By John Springfield

I love September weather for bicycle touring.  I usually plan a week-long tour, but this year a special occasion tempted me to try a 770 mile tour to Detroit. Why bike to Detroit?  Well, my 60th high school reunion was occurring in early October.  At age 78, was this going to be "too much"?  I gave myself 3 weeks.

Instead of climbing over the Berkshires, I arced northwest to climb Hogback Mountain in southern Vermont.  I had been over Hogback recently, so I knew what to expect. After that I would follow the Erie Canal, cross into Canada at Buffalo, then on to Michigan.

The whole trip was motel-to-motel, so I carried no camping gear. But my baggage still weighed 25 pounds.  Going up hills was going to be a test...

It took me two days to get to Brattleboro.  I hit rain on the second day.  The rain in itself was not a problem, but my map app "bicycling route" took me down dirt roads that turned into a muddy mess.  One "road" was under water at several places.

On day 3 the 2300 foot climb up Hogback started.  With the extra weight, even though the weather was perfect, I had to stop many times on the final 5-mile uphill...with a lot of patience, I finally made it! The 4-mile descent into Wilmington was almost too fast, so I braked periodically.

At this point I figured the worst was over.  WRONG.  There was another 1300 foot climb before Bennington!  I did have another refreshing descent into town. Now, there would be no more serious climbing for the rest of the trip.

I picked up the Erie Canal/Empire State trail north of Albany which goes across New York to Niagara.  The Canal Trail varies in surfaces.  Sometimes it's paved, but usually it is a fine crushed rock surface.  I managed on 28x700 tires.

Sometimes I traveled a few feet from the Erie Canal, and other times I was close to the New York Thruway.  The canal is still used in parts, and other parts are abandoned. There are a lot of locks along the route, but I found viaducts that carried the canal over existing streams most interesting.  Cool.

After Seneca Falls, I discovered the Lehigh Valley Trail. Like the Canal Trail, It started with a fine-crushed stone surface, but slowly turned into a two-track dirt surface with a grass strip median.  There were few riders on the trail.  As I approached the outskirts of Rochester, the trail became single-track.  It finally ended in a Rochester suburb.

I left the rail trails and returned to the main roads as I angled down toward the Peace Bridge that connects Buffalo with Fort Erie, Ontario.  There was no charge for bicyclists, and they allow you to bicycle across the bridge.

Once in Canada, I was again surprised to discover the Friendship Trail that goes from Fort Erie to Port Colborne.  All paved!  

After that I was back to main highways and county roads.  Sometimes the map app routed me onto gravel roads.  If they were hard-packed, it was fine.  But a few were loose gravel, and I had to turn back to the highway. 

One time I rejoined Route 3, only to be subjected to road construction.  The scarified pavement shocked me and my bike for 5 miles!

I crossed into Michigan at the Algonac Ferry. The fee was $3 for the 8-minute crossing of the St. Mary's River. After 19 days of biking, I made it to the reunion with one day to spare.  I celebrated by wolfing down a few White Castle hamburgers.

Funny, everyone at the reunion had gotten older!
But it was fun to see the old crowd after all these years...

Here's a link to my daily journal and photos:
https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/Detroit2026