NYC to New Paltz or surrounding areas
05-23-20, 09:28 AM
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NYC to New Paltz or surrounding areas
Can anyone give personal account of what this ride was like? I’m planning on taking South County trailway to North County trailway to Dutchess rail trail to Hudson Valley rail trail.
05-23-20, 10:26 AM
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Plan on getting off the North County around Mahopac and then local roads up to HJ, as the NCT heads NE after Mahopac to Carmel then heads east and southeast to Brewster and about completely opposite a direction you'd want to go.
When I plotted this on RideWithGPS it's just over 80 miles, with some hilly stuff north of Mahopac until you come out of the hills around I84.
Last edited by Steve B.; 05-23-20 at 10:46 AM.
05-23-20, 03:44 PM
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They are theoretically building out the rest of the Maybrook Trailway right now making a rather indirect rail-trail connection from the end of the old Putnam Division route in Brewster around various hills to the north to connect with the Duchess as Hopewell Junction. But that's probably not going to open until fall, and will probably be more of an epic ride to do than a way to actually "get there".
Getting from (most of) NYC to the South County at the Westchester line is some not great urban riding... I always took the train to Van Cortlandt but the dirt portion of the route through the park is still closed for a lengthy paving project.
The south county starts out nice but then gets bumpy and degraded in its upper miles. It's now a direct connection through to the North County which is mostly pretty good after repaving in the last year. You might still run into some closures for the final stages of that.
Not sure what the roads from there to Hopewell are like. Though I've been doing a lot of road riding elsewhere lately to take advantage of covid-quieted-traffic, the last time I was on the Westchester trails I was still hesitant to venture much beyond them.
From Hopewell you have a truly excellent trail to Poughkeepsie, very smooth though socially it is not a place to drop the hammer as they're serious about it being shared. That goes even more for crossing the Hudson on the Walkway.
Trail on the far side of the river is fine, if not particularly inspiring. Newer pieces along the main road have direct Empire Trail signage (rather than being ET routed over something pre-existing) and are quite exposed to wind/sun but well separated from traffic except at a few lights that take forever. Finally on the outskirts of New Paltz the signs split you by mode, pedestrians continuing on a sidewalk into town but cyclists being detoured on what is initially an on-street lane... those roads are probably fine but with the afternoon getting on I turned around end the end of the designated on-street lane since it was followed by the descent of a long (if moderate) hill I didn't relish riding back up just to have formally reached the center of town.
Getting from (most of) NYC to the South County at the Westchester line is some not great urban riding... I always took the train to Van Cortlandt but the dirt portion of the route through the park is still closed for a lengthy paving project.
The south county starts out nice but then gets bumpy and degraded in its upper miles. It's now a direct connection through to the North County which is mostly pretty good after repaving in the last year. You might still run into some closures for the final stages of that.
Not sure what the roads from there to Hopewell are like. Though I've been doing a lot of road riding elsewhere lately to take advantage of covid-quieted-traffic, the last time I was on the Westchester trails I was still hesitant to venture much beyond them.
From Hopewell you have a truly excellent trail to Poughkeepsie, very smooth though socially it is not a place to drop the hammer as they're serious about it being shared. That goes even more for crossing the Hudson on the Walkway.
Trail on the far side of the river is fine, if not particularly inspiring. Newer pieces along the main road have direct Empire Trail signage (rather than being ET routed over something pre-existing) and are quite exposed to wind/sun but well separated from traffic except at a few lights that take forever. Finally on the outskirts of New Paltz the signs split you by mode, pedestrians continuing on a sidewalk into town but cyclists being detoured on what is initially an on-street lane... those roads are probably fine but with the afternoon getting on I turned around end the end of the designated on-street lane since it was followed by the descent of a long (if moderate) hill I didn't relish riding back up just to have formally reached the center of town.
Last edited by UniChris; 05-23-20 at 03:47 PM.
