Let the Good Times Roll - Biking the Empire State Trail to a Wedding

[@EastCoastGreenwayAlliance]

Great video, Regina! And thanks for the East Coast Greenway shoutout.

[@D-Ski-Bike-Kayak-Etc-cv5tm]

You're a great storyteller! This makes me want to ride the Empire State Trail.

[@njrom]

Planning to do the reverse of this ride this summer! I live right near that tasty gelato place you mentioned, it is the best!

[@reginayan]

Thanks for watching, and enjoy your ride (and gelato)!

[@steveretiredandcycling]

Hey Regina, thanks for the great story! I really enjoyed your story telling that brought back memories of my ride of the Erie Canal and Empire State Trail. Fortunately we cycled the Canal trail West to East. Either way it's a great ride. Good to hear that you're working with the ECG. Thanks again and all the best, Steve

[@reginayan]

Steve! Thank you so much for the kind words!! Love your content as always (I watched your Empire State Trail video right before we took off) and am continuously inspired by you. Wishing you and Jan the best.

[@StanfordLeeStrong]

What a beautiful adventure. Thanks for the tip of traveling east on the trail

[@Doesitreallymatter344]

You could probably stretch a video to an hour. With more trial videos.

[@bicycledad7660]

Was the trail from Albany to penn Station is it all paved trail ?? Thanks for the great video

[@reginayan]

Thanks for watching! It's not completely paved - for example the first shot at the beginning of the film is from Rosendale (on the Wallkill Valley rail trail portion - empiretrail.ny.gov/poughkeepsie-albany/new-paltz-south-kingston) and you can see it's crushed stonedust. Feels a little gravelly, but our 28mm wheels had no trouble.

[@thetekcortez]

YAY new video finally, i've watched your first video countless times and have used it for a source of inspiration when i'm about to go on solo bike adventure. please PLEASE continue sharing your cycling experiences, you are an awesome story teller! greetings from the philippines!

[@reginayan]

Thank you so, so much for your kind words!! I'll definitely be posting more (and I won't take 2 years next time hahaha)

[@shlobodon]

I am planning on riding from NYC to Toronto this summer. Gonna shoot for 60-80 a day. Didnt know about the free camp sites! Good info! Hope the headwind isnt too bad. I just would like to have Toronto as an end reward since I have never been. Gonna ship my bike back and fly back to philly

[@berkshirebikeandboard6020]

So what is Shep's hack to bodge ratio? I think he might be batting 100!

[@reginayan]

Haha! He's always macgyvering things, some may be bodges but the ones in the video have gotta be hacks because some opportunistic stranger decided they were worth stealing RIP

[@pedalingprimemover]

You and Shep are absolute troopers!

[@drulifson]

Cute video! Kismet that this showed up today as having a HH with Biking friends today and my buddy Steve wants to ride the Erie Canal. Best wishes from MN

[@alan6839]

What bikes do yall have? :)

[@KevinMasters92]

Great ride and video blog. I'm going to pick up one of those vests!

[@samuelemmettbray]

I love the pencil-bag / id-lanyard idea!

[@chriszeoli1824]

Great job! Let us know if you ever bike through Middlebury Vermont!

[@osamazaid5784]

High quality content, well done!

[@TC-dw6wg]

Great ride!

[@blahqwe]

Great video, thanks! I rode the same route but the tailwind route, Buffalo to New York City, at the end of crossing the States. I almost decided to go a more direct route from Ohio, but fortunately I didn't! It really blew my mind, there I was thinking the US didn't have any decent cycling infrastructure. The Ohio to Erie trail was excellent too!

[@reginayan]

@@blahqwe oooh I actually have not looked into the Ohio to Erie trail ride, thanks for the rec! Crazy how many rail trails are hanging out around here

[@tonytodd7293]

Superb trail

[@garysladek9110]

Very nice. Take care.

[@DavidBigandt]

Tortoise and the Hare

[@AdamSolomon]

Love this video & the one of you doing the East Coast Greenway from Maine to FL. Have to say hearing the drill made my heart skip a beat because I was afraid Shep was drilling holes in the bike frame to save weight (this was a thing with 70's steel bikes & would be a disaster w/today's bikes). LOL. Anyway, incredible trips. So jealous. Have you written these up in additional detail anywhere?

[@reginayan]

Yeah, we've got aluminum bikes so drilling would be AWFUL haha! Thanks for watching, and I have a brief write-up here: www.reginayan.me/projects/empirestatetrail.html

[@larrycamilli9589]

Did I hear Shep mumble something about gravel? Gravel is thumb-sized stones mixed with sand and is impossible to ride on with "normal" bicycle tires. There is absolutly no gravel on the Erie Canal Trail. As shown in the PTNY maps, the non-paved, non-dirt sections are stone dust. [I did the organized ride three times with 23mm-wide tires.] I don't know where bicyclists got the idea that anything that isn't asphalt should be called "gravel"... [Sleazy bicycle manufacturers trying to trick people into thinking that they have to buy a "gravel bike"? People just copying from one KZbin video to create another?] [I do see a decent amount of plagiarism on the internet - articles that are just rehashes of other articles - with the same bogus information.] Except for that glaring error, nice video.

[@reginayan]

Thanks for watching and for correcting the gravel part! That section was not part of the Erie Canal trail (he took a detour who-knows-where to get to the wedding from his aunt’s place haha) but you’re right it probably wasn’t true gravel regardless. Just very bumpy haha. I remember trying to ride the down east sunrise gravel trail in Maine on my road bike and it was impossible!

[@larrycamilli9589]

@@reginayan The organized CEC ride (going east) leaves the official trail route in Clyde and goes (south-ish) to Waterloo/Seneca Falls. The next day, it heads northeast and rejoins the official trail around Port Byron or Weedsport or thereabouts. So, I had never ridden on the official trail route in that area, and I had heard that it was rough. A recent video mentioned "gravel". I assumed it really was. I asked, and it turns out it's another stone-dust trail (a very short section) and then on-road. [The PTNY map shows stone dust.] Now, whenever I see "gravel" describing a trail I've never been on, I ask. [I used to just avoid such trails.]

[@ericshawnthompsonjr.510]

Wow this is very awesome!

[@Self_Proppelled]

Great adventure, thanks for sharing! Following the canal east is not only with the wind but downhill all the way. It makes sense. Water flows downhill.

[@robertmartinez2202]

Great video! It's clear that you and Shep are great together. I hope to see you both in another cycle romp in the future. 😊

[@TheInterloafer]

This is so incredible! Thank you for posting the video. I love the trip and narrative style.

[@bobbieboothroyd8531]

Well done great video. I hope Shep manages to ride many adventures with you

[@dallacostal97]

splendid video. Love the way you two managed to balance your different paces!

[@zu_1455]

Amazing video! Your channel is about to explode!

[@thepeaks4000]

Love this video. Thanks so much for sharing

[@annayan5822]

amazing and very inspirational

[@alexdanilowicz2340]

So glad you posted another video!! And I know there will be more to come. (Shep is a legend for what looks like tevas on his first century?!).

[@reginayan]

literally his first century!! He reeeaaallly doesn't like sweaty feet haha!

[@IMurad-gv9hd]

so impressive youre able to do that high of milage day after day, so crazy strong. But I am embarrassed for your boyfriend, you can do better. He needs to man up and learn some grit, it was pretty pathetic watching him.