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The Ride for Missing Children – Greater Capital District
Canal Sweep effort had 15 participants. Our
group met at the parking area of Lock 8 on Rice Road at 8 AM. We were set to clean from Lock 8 to the bike path
intersection with Route 5s. We organized our tools (rakes, brooms and gas powered leaf blowers), passed out our
Canal Sweep shirts and got our coolers full of water ready. We also fueled up with some homemade baked goods.
Since we had such a good turnout of helpers we decided to split into two groups, starting at opposite ends of our
project and work until we met. We utilized a garden tractor and small landscape trailer to haul materials/tools
in and the trash back to Lock 8 for pick up. |
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©Photo by Jason Cooper
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We cleaned up lots of trash(including several bags of trash,
car tires, a pallet, vinyl siding, the top of a picnic cooler and the front bumper cover of a car) , trimmed some
brush and got the surface of the bike trail cleaned up. I was especially interested in getting the trail surface
clean as we were set to have a training ride on the very part of the trail we were cleaning at 9 AM the next morning.
Not having to worry about flat tires is a big relief when you’re the one who get to change most of them.
We sent crews ahead to pick up the trash, a second group to sweep or rake loose the leaves, sticks and stones from
the trail surface and then we used the leaf blowers to get the surface as clean as possible. All in all I think
it turned out great and we all had a lot of fun doing it.
When we were done we all headed to Jumping Jacks drive In in Scotia for a burger fueled debriefing.
Sunday morning we met at the SCC parking lot for our training ride and headed west on the bike trail to reach Route
5s. The stark difference between the areas that were not worked on and that which were cleaned on Saturday was
shocking.
Ironically my son got a flat tire about a mile from our house (which we pass on the training ride route) when a
nail went through his tire. While we were fixing it we joked about NYS DOT organizing a “Shoulder Sweep” so the
shoulders of the state bicycle routes were free of debris…until then we carry lots of spare tubes.
I am glad we took part in the event and think we can build on it for next year, organizing a bigger work party
and cleaning a longer portion of the trail. |
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