I stopped in the first store I could find looking for the familiar county road map. This was a hardware store and the owners of the store were very helpful getting me on my way. As I was preparing to leave they asked the loaded question, "What brings you through this part of New York?" which always gets the conversation going. They were particularly interested in the exact route Mr. Babcock took because they had an ancestor who began the family legacy in hardware in the town of Ripley in the 1890's. Babcock and Turner must both have cycled by the store, but each was being paced as they went through and probably could not see anything but the tire of the leading bike.
This was a very nice interlude, but I did have to get on, and very soon was met with steady rain until I pulled up at Dunkirk at 7:30. Actually, the going was easy enough that I could wear raingear and not overheat in the warm, damp air, and the traffic was sparse enough that it wasn't all that unpleasant. I have to believe that I was a sight when I arrived at the motel, a sodden, steaming mass of road grit. I was duly registered and in the shower in record time.
Mr. Babcock, with Mr. Tom Fetch pacing him, is moving along at a good clip through this area. He explains how this is so:
For five days my cyclometer averaged 107 miles a day, and this, too, with the same wheel and nearly as much baggage as I had brought from Seattle. From Chicago to Albany there is a well known and well worn bicycle route where the roads are not of the very best quality, side paths, usually cindered, are found. From Erie to Buffalo, the road is almost as good as a racetrack. For twenty miles east from Rochester, there is splendid cinder path. The Rochester Side Path association has built 100 miles of path during the past season. For one entertainment, the wheelmen of the city sold 5,000 tickets. West of Utica, there are several miles of fine path, and most of these eastern wheel paths are wide enough for wheels to pass each other. In Ohio it is often necessary for cyclists to dismount in passing.
East of Albany one loses the regularly beaten tracks of the Chicago - New York riders, and the cinder paths are no more seen, but they are not greatly missed, for here the roads are excellent. Massachusetts people have the right idea in regard to road making. Every few miles one sees the huge road machines at work, and notes with satisfaction the result. On a foundation of larger rocks is spread a layer of crushed rock, which is rolled down hard and smooth, and then a finish covering of sand makes a road, which is equally good for the wheelman and the teamster. It is nearly as smooth as asphaltum, and is made to stay. The cause of the good roads was inaugurated here by the League of American Wheelmen, but now that the result is so evidently a benefit to farmers, the latter will never go back to the old variety of mud and sand and dust. Massachusetts, I repeat, bears the palm for good roads. Her plan is the best since it accommodates all alike. Next to her, from a cyclist's standpoint, are New York and Ohio, with their cycle paths built entirely by cyclists. I have noted with pleasure the effort of Seattle wheelmen to build a path, and though I have heard nothing in regard to it for some time, I am sure it is progressing and that the lovers of the wheel in Seattle will be well repaid for any effort they may put forth in that direction.
The route along Lake Erie is definitely flat and conducive to high mileage. I decided that I did not need the combined adversity of rain and hills. I ended up with 90 miles for the day, a good day's work considering all the rain.
Heading for the Erie Canal,
Dennis