Bicycling from Indianapolis to New Hampshire

July 1-19, 2004

Jeff will be the guest speaker for the Wednesday, October 13 meeting of the Central Indiana Wilderness Club. Click Here for more details.

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I (center) had the pleasure of riding from Indianapolis to New Hampshire with Jeff Rhodes (left) & his brother Dick (right). Dick's daughter Emily joined us at Niagra Falls & rode the remainder of the trip.

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Indiana


We agreed that the three of us would meet at the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in New Castle. I headed north from Rocklane through New Palestine, where I stopped for an early lunch. Someone asked where I was heading, and I told him New Hampshire. Since the total trip length was 1,300 miles, I figured I was about 1% of the way there. From there I headed to Greenfield, and rode along US 40 in town, past the James Whitcomb Riley Birthplace. After meeting up with Jeff & Dick, we spent some time at the Hall of Fame, then headed east to the Wilbur Wright Birthplace outside of Millville. Although it has past closing, the folks there were kind enough to let us come in & look around. From there we headed up to the town of Mooreland, where we had pizza before camping out at Summit Lake State Park. After breakfast on day 2, we headed to Modoc for breakfast, then passed through Winchester, Indiana. When in Winchester, always stop in at Wick's Pies. We did, and the cherry pie with ice cream was excellent. In Union City we crossed the first of several state lines, into Ohio.

Ohio

We drifted northward as we crossed Ohio. One of the first places we visited in the state was the Bicycle Museum of America, located in New Bremen, Ohio. They had a wide variety of antique bikes & showed an interesting film that demonstrated riding techniques for highwheelers.

In Mount Vernon, I fell asleep on a park bench in the town square. When I woke up, Jeff & Dick were gone. I had to find the Kokosing Gap Trail on my own. I went back to the old train depot we had passed on the way in to town. Unfortunately, there was no trail there, so I continued to look for it along the river. A nice elderly woman with a bicycle in her station wagon asked if I was looking for the bike trail. I replied that I was & she said "Follow me." At the trailhead, she asked if she could ride with me for while. As we rode along on the trail, she asked where I was heading. After I told her the night's destination was Millersburg & my ultimate destination was New Hampshire. She said she would be interested in joining me on the trip if she wasn't in her 80th year. She had been involved in the development of the bike trail, & filled me in on some of its history & future plans. She donated money to have a bench along the trail named in honor of her late husband, and her kids donated money to have one named in her honor. As she turned to head back to the trailhead after a few miles, she apologized for holding me up. I didn't have the heart to tell her my max speed wasn't much faster than what she had seen.

On that same day, we got into Millersburg & did our laundry. Afterwards, we tried to find some place to eat. The manager of the hotel had told us before we started our trip that fast food would be our only option. Dick called up a pizza place, which was just closing. He asked the manager what places were still open. The local McDonald's was open until 11:00 PM & the drive-thru was open all night. After we finished our laundry, we set out on foot to the McDonald's, even though it was one mile away. After the hills around Millersburg, we had enough riding for the day. Just before reaching the McDonald's, we came across a Wendy's. They would not serve us at the drive-thru because we didn't have a vehicle. Fortunately, the people at McDonald's were more accomodating. I must say, it was rather strange to be eating at 11:30 PM out in front of a McDonald's on a Sunday night. Top cap the day off, it started raining on us just as we finished our meal.

On our last day in Ohio, we caught a good tailwind to push us northward. Just after we picked up the northern tier of the Adventure Cycling bicycle route, we came across the White Turkey Drive-In. There I had perhaps the finest root beer of my life. It sure hit the spot after about 50 miles of riding. Unfortunately we still had quite a ways to go that day. We talked with the owners, who see a lot of cyclists because of their location. They said they had seen more cyclists in 2004 than any other year. That was kind of surprising, because we did not see very many (1 from Minneapolis & 1 from New Zealand) the rest of the way.
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Pennsylvania

We only spent one night in Pennsylvania. The campground we had planned to stay out did not look too inviting to Jeff & Dick, so we ended up staying at a hotel in Erie instead. The main thing I remember about Pennsylvania is all of the grapes that we rode by. They are as prevalent as corn in Indiana.

New York (Part 1)

Just outside of Buffalo, we came across Graycliff, a summer estate designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. We took the tour which was quite interesting. I still don't see what's so great about Wright's work. The roof always leaked in front of the fireplace, which apparently was quite common in Wright projects, earning him the nickname "Leaky Wright". Graycliff sets up on a bluff overlooking Lake Erie.

In Orchard Park, a suburb of Buffalo we stopped in at the Pedaling History Bicycle Museum. Like the museum in Ohio, this one had lots of interesting old bikes. Buffalo had a large number of bicycle manufacturers when the industry was young. After visiting the museum, we continued on to Canada. Some of the areas we passed through in Buffalo were rather run down, so it was good to cross over the river into Canada.
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Canada

Adventure Cycling recommends having a passport when you cross into Canada. I didn't have one, but that wasn't a problem. Dick & Jeff went in while I got out my bike lock. They were back before I could lock my bike. It must have taken them less than 15 sconds. The day we crossed into Canada, it was kind of cool & windy all day, but it seemed like the wind died down just as we got into our campground. That night we had a really nice dinner at a restaurant which was just a short distance from our campground. We ate outside & enjoyed the view of the river, just across the road.

For me, the highlight of the trip was Niagara Falls. Unlike the others in the group, I had never seen them before. They are America's oldest tourist attraction & truly one of America's top ten natural wonders. There was so much other noise (traffic & airplanes), that I really couldn't hear them from very far away. I could see where they were from upriver due to the mist that rises up from them, especially on the Canadian side. We joined up with Dick's family & Niagra Falls and took the Maid of the Mist boat tour. Dick's daughter Emily joined us for the rest of the bike trip at this point.

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New York (Part 2)

There is a list of people who offer lodging for cyclists out on the Internet, called the Warm Showers List. There is a public list which anyone can view, and a private list. To see the private list, you have to agree to add your name to the list. We stopped at two places on the Warm Showers List. One was in Lockport, and the other was in Rochester. Folks at both places were very nice, and it was a nice break from camping.

We rode quite a few miles on the Erie Canal towpath trail. It was really nice riding along this historic route, and we even got to see a pleasure boat locking through (the canal is no longer used for commerce). The towpath trail is crushed limestone rather than pavement. It's fine to ride on, but you can't go quite as fast as you can on a road. The only problem we had with the trail was that it rained on the second day we rode on it. The grit from the trail got all over our bikes, and we had to clean the chains thoroughly before we started riding the next day.

The Adirondacks were the prettiest part of our trip. The lakes & the streams were just beautiful. I saw a couple beaver lodges, which I had never seen before, except in photographs or on TV. The area was hilly, and I spent quite a bit of time riding uphill at 4 mile an hour in my granny gear. The only negative was the weather. We had rain on 12 out of 19 days on our trip. The worst weather was when we passed through the Adirondacks.

On our last day in New York, I visited Fort Ticonderoga, which was a real treat. They have events going on all day, and the interpreters were quite knowledgeable. I enjoyed their fife & drum corp, which put on a nice performance. The layout of the fort is quite interesting. There are two portions of the fort which are not connected to the main section. The two outer portions can be evacuated if necessary, and their capture by the enemy would not aid them in taking the main part of the fort. One of the scheduled events was about firing a black powder musket. I overheard a mother explaining to her young son that they were not going to be firing a shot from one of the fort's cannons into Lake Champlain. I thought to myself, "Boy that would make a really impressive demonstration - I'd stick around for that." I had to leave though, to get to the ferry which would take me across Lake Champlaign into Vermont, where there was a very large hill I had to climb.
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Vermont

In Vermont we encountered the largest hill of the trip. It was a 2,000 foot climb over about 5 miles, with a steadily increasing grade. My goal was to ride within a mile of the summit. I didn't have to walk any hills in New York, but this looked a lot tougher than anything we had encountered up to this point. It was tough, but I thought I might actually make it all the way to the top without walking, until that last increase in grade. At that point I knew I was through & started walking. I was almost ready to give up & try to flag down a pickup truck to get a ride to the top. Then I saw that sign I was looking for - the little sign with a truck on a downhill. I was going to stop at the top to let my perspiration dry before proceeding downhill. After being attacked by every possible insect within 2 minutes, I decided to put on my jacket and move on. After the hill it was a pretty easy ride into Rochester, where we spent the night at a bed & breakfast.

Although Rochester is not a very big town, it does have a bike shop (Green Mountain Bikes). They did some work on Jeff's bike & I purchased a spare tube (I had the only flat on our trip) and a couple of Clif Bars. There were a number of guys in town who hung around the shop, including one who had been a bicycle messenger in New Orleans. They explained to us that in Vermont you either follow the river valleys or go up over the mountains. There were a few guys who took turns riding a rather tall bicycle (see photo).

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New Hampshire

We really didn't do very much riding in New Hampshire. Most of our last day was in the state, but we didn't camp in the state at all. One place we passed by the I would like to have stopped in & visited was Fort at Number 4 in the town of Charlestown. I did stop & read the historical markers in town, which turned out to be the home town of Baseball Hall of Fame catcher Carlton Fisk. We eventually reached Jeff's cabin on Gregg Lake, which is near the town of Antrim. In the next couple days after finishing the ride, we visited Gibson Pewter. Salisbury has created a couple ornaments in recent years, which is a very high honor for any artist. We also visited Peter White Cycles. Peter White is well known as a wheel builder and also sells hub generators inported from Germany. Jeff is seriously considering getting one of these, and I am thinking about getting one myself.

Ed's Top Ten Highlights of the Trip

  1. Niagra Falls - Awesome (an over-used word, but fitting here)
  2. Fort Ticonderoga - A must see for the history buff
  3. Graycliff - Now I want to visit Fallingwaters
  4. Pedaling History Museum in Orchard Park, New York
  5. Bicycle Museum of America in New Bremen, Ohio
  6. Kokosing Bicycle Trail in Ohio
  7. Erie Canal Trail - Biking along one of America's great engineering projects
  8. The root beer at the White Turkey Drive-in
  9. The view of Rochester from the home of our Warm Showers host
  10. Dining outside along the river in Canada.

Ed's Top Ten Tips for Bicycle Touring

  1. You can't have gears that are too low for loaded touring
  2. Good rain gear is essential on long bike tours - Our trip had rain on 12 of 19 days. Fortunately we all had good rain gear.
  3. Use dry-bags for items that must be kept dry (cameras, cell phones, etc.)
  4. Make sure all your clothing is synthetic so it dries quickly
  5. Panniers with exterior mesh pockets are good for drying out clothing
  6. Fenders are essential when riding in the rain on crushed limestone trails.
  7. Always carry 2 spare tubes - in case you get a flat & pinch a tube fixing it.
  8. Carry a kevlar folding tire on long trips.
  9. Don't try to ride all day, every day - Allow some time to relax.
  10. Eat lots of pie & ice cream - it doesn't help your cycling, it just tastes good.
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