Thursday, November 09, 2023

10/2/23 Erie Canal to NYC + Amtrak

We met up with Rachel in Katie at Pier 82 at about 10 o'clock. Riding north through Manhattan, along the Hudson, was pretty straightforward, but Katie ran Ride With GPS with a route Rachel had gotten from her local bike shop. We picked up the Hudson Valley Greenway after Van Cortlandt Park and stopped for lunch at a deli in Elmsford.The Bronx part is a little bonkers and convoluted, but we are all confident road/city cyclists.

Continuing on the trail north, the rail trail portion ended just north of Briarcliff, and then we couldn't find an alternative but to go on 129, which is 55 miles an hour with no shoulder. At this point we were no longer on the Hudson Valley Greenway, because we were trying to get to Cold Spring. We did survive it, but it was a little stressful. We got into Peekskill after dark, but the last 5 miles or so was on a 30 mile an hour road. With all of our lights blinking, people came up the road and seemed to view us as an emergency vehicle/EMT situation and slowed down drastically to avoid us. I found the brewery in Peekskill to be massively disappointing. Not only did they have pretty crappy food, but they had absolutely no dark beers whatsoever. 

After doing almost exactly 60, we jumped on the North Metro train, which zoomed us up to Cold Spring, where we were staying at the Pig Hill Inn. We got in around 9 o'clock, after a short walk/ride up the hill to the end. No big deal. They let us put the bikes in the garden, which seemed pretty secure, though we did lock them all together anyways. Super cute B&B, with basically a solarium tacked on the back. Our room was very nice, though we should probably stay away from a double bed, at this point. Since we're both side sleepers, it's a little more difficult for us to consistently find comfortable positions without knocking into each other. The bathroom was private, but not en suite. They had tiled the bath enclosure and the bathtub just drained into the tile enclosure, but you could plug it for a soak.

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