Rochester – Day 4

The day dawned beautifully sunny with a forecast high of 24°. We packed, checked out, and drove to Pittsford New York, a small town, which is part of the greater Rochester area, on the Erie Canal. The Eastman museum was on the way, and we stopped briefly to take a picture in the sun.

The Erie canal was built between 1817 and 1825 and was 580 km long from Albany to Buffalo. It was the longest artificial waterway in North America.

The cycling route along the Erie Canal is 87% off road, as of this writing, and is part of the Empire Trail, which runs North to the Canadian border, and south to New York City. I rode the section of the Empire Trail on Manhattan last year.

There was plentiful parking available near the canal in Pittsford. We unloaded the bikes, rode across the canal, and came to a cute area with restaurants and cafés. We stopped at Artisan Gelato and Espresso, and I ordered a latte and a gelato. Unfortunately, they were both mediocre, and I couldn’t recommend the business. Next time I would try one of several other coffee or ice cream shops in the area.

Our destination for the day was Fairport, another small town on the canal, about 12 km away. The ride would be new for both of us, as Patti and I had a cycled the path from Rochester to Pittsford, but not beyond. The first part of the path along the canal excluded cyclists, but the road was not busy, and had raised crosswalks, which slow down motor vehicles travelling along there with the bikes. A few hundred metres later we crossed Highway 31 and continued along the tow path which was shared between pedestrians and cyclists.

The surface was limestone screenings, but it was in quite good shape, similar to the Caledon Trailway.

We saw several of these canal guard gates, which, in the event of a break in the canal wall, can be lowered to prevent water from long stretches of the canal being released.

As we arrived in Fairport we saw cute swinging benches, and a canal cruise boat which runs between Pittsford and Fairport.

Fairport welcomed cyclists with a paved and well marked cycle track coming into town. There were places to eat right there, but we carried on into town to Donnelly’s pub.

One of the lingering positive aspects of the pandemic seems to be more availability of outdoor dining. The pub was empty indoors, but had a few people outdoors on the patio. After lunch, we retraced our ride out of Fairport.

We had considered going back along the road, which would have picked me up new tiles, but the canal was so pleasant, and one often sees different things while retracing the ride in the opposite direction, that we decided to go back along the canal, even though it was a little longer.

The small town of Bushnell‘s Basin was at about the halfway point between Pittsford and Fairport, and had some seating at the turn into town, but we didn’t explore it as we had a drive ahead of us and had already eaten in Fairport.

We continued along the path, dappled in shade, passing a remnant of a break in the canal. This part of the canal was rebuilt three times to enlarge it, and suffered two devastating collapses.

We stopped at a local brewery to buy some beer to take to dinner at Megan‘s in Hamilton on our way home. A section of the parking lot in front of the store was used for seating and bike parking. Unfortunately, it transpired that she wasn’t feeling well, and we weren’t able to stop.

Pittsford has well marked and raised crosswalks, which slow down drivers and make it safer for pedestrians.

We planned to finish our ride with ice cream at the Pittsford Farms Dairy, but the lineup was so long that we decided to forgo it, and be on our way.

I checked AtlasObscura to see if there was anything we should see in the area and there was an entry for the culvert at Medina. This is the only place where the road goes under the canal. it was on our drive back home so we stopped briefly to have a look.

The border crossing was a bit faster than on the way down, but there was a stop and go lineup that enabled me to take this picture of the international boundary line as Michael drove across it.

Rochester made a great weekend getaway, and I would recommend it to anyone who hasn’t been before, or hasn’t been for a while. And I think we’ll plan a trip back after they complete the removal of the next section of the inner loop.