Empire State Trail to NYC
Another Bikeventure in the books
YouTube got me into bicycling during the stay-at-home period of the pandemic in 2020 (it’s very unclear which phase of the pandemic we’re in right now). Watching a bunch of GCN early on when I first got into cycling really skewed my perspective on the sport. I was watching these ex-pros do 100 mile rides on bickpacking adventures around Scotland and just assumed that was par for the course; i.e. I could just get on a bike and ride for 100 miles. So naturally when I started riding I thought I could do those — this resulted in my semi-disastrous 60 mile trip.
New York recently announced the Empire State Trail, which runs throughout the state East to West and North to South. The E-W and N-S trails connect in Albany and so Mack and I plotted a course to bike from Albany to NYC that spanned 220 miles. We did it over 3 days.
Here’s my in-depth recap.
Day 1
I left from Niskayuna to meet Mack at the Albany-Rensselaer train station. Surprisingly very easy to go from Niskayuna to the train station with only one stretch of on-road segment at the end of the Erie Canal Trailway. Though I’ll caveat that with saying that I did get a bit lost trying to find the train station after crossing the bridge and ended up doing a hill climb like three times.
Albany to Hudson was relatively straightforward; there was some stretch of smooth gravel trails. We stopped at the Samascott Gardens, which was very conveniently located on the trail. In fact, throughout our three days traveling, we found that there were quite a few convenient places like coffee shops and restaurants along the way.
Since we left in the late afternoon, we arrived in Hudson near sunset. We were able to rest by the park on the river and enjoy the sunset before unpacking at the Airbnb, showering, and getting dinner on Warren St.
Day 2
Woke up, got coffee, enjoyed Hudson while the sun was still waking up as well. Have to bookmark Hudson as a place to come back to. It was a nice quaint town.
The day kicked off with a climb on a pretty busy road, which led onto a part of the trail that double-backed on itself. We ended up following the trail signage for the most part. Signs were well-placed and easy to find and follow, which was generally easier to follow than the inexact route that I had mapped out and put on my bike computer.
After that though, we did some really enjoyable riding on smooth country roads with very little traffic. This outletted to a pretty harrowing ride across a bridge into Kingston. The bridge had an unprotected narrow bike lane with grates placed every so often and next to traffic barreling at 50 mph. Nice view if you decide to stop though.
It didn’t get any better after the bridge though as it put us out onto the shoulder of a busy state highway. Mack ended up getting a flat with a slashed tube and tire, which we think was the result of running over some debris. The only fortunate part was this happened near the end of the segment on the highway so we were able to cross and find some space slightly removed from traffic.
Repairing the tire and tube took some work as the first replacement tube blew when we pumped it up. We put in another tube but found the sidewall was slashed. Enter dollar bill trick and gorilla tape. This was able to at least boot the tire to allow us to keep riding.
More thoughts on tires and why I’m fully onboard the tubeless tire train in the notes.
We limped into Kingston and the trail had us go through the waterfront, which was a pleasant surprise. We stumbled upon a taco place where we luckily got a table in the shade outside.
We lost a good hour, hour and a half fixing the tire (also still unsure of the integrity but couldn’t find a nearby open bike store on the 4th) — so we were a bit worried on time. We wanted to hit the Walkway over the Hudson before it closed for fireworks on the 4th.
We continued on, and had a bit of trouble finding the trail again in Kingston but we eventually meandered our way towards it. There was a significant portion of gravel and it was a bit distinct than the previous smooth gravel segments. There was a portion that was light mountain biking-esquire, in which I was happy I had my MTB cleats but worried about how Mack’s tire was holding up.
The gravel meant slower speeds until we exited that segment to a very smoothly paved trail. We booked it to try to make it across the Walkway but unfortunately we missed the 4pm cutoff. So we had to take the other bridge and then meander across town to our hotel; not the greatest experience to bike through Poughkeepsie.
We watched the fireworks over the bridge. We ran into another bike who was wearing cleated sandals. He was finishing a bikepacking trip from DC to Cleveland doing over 500 miles over 4 days, and then took the train to Albany to bike down to NYC to take the train back. Seemingly Mack was not very loquacious when not talking about nothing.
Day 3
The plan was to cover 100 miles on the last day into NYC. We started off unsure if we could actually do it given the state of our bodies and of the tire. As such we planned escape hatches at various points along the way.
We started at 7am and aimed to get to Brewster in a few hours and refuel. If we were feeling terrible, we could kick out here either via Metro-North or having Christine pick up Mack. Mack was losing his spirit during this stretch so it was very unclear at this point. We made it Brewster though and the food seemed to help.
The next segment was more rail trail and we had planned to kick out to Tarrytown for food. Mack, in particular, wanted a Mango smoothie. This stretch felt more like survival at this point but once we hit the North County Trail, we were on familiar ground and I was certain that we’d finish one way or another.
We kicked out to Tarrytown for a quick detour; we had to conquer a hill getting to and from the trailway — I still think there’s a better route for doing this. Mack found his Mango smoothie but we still couldn’t find a bike store for a new tire. (We stopped at an ebike store with a really helpful mechanic but no luck with the tire).
The rest of the way was a grind; also the tire started to give out at this point. Mack needed to pump it a few times as the tube started the leak. We were able to limp to Van Cortlandt park, where we called a local bike shop in the Bronx and begged them to stay open with a tire so that we could finish the last 10 miles. Unfortunately the tire completely gave way on the sketchy Broadway bridge so Mack had to navigate the bridge on a completely flat tire. At this point it started to rain steadily so I biked ahead to the bike store to make sure they stayed open for us while Mack walked the mile there with his bike.
The bike store was great and quickly put on a new tire and put in a new tube. We then just had to ride through Manhattan to finish the ride, which was probably the longest 10 miles of my life.
Notes
Tubeless tires ftw. I was very unsure whether they were worth the effort when I set them up, but once I got past the learning curve on them, I’d say they’re worth it. They are pretty annoying to set up and maintain but having the assurance that regular punctures and pinch flats are rarely going to happen out of the road makes it worth it.
I’ve been telling everybody about the town of Hudson. It was great and there was more to check out, I hope to head up there for a weekend sometime again.
Pack light because heavy bags weigh you down. I was unsure about getting a Camelbak for this trip because I didn’t like the idea of wearing something while riding but, given the heat, I would not have had enough water without it.
Bring a speaker because Mack gets bored
I used the Apidura saddle bag for the first time this tripped. It worked okay. It needed to be tightened really tight and even then there was a bit of back and forth sway on it. I did apply helicopter tape around my bike so prevent rubbing the carbon frame from the bag straps.