2.3 Mile Ride on the Erie Canalway Trail/Shoreline Trail
Monday, August 2, 2021
I decided todaywas an opportunity to head over to Buffalo and ride the 8-9 miles of canalway trail between Buffalo Harbor State Park and Black Rock Canal Park. About 1/3 of the mileage is on-road, so I expected part of the ride to be a chore. I had no idea...
First, I made it nearly to the State Park - but was stopped by a major bridge being out of commission. To make matters worse, the trail actually goes over that bridge, so even if I'd found the alternate route to the park, I'd be stuck once I reached the bridge.
So then I tried to head to Black Rock Canal Park - and ended up at the wrong place. My frustration with this was increased by the fact that I'd been unable to stop anywhere on the drive out (NYS is currently doing major renovations on a bunch of the Thruway rest stops; all that's available at those areas is gas) so I very much needed access to a bathroom.
Managed to find my way to the actual park fairly easily, and they still had the port-o-potty there - except just as I got out of the car the guy who services them showed up and proceeded to service it. At least I knew it was pretty clean...
So I finally started riding, and fairly quickly hit an on-road section where there was no signage. Fortunately I had my phone with me so I was able to look up where to go - one of the unpleasant road sections, which turned out to be even more unpleasant fairly quickly when I reached a construction zone where it turned out they were building the separate bike lane for the canalway trail.
So faced with ride along a street narrowed by construction (where at some point in the future there will actually be a separate bike lane!) to eventually reach a bridge that I wouldn't be able to cross - I threw in the towel and rode back to the car and over to Buffalo-Niagara Heritage village to ride the mostly off-road section between there and Lockport.
I don't know when the construction along this stretch will be complete but it definitely makes me question if I'll be able to ride it this year... my quest to ride the entire canalway trail may end up being a 7 yr task after all (though I do hope to ride the other sections I still need this year.)
