This is what I got. Minor edits, some detours, and a bunch more POIs for things like closures, campsites, etc.
You correctly identified the major confounding factor with a tour in this region. Finger lakes topography is really steep! Climbs tend to be short but hard so the goal is to avoid too many crossings-over between lakes. Adding too many climbs will slow your pace way, way down and could put you off your itinerary. If that’s a concern, stick to the valleys, the state highways might be 55mph but they tend to be nicely paved and have great shoulders.
To start, Buttermilk Falls and Treman SP are both cool enough to warrant visits. Trails are off limits to bikes tho. Would recommend hiking down to Lucifer Falls from the upper entrance to Treman (marked it on the map). Not a long hike and really cool.
I put you though Connecticut Hill WMA for some fun dirt roads, nothing too gnarly, just a nice way to break it up a bit. The descent out of there is all-time. Watkins Glen is a great resupply/lunch/beer spot.
There are much funner and more scenic ways to get around the south end of Canandaigua and Keuka Lakes than just riding state highway shoulders, but it seems like your goal there is just to get from Corning to Letchworth, and that’s certainly the most efficient way to go about it. If you have an extra day though that’s where I’d put it. Some really nice dirt roads in that zone.
One big thing I would advise is to take advantage of free primitive camping offered in almost all NY state forests if you can. Anywhere you see a small tract of state forest on the map (for instance, down by Corning), there’s almost certainly dispersed camping allowed and probably a couple nice designated campsites. These are all free of charge and while they offer no services, can be a REALLY nice alternative to, say, a highway RV campground or something. They just might cost you a bit of a climb at the end of the day.
Letchworth is really cool, you’ll like the ride through it and the campground is nice. I marked Wiscoy Falls to the south which you should hit up if you can, it’s a SUPER nice “locals know” spot for a midday/afternoon swim or wade. Worth a bit of a detour for, or if you want to tack on more miles that day, take Botsford Hollow Rd. to Fillmore, hit up Wiscoy from there, and then ride north to Portageville and the gorge.
The greenway ATMO gets pretty boring pretty quickly, but it’s way nicer since the resurfacing project has been going on. That said, there’s a section immediately north of Letchworth which isn’t trail at all, just grass track. Avoid it and stay on River Rd. there then pick the trail up in Piffard. You can actually just carry on River Rd. as well and have a perfectly cromulent time tbh. Good road, little traffic, some nice views.
Since you’re already taking Scottsville Rd. north from Scottsville to Rochester, you can hop on the paved Greenway section by the airport and take it up into Genesee Valley Park and up to the city, which is a good time. Avoid Jefferson Road, you will get killed by an engineering undergrad in a turbo Subaru.
I’d agree with Nate about the Erie Canal trail being boring east to Macedon, but I wouldn’t say it’s in bad shape. Just riding all day on stuff that flat and swampy can get annoying. Feel free to take parallel roads there to shake it up a bit if you want.
Also good catch on the Montezuma stuff Nate- I added reroutes there to my route.
The stuff around Auburn looks tight, I don’t know much about the roads over there though tbh. Really just avoiding the major highways is sufficient 98% of the time tho.
Seneca Falls is cool if you’re into womens rights history, some nice stuff there. Definitely check out Taughannock and take the Black Diamond Trail, really nice and triumphant way to end a tour, can’t beat a gradual downhill rail trail.
