets religious revival meets military encampment.

The logistics aren’t easy - with 60 miles traveled each day, the encampment, the luggage of the bikers, the pop-up mess tents, porto-johns, truck showers, hundreds of tents - rolling into a school or Elks Lodge or town park, only to pack up and move on the next day.

The challenges of biking that far are varied, and probably rotate each year - this year was the heat, a heat that pressed down as the day wore on so while scorching at 1, continued to its climb to late afternoon, leaving an oppressive blanket late into the early evening.

It’s an interesting crowd - a crowd that has to be comfortable with the variations and unpredictable nature of the weather, rain, logistical screwups - a go with the flow while riding a bike 60 miles a day.

Many people had done it before, many had done it several times.   Not the hardest ride in terms of elevation climbs or leg burn out, but still, sitting in that little seat for 5-8 hours a day is its own form of meditation.  My goal - as a person that spends a fair amount of time on a bike - was to see if I liked a longer, overnight type of thing, and get a handle on how far is too far, how hard was too hard and be able to dial in on trips that fit my biking profile.  I believe that has been achieved - I can now look at a biking tour group’s South Dakota or Amsterdam to Barcelona trip and see if it’s something I could do.

I’m confused at why and how the Cold Play Kiss Cam incident caught on and went so viral.  I get it that it’s one of those ‘by the grace of god go I’, or ‘that’s why you stick to hotel rooms’ type of response, but still, the outlandish pile on by social media, memes and print journalism is hard to square with the actual thing.  

I’m a history buff, and have a fair to above-grade understanding of American History, and feel very comfortable with the mid-19th Century history, say 1850 onwards.  I got the rise and fall of slavery covered in some details, the industrial revolution, the railroad inception and progress from steam to coal, the assassination, the sad chapter of reconstruction, presidential rotation, etc…  But the Erie Canal’s role in all this, the canal’s role in turning NY into the aptly named Empire State, as the canal became the primary lane of commerce in America.

This helps to explain the mystery I never solved of why so many important Americans in the mid-1850’s were living in Auburn, or Syracuse, or Rochester - towns that still exist today but seem very far out of the action - but I would read a book and William Seward would be living mid-state, Susan B Anthony, Harriet Tubman, and even 13 Years a Slave, when he was returned he returned to Mid-State, Upstate - it was literally not the middle of nowhere, it was the center of everywhere, with the Canal creating one of the busiest, vibrant string of wealth that spanned the whole state.

Not just commerce wealth.  The Canal, its riverside banks - pushed ideas westward, pushed religion westward.  The abolitionist movement fermented there, women’s rights, 7th Day Adventists and Brigham Young’s mormons, where the first 5000 copies of Book of Mormon was published and disseminated.   Religious revivals - think O God Where Art Thou - up and down the banks of the countless towns that sprung up - Spencerport, LockPort, Brockport, Fairport, Albany, Rochester, Buffalo.  The original cauldron of stew -immigration, the free market and freedom to worship and travel-  that resulted in a circus and brew of personalities pushing self-reliance and the pursuit of individualism across the Appalachians in mass, for the first time.

The Bike ride was good.  The history lesson was good.  I can now hear the raucous canal life - the mules, the barges, the locks moving cargo against gravity, the preachers and sinners, block after block of saloons and bars - a dirty, frenetic, life edged with the unknown.  A combustible circus of self-determination by whatever means necessary.

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Future blog topics

1. My recent upwork experience with suspected AI fraudster.
2. The Bike ride
3. Always coming home to a shitshow of one sort or another.
4. Vet called Lulu a ‘Senior’.
5. My son’s romance with a graduated Senior.

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