83 Reade Street, NEW YORK.
This Department is conducted in the interest of Bicyclers, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on the subject. Our maps and tours contain much valuable data kindly supplied from the official maps and road-books of the League of American Wheelmen. Recognizing the value of the work being done by the L. A. W., the Editor will be pleased to furnish subscribers with membership blanks and information so far as possible.
Copyright, 1896, by Harper & Brothers.
Resuming our route to Buffalo, leave Richmond Hotel at Batavia, run a little south of west across the river, and keep to the right for a few rods, taking the middle fork a short distance out where three roads converge. Follow this turnpike, which is called the Buffalo road, direct to Corfu, eleven miles from Batavia; thence, following the same straight road, proceed five miles further on to Crittenden, and thence three and one-half miles further on to Peters Corners. This Buffalo road runs a little south of west almost in a straight line from Batavia to Buffalo, and it is possible to keep to it all the way into the city; but from Peters Corners on it is not in nearly as good condition as the road which is marked as the best route. Up to Peters Corners it is hard clay, level, and in dry weather makes excellent bicycle-riding. It is not so good in rain, however. The rider is advised to take the right fork at Peters Corners, and run out through Mill Grove to Bowmansville, which is seven miles from Peters Corners. From Bowmansville keep slightly to the right, and afterwards to the left over a bridge, and cross the railroad; continue on through Shultz Corners and Pine Hill to the city line, where asphalt pavement begins; thence proceed down Genesee Street to the corner of Main Street, where the rider may put up either at the Genesee or Iroquois Hotel. The distance from Batavia to Buffalo is thirty-seven miles, and if you have reached Buffalo you have done at least 461 miles since leaving New York.
For any bicyclist, whether he lives in New York, Albany, Utica, Syracuse, or Rochester, or anywhere along the route given in the last few weeks, this tour, either towards Buffalo or towards New York, is one of the best that can possibly be taken in this part of the United States. It is the long route which is most patronized by wheelmen. Consequently people are more likely to receive and more glad to see bicyclists; the hotels are more accustomed to them, and the facilities are greater than along any other route in the United States of similar length. And these stages, as given in this Department, will be well worth the study of any wheelman who has had some little experience in short runs, and who wants to spend his vacation during the coming summer by taking a somewhat more extended trip. If he runs out through Albany and over the route as explained to Buffalo, and wishes to return to New York, it will be well for him to take the route through New Jersey and Pennsylvania, which, perhaps, may be given some time in the future in the Bicycling Department. No one nowadays can find a better way to put in a two weeks' vacation than by doing some such nine-hundred-mile run as this. He need not ride every day. He may take it easily, running ninety or one hundred miles in a day, if he feels in condition for such riding, or he may stick to the thirty-mile distance marked on these charts.