Western NY Bike Adventure - Day 2

Total for this ride: 50.2 miles
Total for this year: 1731.7 miles

Day two of the pre-orientation ride with the incoming freshmen started with a catered breakfast of scrambled eggs, hash browns, sausages, fresh fruit, pastries, and juice in the "Emerald Room" of the Holdiay Inn in Lockport, where we spent the two nights of this adventure.  After breakfast, first order of business was to fix Brooke's flat tire - the one which depleted our supply of patches the day before, and the one which forced her to take a cab the final 12 miles of yesterday's ride.  Bob and I walked down to the Lockport WalMart last night to try to find a replacement tube, but since the store doesn't cater to people with high-end racing bikes, they didn't have the right size.  The closest was one size wider.  We decided to try it.  So after breakfast we crammed the oversize tube into the tire, and pumped it up as high as we could with Bob's little emergency pump.  I wasn't very confident that the solution would work, but it was the best we could do at the time.  Thinking ahead to tomorrow's ride, we anticipated that we would need an ample supply of spare tubes to get her back to RIT.  We decided to leave money at the front desk, and later in the morning call the bike shop about a mile up the street to have them drop off a few tubes which were the proper size.

With everyone rested, fed, and suited up, we left the hotel at 8:30 sharp, bound for Niagara Falls.  Unlike yesterday, today's route would require us to ride the majority of the time on-road.  Fortunately, in spite of the fact that we had to deal with vehicular traffic, the road we were on is a desgnated NY State bike route, with nice, wide shoulders.  We didn't have any significant problems as we rolled due west, past the Tuscarora Indian Reservation, just south of the large reservoir that augments the flow of water from the Niagara River through the Edwin Moses Power Station during daylight hours.  It was on this stretch of road, just outside Niagara Falls, that we had one of those cool experiences that you can only get on a bike ride.  We stopped briefly in the parking lot of an Antiochian Orthodox Church to rest and let the slower riders catch up.  As we were getting ready to hit the road again, a priest from the church drove up to the group and started chatting with a couple of the kids.  I asked him to give us a blessing.  He was happy to oblige.  He got out of the car and shared a couple of quotes in various language, I believe Arabic and Greek, and he wished the kids good luck with their studies and with their job searches, and then he bestowed a blessing on the group.  After thanking him and saying goodbye, we went our separate ways.  It was a small gesture, and I'm sure not as exciting for the kids as seeing the falls would be, but I thought it was the neatest part of the entire trip and I'll remember it for a long time.

Not long after our encounter with the priest, we passed by the Occidental Hyde Park Superfund site, a former hazardous waste dump which is now in its post-remediation monitoring phase.  Eventually, if all goes well, it will be dropped from the EPA's National Pirorities List.  I tried to explain the significance of Superfund sites to the kids, but I don't think they really cared.

From there, it was a short ride to the Robert Moses Parkway Trail.  Reclaimed from the southbound lanes of a former 4-lane divided highway, the trail provide a straight shot from the Devil's Hole down into Niagara Falls and the State Park.  Well, almost a straight shot.  As was the case a couple of weeks ago when I did my reconnaissance with Bob, constrction blocked our travel at one point a few miles from the falls.  So just as Bob and I did on the earlier ride, we had the kids "portage" their bikes over the 24-inch pipe before heading down to street level in NF.  We were on the surface street for less than 1/4 mile before I took them under the old Parkway and onto a path which connected with a paved trail running directly to the falls.  It was from this trail that the kids got their first glimpse of the Rainbow Bridge, Niagara Falls, Ontario, and the actual Falls themselves.  Since we had kids from as far away as New Mexico, most of them were pretty impressed with the sight.  We rolled into the park at about 11:00 - earlier than I thought we would.

First order of business after gettting to the park was to take them over to Goat Island and show them where the "Top of the Falls" restaurant was located, so they'd know where to go for lunch at noon.  At that point we turned them loose to explore on their own for an hour.  But as it turned out, they pretty much stuck together.  Most locked their bikes to a railing along the Niagara River, just before it hit the Falls at Terrapin Point.  They walked down to the lower level to get closer to the cataract and stare down into the gorge.  But after that, most of them just kind of hung around.  Several even napped on the grass just outside the restaurant.  None of them walked out on the Rainbow Bridge to have their picture taken on the international border, which kind of surprised me.  Oh, well.  It was their time to do whatever they wanted.

Just before noon I walked into the Top of the Falls to let the catering manager know that we were there.  I discovered three of the kids had already gone inside, just to get drinks and cool off - it was starting to get quite hot.  In spite of the warning we had received when we made the reservation that Mondays were typically busy, there seemed to be very few people in the restaurant.  I was escorted to a covered patio overlooking the Horseshoe Falls, where our tables had already been set.  The kids wandered in and sat down, and the waitress started taking our orders from the selections I had pre-chosen for the group.  Although I didn't really feel hungry, when I took the first bite of my Buffalo chicken wrap it tasted SO GOOD that I easily devoured the rest of the thing.

After lunch the plan was to let the kids ride the Maid of the Mist while the grown ups stayed behind and watched the bikes.  As we were getting ready to head over to the ticket office, one of the girls, Celia, mentioned to me that Brooke wasn't feeling well.  I went over to her and asked her if she was going to be OK.  She said she thought so, but she wasn't very convincing.  I offered to get her a cab ride back to the hotel.  She agreed.  Maria offered to go with her.  So while the kids were on the boat I went to an information booth to get a number for a cab company.

They enjoyed the Maid of the Mist.  In spite of the flimsy blue ponchos that they received before boarding, they were all soaked by the time they got back.  I guess they figured they were going to get me just as wet by smothering me in a big group hug when they got back to the bikes, but it was so hot that they were drying off pretty quickly, and the little water that they did get on me actually felt pretty good.

We could have stayed longer, and I offered them the chance to do some more exploring, but they all wanted to head back to the hotel.  So we mounted up and rolled over to the Niagara Gorge Exploration Center where we called for Brooke's and Maria's cab.  As soon as we had secured their ride, the rest of us took off.  The Western NY Bike Adventure was now officially 1/2 over.  We had gone as far from RIT as we would go, and all that was left was to retrace our path back to Rochester.  And since they now knew how to get back, several of them decided they could pick up the pace and break away from the group.  This was fine with me.  It gave them a chance to feel a little more independent and to enjoy each other's company without the old folks around.

Unfortunately, one of the kids just wasn't able to keep up.  Little Jeremy was fading fast.  Bob and I hung back to keep him company the whole 25 miles back to the hotel.  It was a long slow ride...  And other than seeing the Tuscaroras protesting on the side of the road, it was kind of boring.  But we couldn't leave this kid alone on a busy road in that heat.  So we just plugged along until we finally made it back to the hotel.

At dinner that night Celia and Andrew let us know that they both had flats.  No big deal... we had some spare tubes (for wide, off-road tires) and would fix them in the morning.  Later I conferred with Bob and Maria about how to convince Brooke and Jeremy to take the shuttle back to RIT in the morning.  It didn't take long before I decided that I didn't need to convince them - in my judgement as the group leader, Brooke wasn't well enough to make the ride and I wasn't going to take any chances with her health, especially since tomorow's ride would be longer and hotter.  And Jeremy... well, I'd just tell him straght up that I didn't think he'd make it.  So with that as the plan, I posted the day's GPS data on our Facebook site, and hit the sack for the night.