Teresa and I have now ridden our bicycles around all of the Finger Lakes. This has been a 14 year project. Our first lake was Keuka, which we circumnavigated in 2007. That was so much fun that it occurred to us that we could ride around all of them. As time and desire permitted, we would then drive out and ride around another lake. This past weekend, we finished with Hemlock Lake.
We absolutely love the Finger Lakes region. There is an incredible mix of working farms, local traditions, and urban centers. Generally, you are in continual visual contact with the lake. And most of the rides take you to high elevations, where you see the landscape rolling to the distance. Each lake ride has its own feel. Some are very developed with lake house after lake house. Others are predominantly rural and agricultural. Hemlock Lake, for example, has no visible development because it is surrounded by State lands.
And we love the history that has taken place in the region, which includes Women’s Suffrage, the Burned Over District, etc.
We rode around each lake contiguously. Most lakes took a day. Some, we did two lakes in one day. And Cayuga, as it is a 90 mile ride, we took two days, which involved the complex logistics of dropping off stuff at the hotel in Ithaca, driving to Seneca Falls at North end of the lake, riding down to Ithaca, spending the night, riding back up the next day to the car, and then driving back down to Ithaca to get our stuff.
The absolute best way to see a landscape is by bicycle. We were continually stopping to take photos of buildings and forms. A bicycle makes stopping, snapping a photo, and then continuing very easy. We have hundreds of reference photos from these rides.