Today we did something very cool, and lots of fun - I highly recommend it.  In the morning we rode our bicycles to the nearest bus stop, and waited until the bus arrived.  Each bus comes with a bike rack on the front bumper, and we put our bikes there.  Then then got on ourselves, and took the bus into Rochester downtown.  When we arrived, we took the bikes, rode towards the river, and got on the Genesee river loop trail http://www.footprintpress.com/Rochester/geneseeriverdowntownloop.htm.  This trail is part of the Genesee Greenway trail, which recently has been added to to the national trail system ( http://www.americantrails.org/nationalrecreationtrails/trailNRT/GenesseeRiverway-NY.html ).  We rode this trail until it intersected the Erie Barge canal, which also has a trail running its length (actually, the trail runs the full length of the canal, from Buffalo to Albany, over 750 km)  - essentially the same "mule trail" that was used to tow the barges long ago.  This we followed into Bushnell's basin, where we got off and had Abbot's ice cream cones.  From here we rode home on the local roads.

This was a fantastic trip, and leaves me wanting to do more.  The canal itself is very flat, of course, and it feels like you can pedal for miles. You can ride this trail all of the way from Rochester to Letchworth state park - the only question is how one would get home afterwards (buses don't go there).   Our trip was shorter, only about 40 km, we we did in about 2 hours on the bikes.