Day 1 – Buffalo to Medina, 51 miles

Whew!  We’ve got day one under our belts and what a crazy day it was.  First, let’s meet Team Potter of CycleOverride, shall we?  From left to right:  Terran, age 17; Bobby, age 13; Bruce, let’s just say he’s got a big birthday coming up; Daxton, age 4 and Heidi, that’s me.  I’m the oldest but that’s all I’m going to tell you.  The hotel staff kindly took this photo for us right before we jumped on the bikes and road off.  Daxton is obviously very excited.

He’s also the cutest of this motely crew so here’s a better look at his enthusiasm.

As it turns out, it’s pretty hard to get pictures while we’re all riding so what you’re getting to see is snapshots of our stops.  There are some pretty views though, so it’s not all bad.  The morning started with rain so we opted to sit tight and wait for it to pass.  You can see the remnants of the downpour in the picture above.  The first two miles of the ride were pretty easy but then we hit detour city.  The next four miles of the ride would take us over an hour to navigate as we ended up riding on broken and uneven sidewalks through intersection after intersection to get around the detour.  Not the best start to the day, but we eventually wound our way back to the trail only to find ourselves facing a pretty strong headwind.  Oh well, at least it was paved and flat and had views like the picture below.
We made one quick stop at a bike shop to pick up some spare tubes for the trailers and we were off at a pretty good clip for a bit.  The trail went back and forth between a paved path to some road riding in stretches.  We stopped for a quick snack about 8 miles out of Lockport.

The last few miles into Lockport?  Probably the worst part of the ride not counting the morning.  The route took us down a milled road and if you’ve ever rode on cobblestones, this was much worse.  We slogged through that and then stopped for lunch at a Tim Horton’s just because it was RIGHT THERE.  Lockport in general though?  Pretty awesome.  On our way out, we stopped briefly at the Erie Canal Museum and learned a bit more about the history of the area.

From there on out we were on the Canalway trail proper and it looks pretty much like what you see below.  We didn’t see a lot of traffic on the trail, mostly locals either biking or canoeing near the towns we’d pass. Finally we rolled into Medina to stay at the Hart House, a converted t-shirt factory of all things.  Medina is up and coming and this hotel is pretty neat.  We had an amazing dinner just down the street – seriously on par with some of the better restaurants I’ve eaten at in my travels.  All in all, a wonderful end to our first day.We plan to get on the road earlier tomorrow.  The coffee shop downstairs opens at 7:30 and if all goes well, we’ll be on the road just after 8.  We are all tired and certainly sore from sitting in the saddle much longer than anticipated today, but we’re pretty pleased to have accomplished day one of the ride.  For 3 of us, it’s the longest we’ve ever ridden.