Entries Tagged as New York

Embracing a child's pace: multi-day bike trip on the Erie Canal

A couple of years ago, I took my 7 year old daughter for a multi-day bike trip along the Erie Canal in upstate New York. I’ve done some long-distance riding, but this trip turned into a surprising ‘short distance’ tour. It’s a great example of how riding at a child’s pace and having a flexible itinerary can be more fun than a carefully planned itinerary. We planned on riding from Rochester to Lockport over several days, and camping at the locks on the canal. Since this was our first multi-day trip together, I had promised that we’d ride as far as she wanted to go each day, and I’d booked a hotel with a swimming pool as a treat when we reached our destination. We never got to that hotel, but we had a great time travelling less than 20 miles in three days.