Thanks for the tips!
Originally Posted by
***Chris
Well beyond my knowledge, though unless I'm mistaken the first leg north from NYC would appear to be the same as the well do***ented Bear Mountain ride. That as a round trip is century territory so your day-cyclist are going to turn around there and information beyond may be what is hard to find.
Actually, there is one train a day that might help you: the Vermonter which runs from DC to NYC to well, Vermont does take something like 3 bikes with the front wheel off by advance reservation for an extra twenty bucks or so. Northbound arriving in NYC a little after 11 am but that could still give you a full afternoon's riding. Returning if you can get as far back as Poughkeepsie you can get on the Metro North commuter service there which does take bikes outside the busiest times... very scenic railway bridge turned trail across the Hudson if you need to get across to Poughkeepsie from the west side of the river. You would have to work out the return timing to catch the Vermonter, and factor in that you'll need to get a bit over a mile across Manhattan between Metro North's Grand Central and Amtrak's Penn Station to catch it; fortunately that Metro North line is horizontal bike carriage so you can probably stay loaded until you start taking things apart to fit on Amtrak.
In the realm of "no idea what you'd find in between" two crazy ideas would be to dive from Albany across Massachusetts sort of along I90 to Westfield, ride the Farmington Canal trail down the middle of CT and take Metro North from New Haven back into NYC (or just get on the southbound Vermonter at Greenfield or Northampton). Or you could only ride north a bit past Bear Mountain and up to the walkway at Poughkeepsie, ride the trail about 12 miles southeast to Hopewell Junction, get on roads and do around 30 miles that will be trail in a few years to Brewster or a more direct intersection with the historic Putnam line right of way and then ride that rail trail down the middle of Westchester back to NYC. Met a guy heading up that early one morning just north of the city who said he was riding to Niagra Falls... Unfortunately while I can tell you a lot about those trails others will have to fill you in on the area's roads.
I'll have to look up the Bear Mountain info, that might have good details on route out The City too. I'll have to order the NY BR 9 map since I haven't found an online cue sheet for BR 9. The Massachusetts thing sounds interesting, I wish I had more time. Vermonter train might work nicely for DC-NYC, convenient to avoid boxing bike.
Originally Posted by
axolotl
You can easily (no box required) take a bike on some of the bus services between DC & NY. BoltBus does that route, and I had no problem taking my bike on BoltBus on a different route. Tripper Bus (service from DC suburbs to NY) accepts bikes, too. These buses are much cheaper than Amtrak.
Yes, $18 vs $96, great bargain & hopefully the sturdy Disc Trucker would be fine. BTW I thought about driving my own car up to NYC but parking is even more expensive than I thought, ~$200 for 3 days, wow.
Originally Posted by
***Chris
That actually does look like a good option for DC<>NYC particularly as there are more time choices than the once-a-day Vermonter train.
However unfortunately Bolt (with a stated policy allowing bikes on a space available basis) doesn't service Albany, NY. And Megabus which does go there explicitly prohibits bikes at least in their written policies.
Seems like NY Trailways might be an option for getting back from Albany, if you can tote a canvas bag or buy a box somewhere in Albany (maybe call bike shops in advance?)
https://trailwaysny.com/baggage-information
Greyhound goes from Albany to DC but box required & about $70. Rental car would be about the same price & quicker.
Originally Posted by
Teamdarb
What are your requirements to an alternative to this ride? If it is not about distance, but more views, multiple point of interests, odd towns. I suggest driving up and parking at the Walmart or mall in Cockeysville and cycling the North Central Rail Trail to York, PA. Yes, it may not be hundreds of miles long. What it offers to me is the creativity to expand upon it by visiting towns it goes through, choosing to make it a day trip or making it a two day with a nights stay in York, and an easy time. I have ridden it multiple times as a way to get around going thru Bmore. I find it way more adventurous to ride mid week and at dusk or dawn. At York, you can easily turn it into a loop versus out and back by connecting to PA route S which runs east and west. Going west towards Gettysburg is a great ride. One could B line to Hagerstown. Then hop to the easy C&O completing a loop back into DC.
That sounds like a nice ride indeed, I'll keep that in mind for a nice semi-local trip. BTW I think the National Road Championships are this weekend in Hagerstown. However I've always been curious about the Hudson thing since seeing some of the famous Hudson River School paintings. They're the bucolic & Romantic 19th paintings that made Hudson Valley look like heaven on earth, heh. Of course they weren't so realistic but it might be interesting to see the areas that inspired the painters, even if things have changed a lot. Some of the Hudson River School painters became quite wealthy; also IIRC part of the motivation was to popularize the area to encourage land sales.
