Travelogue A trip I made around Cayuga Lake

[TheSac]

Hi everyone. I'm a long time lurker but after reading trip reports here I felt like taking the plunge and sharing the tale of my first bike trip. Last June I took my bike around Cayuga Lake in New York. About a hundred miles all told. A buddy of mine had done it in a day, but I figured it would be a good excuse to split it into two and camp for the night near Senaca Falls. My ride is a decade old Giant hybrid, and is in pretty good working order. I installed a new chain and bought me a new water bottle to fit in my water bottle holder, but other than that I had all the equipment I needed and set off early in the afternoon.

After a rough hill climb leaving Ithaca, I headed north, riding along the generous shoulders of the county roads of upstate NY along the eastern side of the lake. It's mostly far country up here, wineries and some other small agricultural outfits. This barn stood out to be because of how picture perfect it looked.

Riding along the backroads gave spectacular views of the water and occasionally you could see sailboats cruising around.

It really was a perfect day for riding. The first third or so of the day's riding was up above the lake, but near the town of Aurora, I took a steep hill down and hit the lakefront. That was the spookiest part of the whole ride; There was a small shoulder and so I had to share the road with semis. In fairness they did their best to make room for me.

This bridge is just outside Aurora, near the bottom of the hill. I road through a few sleepy lakefront towns on my trek north towards the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge.
I was moving along; I wanted to make it to my campsite before sundown, so I didn't do much sight-seeing. Montezuma was pretty nifty though. The summer heat gave the whole place this sort of Florida vibe.

Eventually I made it to my campsite just south of Senaca Falls on the western side of the lake. I stayed at a state park; I view it as a donation. The night was pretty uneventful. After I got my tarp and pad set up I drank a bunch of water and ate a package of fig newtons. Riding made me a lot hungrier than I had thought I was. The campground was mostly deserted but there were some people who set up a tent close by. At 2 AM I awoke to the sounds of passionate moaning coming from their tent. All I could do was chuckle and went back to sleep.

The next day I continued heading south but avoided the road along the lakefront, since it has no shoulder.
Instead, I headed farther inland, taking county roads past farms and through small towns. This courthouse sign stood out to me.

It was getting more humid as the day wore on, and rain was in the forecast for the evening as I rode south. Something I noticed, the more affluent the town, the less they seemed to like having cyclists on their roads. When I was deep in fam country, people would give me an extra lane of space even when I was on the shoulder, but in towns I almost got clipped a couple of times! I did get a flat, thanks to a little shard of metal I had to fish out of my rear tire. As an aside I was wondering if anyone has any advice for buying puncture resistant tires or tire liners. The roads around here aren't the best and I get flats more than I'd like. But even getting a flat wasn't all bad. I met a cool guy on a mountain bike and he helped me patch my tube and we chatted for a while. Eventually I made my way back to Ithaca and the trip was at an end! It was a great time and I'll do longer ones once work and weather cooperate.

 

[ali]

Thanks for sharing your story!

I started my ride with tireliners in both tires, but they didn't prevent flats in the back tire. I think back tires are more likely to go anyway because there is a lot more weight on them when you are touring. What ended up being successful for me was getting strong tires with a decent enough tread that any small bits of glass or metal would get caught in the rubber and not bust through to puncture the tube. Schwalbe Marathon is the brand everyone praises for touring and it worked well for me too, if you can find them. Either way, you'll know when your tire is going bald because you start getting flats on even the most insignificant bit of gravel.

Something well worth doing is pulling over ASAP any time you realize that you went through some broken glass or sandy ground that might've had stickers/thorns in it. Slowly spin the tires around and check to make sure nothing is embedded, because the longer something is stuck in the tire the more likely it'll push through and eventually puncture the tube. I used tweezers to dig out some deeply-embedded glass once or twice. Needles from your needle-and-thread might also be useful. If you're worried about sticking a needle in your tire, then perhaps your tire doesn't have a thick enough tread to begin with.

On a separate topic, because tubes are pretty damn cheap, i just carried spare tubes since it's less of a pain in the ass to just replace the tube than to patch it.

 

[TheSac]

Thanks for sharing your story!

I started my ride with tireliners in both tires, but they didn't prevent flats in the back tire. I think back tires are more likely to go anyway because there is a lot more weight on them when you are touring. What ended up being successful for me was getting strong tires with a decent enough tread that any small bits of glass or metal would get caught in the rubber and not bust through to puncture the tube. Schwalbe Marathon is the brand everyone praises for touring and it worked well for me too, if you can find them. Either way, you'll know when your tire is going bald because you start getting flats on even the most insignificant bit of gravel.

Something well worth doing is pulling over ASAP any time you realize that you went through some broken glass or sandy ground that might've had stickers/thorns in it. Slowly spin the tires around and check to make sure nothing is embedded, because the longer something is stuck in the tire the more likely it'll push through and eventually puncture the tube. I used tweezers to dig out some deeply-embedded glass once or twice. Needles from your needle-and-thread might also be useful. If you're worried about sticking a needle in your tire, then perhaps your tire doesn't have a thick enough tread to begin with.

On a separate topic, because tubes are pretty damn cheap, i just carried spare tubes since it's less of a pain in the ass to just replace the tube than to patch it.

Thanks for this! I'll seek out a set of Schwalbe Marathons. They don't seem too pricy. I agree, the back tire always seems to be the one that goes. What's a good pressure for tires? The tubes I get at my local bike shop are rated for 60 PSI or thereabouts but would a higher pressure be a better option?

 

[ali]

I would be very surprised if a tube was rated for 60psi, usually you can overinflate tubes way more than the maximum tire recommendation, people do that to find punctures in the tube.

For tires, it depends on the tire. I think mountain bike tires tend to be around 60psi, road tires are around 100psi and hybrids are in between. My personal feeling is it's best to inflate as high as tire allows. Yes, you will have a bumpier ride, but also you will go faster across the pavement and - most importantly - it will be longer before you have to pump it up again. This was a big deal for me traveling across country. My own little hand pump would maybe only get the tires up to about 60psi before i couldn't push any harder (even though the pump was rated for 85psi), so any time i found myself in a major city where they had bike repair stations with a real pump, i pumped as high as i could go, because i knew it might be a week or more till i would be able to really inflate properly again.

I don't think tire pressure makes a big difference to the likelihood of getting a puncture, not unless you are really low or really high (i.e. well outside the official range of the tire). The quality of the tire seemed to have a much bigger impact in my experience, but your mileage may vary. I think it's hard to give blanket recommendations on this sort of stuff because so much depends on how much weight you have on your bike, what kind of surface you are cycling on, what kind of bike you are riding, what the outdoor temperature is, and so on.

 

[TheSac]

I would be very surprised if a tube was rated for 60psi, usually you can overinflate tubes way more than the maximum tire recommendation, people do that to find punctures in the tube.

For tires, it depends on the tire. I think mountain bike tires tend to be around 60psi, road tires are around 100psi and hybrids are in between. My personal feeling is it's best to inflate as high as tire allows. Yes, you will have a bumpier ride, but also you will go faster across the pavement and - most importantly - it will be longer before you have to pump it up again. This was a big deal for me traveling across country. My own little hand pump would maybe only get the tires up to about 60psi before i couldn't push any harder (even though the pump was rated for 85psi), so any time i found myself in a major city where they had bike repair stations with a real pump, i pumped as high as i could go, because i knew it might be a week or more till i would be able to really inflate properly again.

I don't think tire pressure makes a big difference to the likelihood of getting a puncture, not unless you are really low or really high (i.e. well outside the official range of the tire). The quality of the tire seemed to have a much bigger impact in my experience, but your mileage may vary. I think it's hard to give blanket recommendations on this sort of stuff because so much depends on how much weight you have on your bike, what kind of surface you are cycling on, what kind of bike you are riding, what the outdoor temperature is, and so on.

Ok, it seems like I'll have to invest in some better tires. I'll check the tube rating, I'm probably misremembering. What kind of pump do you use when you get to a town? Compressed air at gas stations? As an aside, Your cross Canada and US trip writeup is very inspirational and is what made me get off my butt and write up my own little trip!

 

[ali]

I'm glad i could inspire! It was here on STP where i was inspired to bike tour as well, because a lot of the other websites make it seem like something very upper middle class, but it turns out it doesn't have to be that way at all.

My favorite pumps are the ones that you find at so-called bike repair stations, which exist in most major cities and college towns in the US and Canada. I even found one here in Colombia, but more on that in another post. It's basically a pump that looks like one of those ACME dynamite blasters from old cartoons, plus a whole bunch of bike tools attached to a pole. Occasionally you can also find them way out in the bush, as long as there are mountain bike trails nearby. They are brilliant, because it's basically like finding a little co-op with all the tools you need to fix and tune up your bike for free. You might have to do some googling when you get into a town to see if they exist or not, but even if you can't find any articles in the local paper or on the local council website about them, you sometimes will run across them anyway if you are hunting down greenways, rail trails and cycle path infrastructure.

When i was a kid growing up, i always used the pumps at gas stations to fill my bike tires, but apparently that's not the best idea because they can blast in a ton of air very quickly that might end up over-inflating your tires. I'd probably still use them now if they were free, but most of them charge money these days, and i figure it's not worth spending money to put air in your tires that might bust them anyway. What you can do instead is visit a bike store - most of them will be okay to pump your tires for free - or look for a friendly laborer or farmer with a pickup truck. Most of these guys have compressed air in the back and will be happy to help out.

 

[TheSac]

Ah I think I know what you're talking about, I've seen those bike stations before in parks and on college campuses among other places. I have to ask, in your last US trip post you mentioned you were headed to Panama, and now you mentioned Colombia; Did you cross the Darien Gap on a bike?

 

[ali]

No way! That route would by hard enough on foot. The most adventurous but-still-realistic way you could probably do it would be to cycle from Panamá through the mountain road to Cartí in the Guna Yala comarca, although that road is only open during the dry season and is apparently extremely rugged, then pay a shit-ton of money to get local boat drivers to ferry you along the coast to the border, eventually getting over to Turbo in Colombia. I looked into that option without a bike, and it seemed not only dangerous but also much more expensive than getting a flight. Since leaving Florida i have been traveling pretty conventionally (small backpack, duffel bag, hostels/hotels, plane, bus, hike) so i haven't continued the story here on StP, but i am considering buying a cheap bike here in Colombia after having rented a couple times. Not sure yet, we'll see.

 

[TheSac]

Ah ok, I was going to say, riding a bike through that would be insane! I've never been to South America, or Central America for that matter. I should rectify that. I'm excited to see your future posts from Colombia!