Originally Posted by
DropBarFan
I’ve been thinking about a short tour from New York City to Albany on New York State Bicycle Route 9. Despite NYC’s huge population, info on Hudson cycle touring especially in re Bicycle Route 9 is a bit sparse.
Well beyond my knowledge, though unless I'm mistaken the first leg north from NYC would appear to be the same as the well documented 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.
Unlike GAP there’s no roll-on AMTRAK service so I’d likely be driving a rental car from DC to NYC & then Albany to DC on return but that’s about 13 hours combined driving time. Worth the bother or more appropriate for locals? Same drive time would get me to NC/TN hills which look quite scenic though quite more challenging too.
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.