NYS Bike Route 5

Posted by Andrew on June 16th, 2009 -   

You might have noticed that I’ve been well off my mapped route for a few days; I turned south at Ticonderoga, NY to get to my sisters graduation at Union College on Sunday.  It was a great time, a great break, and wonderful to see my family and Amy for the weekend.  After leaving Schenectady, I’ve been using the NYS DOT Bike Route 5 to get back to the mapped route in Rochester.  Almost there as of right now, I should pick it up in about 30 miles.

1. Outstanding signage for the bike route: occasional route signs, just like highways, and there are always signs at intersections.

2. Roads are in excellent shape, great shoulders, and fairly free of debris (aside from roadkill - I had no idea so many dead critters litter the road until you get up close and personal with the side of the road)

3. Can it be routed around larger highways?  Route 365 was interesting…  It’s not an interstate, and it’s posted at 55 mph, but it looks a lot like an interstate, so people treat it that way.  Big shoulder, but trucks blasting by at 70+ mph isn’t very much fun.

4. Great maps, time for an update though - the trail has been moved to route 69, which I only discovered after bailing on route 45 because of the speed/interstate-like traffic.

A friend told me that he spent almost an hour a day trying to figure out where to spend the night.  I thought, “nah, it can’t take that long.”  I still don’t know if it will, but I do know that I need to spend a little more time looking for somewhere to crash at the end of the day.  I assumed, incorrectly, that there would be a campground along the south shore of Oneida Lake.  Nope.  My 80 mile day turned into a 99.5  mile day.  I thought about riding that last .5, but the thought of a shower and soft bed squashed that idea quickly.

I spent last night in a brand new hotel in Cicero, NY.  I was the 2nd person to stay in the place, and they only opened on Sunday.  It’s a little creepy being in an empty hotel.  When I rolled my bike out of the room this morning, I had this odd urge to clean up, since everything is so new!

Port Byron, NY right now, headed to Rochester to stay with a friend from college tonight.  Lockport/Niagara Falls tomorrow, somewhere south of Buffalo on Thursday.

One Response to “NYS Bike Route 5”

  1. June 17, 2009 at 12:09 AM
    Pat Mahoney Pat Mahoney says:

    Andrew,
    Saw your website on facebook when I was ashore for a few days in Bahrain. I’m out on deployment aboard the USS New Orleans in on our way back to the states through the South Pacific.

    Your adventure looks pretty awesome. I bought a road ride a few months after getting to California and loved it. I’m looking forward to being back on dry land and getting back into cranking up and down the 101 in SoCal.

    Hope your cross country trip goes well. If you divert south and decide to hit the coast in California vice Oregon let me know.

    Stay dry
    Pat