Equipment reviews can sometimes cross into the area of personal preferences. In the case of the Camp-Tek Microburst mattress inflator, I think the product is unique. This inflator rather quickly inflates typical camping mattresses. It’s worth considering if you camp a lot and get tired of using lung power to inflate your bedding. Whether hiking  or bicycle touring, inflating a mattress that way at the end of the day is not the way I want to spend my time. See my Camp-Tek Microburst Inflator Review on YouTube.

As an avid bicycle tourist and rider, bicycle safety has become a very important part of almost every ride that I take. Some awful things can happen that can injure everybody involved in a bicycle accident. In the worst case, a collision between a fast moving bicycle and a pedestrian or another person on a bike can be fatal.

Much of my mileage each year is on bicycle trails where I train. These are trails where I share the road with other cyclists as well as dog walkers, people with baby carriages, roller blade people, and runners. That’s the short list because there are other things that sometimes appear on the trail. One of my trails is used by equestrians. I have seen people on unicycles on several occasions. There was a lady walking a llama on the trail one fall day. If it doesn’t have a motor, it is possible that you might see it on a trail.

One way to avoid conflict, accidents, and potential collisions is to talk to other people on the trail. I usually say “passing” to let people know when I am approaching from behind. I say it loud and try to get some kind of response so that I know that I have been heard. Some people have the bad habit of listening to their portable music players on the trail, but I still repeat the word “passing”. If I’m approaching a group of people who are resting or talking along the side of the trail, I like to get them to know that I will be passing. I’ll say either “heads up” or “passing” to get their attention.

Riding defensively works well in other situations. Two examples are children on bikes and blind curves. There are times when an oncoming child will look at you and steer toward you rather than stay on track on their side of the road. A friend of mine had a collision with a child and lost a tooth from his impact with the ground. The child was not injured. When passing a child it is best to stay alert for random motion and to allow room for an avoidance maneuver.

Defensive riding is one of the few things that will save a runner who is listening to music with earbuds. A few months ago I was passing such a person. I was passing on the left side of the trail and I did my usual hail, but all of a sudden bad things happened. The runner came to the point in the trail where she wanted to turn back and made a U-turn right in front of me. My hands were fortunately near the brake levers and when I stopped we were eye to eye.

All kinds of traffic can be a hazard on a blind curve, including pedestrians and other cyclists. Imagine taking a curve  at speed and being confronted with another bicycle doing the same thing from the opposite direction. It is best to slow down and be ready for surprises, including other cyclists who may be careless or inexperienced.

Children need a lot of coaching on a trail. Most parents that I meet on the trail coach their children to move aside and stay on the right when being passed either from behind or by oncoming traffic. I have a lot experience with that from riding with my four granddaughters. They are very good about understanding rules and etiquette, but their thoughts drift and they need occasional reminders.

Riding the roads is another story because cars and trucks do not respond very well to hailing. On the road it’s all about being predictable and obeying the rules of the road. Predictability means that you drive your bicycle as though it were a car or truck, avoiding sudden turns and swerving in traffic. You obey the rules when you honor stop lights and signs as well as signal turns with hand signals and use traffic lanes properly. Personally, I like to have motorists respect me and the best way to accomplish that is to demonstrate that I am operating responsibly.

These thoughts about bicycle safety occurred to me after an incident on a local trail. It wasn’t serious and there was no collision. Every time things like that happen to me I think about them and they reinforce my habits. At my age especially, I can’t afford to get injured and miss a lot of cycling.

To Cape May Bicycle Ride Photo 01

During the past two summers, My wife and I hosted a one-week family vacation on Cape May, New Jersey. Since I’m not much a a beach person, I rented a bicycle to explore the island. The Village Bicycle Shop was a short walk from the house. They have a large inventory of rental bikes that are in good condition. I got a helmet, a lock, and a basket to go along with the bike, which were included in the rental price. All of the bikes have water bottle cages and I brought my own water and bottle.

I have previous positive experiences with this shop. During a ride a year earlier, one of the six bikes that we rented from them had a flat several miles from the shop. We called them and they quickly sent another bike to us so that we could continue our ride.

The bike that I rented both times was a Jamis Commuter, a low-end hybrid. The one that I had this year was equipped with a fat memory foam saddle. Both front and rear brakes were operated by a single brake lever on the right. It had five speeds selected by the right hand twist grip. The rental would not be a good touring bike, but it worked fine for me for three days and relatively short rides each day. The bikes available at the Village Bicycle Shop are all suited for the tourist clientele of Cape May.

Most often I started my ride on Beach Avenue by riding west toward The Cove. The north side of the street is lined with shops and restaurants and the south side has the beach and boardwalk. It can be very crowded with auto traffic, but I found the drivers on Cape May to be bicycle friendly. That’s probably because there are lots of bicycle riders on the island. The Cove itself is a popular place and it has a small restaurant right on the beach. The waves seem to gather as they break toward the beach. That’s why boogie boarders like to hang out in the water there.

The Sunset Beach and Cape May Light attractions are a short bicycle ride from The Cove. Sunset Beach has some small shops and a restaurant. The wreck of the SS Atlantus is visible just offshore. It was one of a small fleet of concrete ships built during World War I and it rests where it ran aground during a storm. The route I chose by accident to get from Sunset Beach to Cape May Light went through a residential area with some beautiful homes and picturesque frame churches. At the lighthouse, there are several trails for hiking and birding. There was a food trailer selling frozen treats, soft drinks, and water. I enjoyed a flavored ice cup before ascending the light.

The 199 stair climb is worth the effort because of the view from the top. From there you can see the entire island of Cape May and the salt marshes surrounding the light. There is a military bunker on the beach just east of the light and hiking trails below. It’s a perspective that you can’t get from a map and it is an interesting experience once you complete the climb.

Riding toward the interior of the island I found the Willow Creek Winery. Last year my daughter-in-law and I took the winery tour and did the wine tasting. This year I did just the wine tasting with extended family. The best thing that Willow Creek Winery has at the bar is their frozen sangria. They usually have two different mixtures, one white and one red. Both are outstanding frozen concoctions. The wine is good, but not good enough to join the club or to haul home. You can still have a good time there and take home some great sangria in a refillable growler.

There are also at least three farm stands that are off the usual tourist beat. In August they offered fresh peaches, tomatoes, and cantaloupe, among other things. One day I made a special shopping trip and bought five tomatoes, a cantaloupe, and a jar of homemade bread and butter pickles. It was tough to get all of that stuff into the basket on my bike, especially since I happened to pick up a growler of sangria while I was out on the road. By the time I got back to the house with my groceries, the cantaloupe was pretty beat up and two of the tomatoes were reduced to mush by the jarring ride in the basket. The things that survived tasted very good including the scarred cantaloupe.

In the northwest corner of the island a dirt road takes you to the place where the Cape May Canal opens to the Atlantic Ocean. There are some hiking trails there and there are people who park and hike to the beach to fish. The Cape May ferry can be seen on the opposite side of the canal. It’s a quiet spot where you can sit for a while and just reflect for a moment before heading back into the tourist crush of the beach to the south.

The longest ride that I took was a little over 17 miles and I rode the route twice because I liked it. A ride on the island can probably stretched to about 20 miles. In my opinion it is dangerous to venture off the island because none of the bridges are bicycle friendly. You can ride to the northeast corner and, if you are careful, you can make it across the first, smaller bridge to the marinas where you can parasail, jet ski, and paddle board. Those places require reservations, but if you plan your bicycle trip you can make that work. If you do the winery, a restaurant, and water sports, you can easily stretch a Cape May bicycle ride to almost a full day.

Many vacation areas offer similar bicycle riding opportunities. It is worth the effort to rent a bike to enjoy the scenery at a relaxed pace even when the equipment is not ideal. I discovered that Cape May is a great place to enjoy by bicycle.

To Cape May Bicycle Ride Photo 01

I spent the last eight days on the annual Cycle the Erie Canal Tour that is run by Parks and Trails New York. There were around 600 people who rode the route from Buffalo to Albany New York this year. As usual, it was a well run and enjoyable ride. Yesterday afternoon I arrived home from Albany at about 4:30 in the evening. It’s great to be home, but as each tour ends it’s like the end of summer vacation.

As soon as I got out of bed this morning and got dressed, I went downstairs to start the chore of unpacking that always follows a big trip. I started with the camping gear. All of it went outside to be dried and aired in the sun: tent, rainfly, ground cloth, sleeping bag, pillows, and mattress. It can all be stored in the stuff sacks and ready for the next tour after a day in the sun. This kind of care makes it easy to pack the things for the next tour without the worry that something will not be ready. It gives me a chance to inspect everything as I roll items up and put them away.

The clothes is another story. When I arrived home yesterday evening, I just wanted to relax for a while. I took off my shoes and sat in the living room with my wife. It didn’t take long for her to ask, “What’s that smell? It smells like dirty socks.” That was right on point. I took them off and stuck them into the pannier with the rest of my dirty clothes to get them out of sight and smell until the next day.

Almost everything that I take to wear on a bicycle tour is synthetic because it dries quickly and can easily be worn more than once without washing. Socks, on the other hand, can get rank smelling even after just one wearing. I wore them all at least twice. In the future, socks may be the only clothing item that I pack for each day.

The entire lump of damp and smelly clothes went into the clothes washer. All of it is synthetic, so it all went together for a cold wash. When dry, I’ll fold everything and make sure that everything is in good shape for the next tour.

My bicycle also needs cleaning more than anything else. It is covered with grit from the stone dust trails that we rode for days. I’ll spray it with the garden hose and oil the chain afterward.

The saddle will need to be replaced. I had a very weird thing happen with it. The bicycle mechanic on the tour even thought that it was very unusual. One of the seat rails broke. I noticed it after arriving in camp on day seven because my seat was lopsided. I was able to slide both broken parts into the clamp and tighten it enough to hold together for the ride to Albany on the last day of the tour.

By the end of the day everything will be clean and put away. I will relax for a few days before going back to training on the local trails. In the meantime, I’ll start to think about where I want to go next.

The Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Association reports in their June 2015 issue of Along the Towpath that two C&O Canal publications have recently been updated. The first is the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Official National Park Handbook (Handbook 142). This book was updated by the C&O Canal Association in coordination with the National Park Service. It is scheduled for release in early July 2015. The plan is to make it available on the C&O Canal Association Bookstore.

The second publication is the Towpath Guide to the C&O Canal. The work was done by the Harpers Ferry Historical Association with support from the C&O Canal Association. This publication is available now from the C&O Canal Association Bookstore.

As an enthusiastic supporter of the C&O Canal for bicycle touring, I think that these publications will enhance the towpath experience for people who are interested in riding it on a bicycle. Before my first C&O Canal tour last year I searched for information and found scattered and sometimes out of date information on the web. Both of these updated documents fill that void.

After touring the Veloroute des Bleuets, I drove to St-Jerome, Quebec, for my tour of the P’tit Train du Nord. I’ve known about this trail for some time and decided to include it in my Quebec bicycle touring experience since St-Jerome is reasonably close to Alma where I ended my Veloroute tour. This was also a memorable trip and you can read about it and view my photo album at P’tit Train du Nord Bicycle Tour 2015.

I discovered the Veloroute des Bleuets as I searched for potential bicycle tours in Canada about a year ago. The people, culture, and scenery of Quebec made it a worthwhile trip. My tour progressed flawlessly from inn to inn: the Veloroute was easy to follow and there are many services available along the way. Read Veloroute des Bleuets Bicycle Tour 2015 for my detailed experiences and photo album.

This is a review of the annual eight day bicycle tour of the Erie Canal from Buffalo, NY, to Albany, which is about 400 miles, organized by Parks and Trails New York. As of 2018, I have done this ride six times with PTNY and I highly recommend it. My son Eric has been with me for the past three years. In 2017, my fifth Erie ride, his daughter Sofia was with us. Every year I revisit my review to be sure that it remains accurate.

My first ride on the canal was self-supported. The travelogue of my self-supported trip is here on the Edek’s Attic. Doing the ride with Parks and Trails New York is a less demanding way to go. This is also a great ride to test your desires to tour on a bicycle.

The daily activities on this ride are conducted and managed by many volunteers and the staff of PTNY. As of this update, they have successfully run this event 21 times. They select great camp sites that are grassy with many suitable spots to pitch a tent. Many of the sites are on school grounds and access to the school facilities such as showers and bathrooms is provided. When the school facilities are not available, PTNY provides a large shower truck and clean chemical toilets.

PTNY transports your personal gear between camp sites. Riders usually help by loading their gear onto the box trucks each morning. The volunteer staff unload at each camp site by the time the riders begin to arrive. People bring suitcases, duffel bags, or panniers to carry their stuff. You need to be sure that whatever you are using is durable because it will get rough handling. If it rains, they will cover all of the stuff with tarps to protect it as much as possible. Some people have had problems with wet clothes after heavy rain. PTNY suggests that you take care to wrap such things in plastic just in case unless your bag is water proof.

The food is good, including breakfast, dinner, and rest stops. The breakfasts are adequate to fuel you through the morning. There are usually scrambled eggs and other sources of protein as well as juices, coffee, and sweets. The scrambled eggs are sometimes reconstituted dried eggs and most of the time the caterer does a decent job of preparing them. I ate them every morning and thought they were acceptable. By the time the trip is over you will be tired of reconstituted eggs.

The dinners are better and PTNY tries to offer one or two special dinners, such as barbeque and cookout-style meals. There are typically two nights when the cyclists are on their own for dinner in Seneca Falls and in Rome, New York. On those evenings there are many nice choices for dinner nearby.

The are rest stops set up for mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks. There is an almost endless supply of cool Gatorade and water along with peanut butter, fruits, and cookies at these stops. There are also additional stops that are set up by some of the local people and businesses in the towns along the way. Each stop is a social event and you will meet many new people at each one.

Lunch is optional and riders need to find a place to eat on their own. There are lots of interesting restaurants and old fashioned diners along the way. By the time I get to my lunch stop, I’ve been in the saddle for four or five hours. Lunch offers a longer duration stop and another opportunity to meet more of the riders.

There are camp services and facilities that have been provided by Comfy Campers LLC. You can bring your own tent or you can have Comfy Campers provide one for you. They have several tent sizes as well as mattresses. Each day they tear down all of the tents and move them to the next site so that your tent will be ready when you ride into camp. Comfy Campers also provides towel rental, umbrella chair rental, and morning coffee service. All of these services must be purchased in advance when you register for the ride. They do a great job of making the camping experience as comfortable as possible.

There are two other important services: the Support and Gear (SaG) vehicles and the mechanic. The SaG wagons will pick you up and drive you to the next camp if you are having some kind of difficulty. Sometimes people get exhausted or even injured and the SaG supports their needs. The mechanic is available on the road and in camp each day. This is a full-service mechanic with parts and supplies. They do everything from adjustments to repairs at reasonable prices. One year I needed my derailleur adjusted and the another year I purchased tires when I had a sidewall blow out as I rode into a rest stop.

The route in upstate New York passes many historic and current Erie Canal features. The ride goes through Rochester, Syracuse, and Rome as well as a number of small towns. Between the towns the country side is peaceful and scenic. About 80% of the ride is off-road on dirt, packed stone dust, and paved trails that follow either the current Erie Canal or historic remnants of the older canals. The remaining 20% uses roads that generally are bicycle-friendly and each year the amount of road travel decreases. It has been impressive to experience the trail each year as improvements are made and as the amount of trail increases. PTNY provides cue sheets each day that provide the turn-by-turn details and the locations of the rest stops.

You don’t need a touring bike for this ride. Since PTNY hauls your stuff, you can successfully complete this ride with many types of bicycles. I have seen recumbent trikes and bikes, folding bikes, tandems, road bikes, mountain bikes, and touring bikes participating. You do need to be reasonably physically fit since you will ride over 50 miles most days. Even if you are fit, I recommend training on the bicycle that you plan to use for the trip. That includes at least one long ride of 50 miles to be sure that your bicycle is comfortable enough for eight days on the road and 400 miles.

This is a great ride for people of many ages. There are usually tweens and teens on the ride, but you need to be sure that they can endure the long stretches of time on the road. My granddaughter was 13 when she did the ride. She plays softball and ice hockey, so physical endurance was not a problem. She was very focused on the ride, so mental endurance was not a problem either. I wouldn’t recommend trying this ride with a young child in a bicycle seat. They should be able to pedal or ride their own bike. There are people 70 years old and older who do the ride and that includes me.

If you can tolerate the camping experience, this is a great ride to take. The price is reasonable and it is generally well organized and managed. It is difficult to find fault with this annual event and I highly recommend it. If you contemplate doing this ride, the annual ride handbook offers planning details and can be found on the PTNY web site.

At the end of January I posted an article about my stationary trainer setup. I used the trainer once at that time, had the flu for almost a month, and put 100 miles in during the past week. It’s deadly boring to pedal in place for an hour and a half. My routine helps to ease the monotony a bit.

My stationary rides are 25 miles long just as my regular trail training rides. At 12.5 miles I take a hydration and snack break before doing the final 12.5 miles. That is usually about 15-20 minutes long. At the start of each 12.5 mile leg, I take up to a minute to get up to my cruising speed, which is 15.5 miles per hour.

That speed gives me a good, realistic cadence and load at the highest gear on the bike. I never change gears as I would on the trail because the load is constant. On the trail I will change gears to keep the cadence and load constant as the grade or headwind changes.

The best technique that I have found to reduce boredom is to periodically change my cadence and speed. At each .5 mile point on the odometer, I go into a semi-sprint. It’s a semi-sprint because I’m not built for anything much above 20 miles per hour, which is more of a sprint. At mile 1.5, mile 2.0, mile 2.5, etc., I will semi-sprint for .15 miles. The result is an average speed of between 15.7 and 16.0 miles per hour, depending on how good I feel. That compares well with my better trail training rides and I feel that the workout is comparable.

During the ride, I have my iPod classic shuffling through my music collection. I may try to use a laptop to stream movies or a news channel. Actually, a Three Stooges movie may be better than a news channel.

I have only good things to say about the equipment. The Kinetic T-2200 Road Machine stationary trainer is solid and shows no signs of failing. I like the fluid clutch and flywheel approach that they use to provide the resistance. The Cateye Velo 7 bicycle computer is inexpensive and very effective for this purpose. The distance/elapsed time measured for a 12.5 mile leg are very comparable to an actual trail ride. That’s the advantage of being able to enter the actual circumference of the tire into the computer. The only change that I made to the setup was to add a Brooks saddle like the one on my touring bike.

I think that you need to be obsessed with training to use a stationary trainer. I’ll bet many people give it up when they find out how boring it is. If you really want to hit the road when the snow melts and be able to ride the distance, I don’t think there is a better way that using a stationary trainer. I know that I’m obsessed.

The National Park Service is proposing to increase and expand park fees in the C&O National Historic Park. As a user, I appreciate the maintenance and improvement efforts needed for this extensive park. I support the fee structure that they recommend with comments that I have submitted to the National Park service. Let me explain why I think their proposal is important and also how you can participate in the comment process. The urgency is that the comment process ends on 22 February 2015. It has been open since 5 January and I just discovered it about 24 hours ago.

Last year I rode the C&O Canal Towpath for the first time. My assessment remains that it, together with the Great Allegheny Passage, forms the best off-road bicycle touring experience in the country. This route may be the longest such trail in the country: “officially” the GAP runs 150 miles from Pittsburgh, PA, to Cumberland, MD, and the C&O Canal Towpath 185 miles from Cumberland, MD, to Georgetown, MD.

During my ride I became aware that the entire C&O Canal Towpath and many of the historic attractions along the way are managed by the National Park Service. There are crews removing fallen trees from the trail and clearing the culverts that provide essential drainage to prevent damage to the towpath. Campsite and facility improvements are also done by the Park Service.

As a bicycle tourist, among the best features of the C&O are the hiker / biker campsites. These campsites are spaced at approximately 8 to 10 mile intervals for most of the length of the towpath. Most have a water pump, chemical toilet, and picnic tables in a wooded setting for either camping or taking a break during the ride or hike. Many of them are on the banks of the Potomac River. I camped at one of them near Potomac, MD, and used many others for lunch and rest breaks during my trip.

The scenery on the towpath includes historic sites with lock houses and the remains of locks and aqueducts. The National Park Service offers opportunities to camp in selected lock houses on the route. There are informational signs that explain the history of many of these sites, a great help in interpreting the significance of the achievements of those who built and managed the canal. Dams built on the Potomac River years ago to supply water to the canal still stand and back up large slack water areas used for recreation of all kinds.

Two of the fees proposed by the National Park Service that will affect me and other bicycle tourists are 1) the Park Pass and 2) the Hiker-Biker Camping Site Rate. My interpretation of the Park Service proposal is that the 7-day Park Pass will cost $10 in 2015 for end-to-end access to the towpath from Cumberland to Georgetown, increasing to $14 in 2017. The Park Service proposes to charge $20 per night for use of the hiker-biker campsites (I recommend $10.). There is currently no charge for the use of those sites. I support user fees like this because they go directly into the maintenance of the Park.

Hopefully, you feel as strongly as I do about the C&O National Historic Park and its positive value as a bicycle touring route. If you feel strongly enough, you can comment as I did on the National Park Service proposed fees for use on their Planning, Environment, and Public Comment site. My comments are here. Your comment can be as simple as a statement of support. On their web site you will need to scroll down to the link for the Chesapeake and Ohio National Historic Park. The link will take you to the proposal document and a link for comments. Be patient because it takes quite a few clicks to get there.

The National Park Service needs the help of supportive comments and a revenue stream that is independent of Congressional appropriations to sustain the C&O National Historic Park for many bicycle tourists and many seasons to come.