Empire State Trail 2024 – Day 02

Travel on gravel

Fort Erie >> Brockport | 126km | 285m | 5h27m
August 24, 2024 | 26ºC, clear skies

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International border crossing

We were pretty excited to cross the border to the U.S. on our bikes. And a bit anxious about doing so on the busiest land border crossing between the two countries: The Peace Bridge from Fort Erie, Canada, to Buffalo, USA. More than a million trucks go across that bridge every year. And I’m pretty sure we were among only a few cyclists that I couldn’t find an stats for.

We had our high-calorie-low-nutrition breakfast that was included in our motel rate and made our way to the bridge. Prior to our trip I had downloaded GPS files for each day onto my Garmin device; just to find out that the bike/pedestrian ramp onto the bridge seemed to be under construction.

First detour of our trip before we even entered the U.S.: Getting onto the bridge took much longer than anticipated due to construction. For some reason that was not advertised on their website, which otherwise provides very detailed instructions on how to cross that bridge as a cyclist.

Starting the trail in Buffalo

Once we found the right way, we decided to walk the two kilometers across that massive construction; for cars, the average waiting time at this border is a couple hours, which we beat easily being on foot. The agent let us through without too many questions, and we started officially riding the Empire State Trail through Buffalo.

Going through that large city was much easier than expected. The route led us onto well paved and marked bike paths, separated from the roads, and mostly going along Buffalos waterways. The weather was great, just as it would be for the entire trip, and our first day on the trail started on a high note.

Bike paths in Buffalo were pristine and fun to ride

From asphalt to gravel

The first 50km we were riding on asphalt. But once we left the city and reached the small town of Lockport, the surface finally changed to gravel – which I was looking forward to! Both of our bikes were equipped with 32mm (Tara’s) and 45mm (mine) gravel tires and I wanted to put them to work. We were now following the Erie Canal Trail and would spend the rest of the day on very smooth, even, and flat gravel paths, some of which would just stretch straight into the horizon. No other cyclists were around and pedalling along those trails felt very stress-free.

Gravel trails along the Erie Canal. This is pretty much how the second half of the day looked like – 70km with very little distractions. A welcome change after cycling through bigger towns!

Thanks to our prior planning we had a pretty good idea about where to refuel during our rides. Today this would include a little detour into the town of Albion, where we found the last Tim Horton’s (a Canadian coffee shop chain) for a long time and our last break before ending this first full day of cycling in Brockport, where we had booked the coziest little AirBnB just off the trail. Our host Lynda provided us with cold water and snacks and a spacious area to rest and recover for the next day.

When travelling on a bicycle, finding appropriate overnight storage for your vehicles is crucial; often, we’d just bring the bikes into our rooms. Our AirBnB in Brockport had enough space to securely store them on a patio.

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South-bound: Day 01 | Day 02 | Day 03 | Day 04 | Day 05 | Day 06 | Day 07 | Day 08
North-bound: Day 09 | Day 10 | Day 11 | Day 12 | Day 13 | Day 14 | Day 15

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