Day 41: Bicycling Across America – Syracuse, NY

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Upstate NY Barn

Well, the day started out lovely….. The plan today was to make it out to Syracuse, which was only about 65-70 miles away from Geneva, by catching the Canalway just before it entered a Wilderness area and follow this all the way in. Being relatively short mileage, I was initially taking my time and left late, getting ice cream and generally dawdling. It became a problem when the gpx track, that I pulled from the RideWithGPS library, got sketchier and sketchier, until the trail disappeared completely and I was pushing and dragging my bike through a swamp in the middle of nowhere.

At this point, I was getting suspicious.
Very suspicious at this point and eventually the trail dropped out completely.

When the trail disappeared completely, I was on my own and I somehow pushed through until I found something resembling a dirt road.

Bicycle repair stands are available periodically along the trail. Here, I was digging out mud and tweaking my damaged rear wheel. It did not like being ridden off road.

By the time I got out of this swamp, my bike had so much mud caked up into its mechanicals, nothing really worked right. When I got back to the canal, the first priority was swishing the bike around in the water and digging out the mud and dirt the best I could.

Long story short, me and my battered bike limped into Syracuse around 9:30p. Life as a bicycle tourist.