Rochester rose on water power. The Genesee River drops ninety feet over High Falls in the middle of the city, and in the early nineteenth century the mills along the gorge ground so much wheat that it was called the Flour City, before the nickname changed to the Flower City, for its nurseries and lilacs. The Erie Canal crossed the river here on a stone aqueduct, and the city grew on the canal trade. Today, High Falls still tumbles through the downtown, lit at night, and the old mill buildings are being turned into apartments and cafes.
The city's other inheritance is invention. George Eastman founded Kodak here, making photography accessible to ordinary people, and Xerox and Bausch and Lomb followed, so Rochester became an unlikely centre of optics and imaging. The George Eastman Museum holds his mansion and a major photography collection. The city was also a centre of the reform movements of the nineteenth century: Susan B. Anthony lived and campaigned here for women's rights, and Frederick Douglass published his newspaper, the North Star, from a Rochester office. Both are buried in Mount Hope Cemetery.
Food is a local passion. The garbage plate, a heap of meat, home fries, macaroni salad and beans served on one plate, is a Rochester invention, and it is heavy enough to carry a rider through an afternoon. White hots, a local sausage, are another speciality, and the lake brings in perch and walleye. Highland Park holds a lilac festival each May, when hundreds of varieties bloom.
The Seaway Trail, a scenic route of more than five hundred miles, follows Lake Erie, the Niagara River, Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence, and from Rochester it runs east along the lake shore through orchards and small harbours. The riding is flat and easy, with long straight runs, lake views and apple stands, and the surface is mostly good. Wind off the lake can be strong, and winter brings lake-effect snow, so the season is May to October.
Rochester is a big city of two hundred thousand people, with fuel, food and hotels in plenty, and the ride starts easily from downtown. Lake Ontario's shore, a short way north, is a fine place for a first stop.