Canandaigua, New York to Syracuse, New York

Today provided for us a very nice ride. Unlike yesterday's adventure, it did not end in a storm. We just had nice weather the whole time. We enjoyed a short ride today, traveling only 68 miles. As was the case yesterday, we again had nice road surfaces and wide shoulders on the road. Not much traffic either, on this Sunday morning's ride.

We left Canandaigua and went east initially on US route 20. During much of the ride, US 20 and US 5 are the same road. This took us eastward largely parallel to, but south of, the New York State Turnpike (I-90). With the Interstate road presumably handling the majority of the traffic, that makes US 20 less traveled and much more pleasant. It was a really nice and scenic ride today. At probably 31 miles into the ride, US 20 and US 5 split up. We stayed with the latter, up until very close to Syracuse.

Syracuse is obviously a quite big city. Our approach, however, was well thought out and planned. We really missed out on a whole lot of ugly urban traffic that you typically see in cities of this size. That was nice.

At just 12 miles into our journey today, soon after leaving Canandaigua, we went through the town of Geneva. That is located at the north end of one of the finger lakes of this region. (Canandaigua is located at the north end of one of the other finger lakes, just to the west of this one.) Our ride through Geneva took us by a huge green park at the edge of that lake. It was early in the morning then. People were out walking arround. It really was nice. We later traveled through Waterloo and Seneca Falls, both also really pretty areas.

I had a flat tire at probably just 10 to 15 miles before arriving here in Syracuse. It has been quite a while since I have had one, so I suppose that I was due for this. (Craig had two flats yesterday, when he and I were riding together then.) I was riding alone at the time. I went through the usual routine of removing the old tube, putting a new one in, and inflating it with my sometimes-tempermental CO2 inflator. Inspecting the tire, I never saw any "culprit" piece of metal or glass to explain the event. I did take note of lots of small lacerations in the tire however, those small but deep. This tire has served me well on lots of pretty challenging surfaces, so I decided to replace it. That was my extra minor project to which I attended when I got here to Syracuse. Now I am, once again, ready for tomorrow.

Tomorrow, Monday, we will go to Little Falls, New York.