Hudson Valley Ride, August 12, 2012
Several years ago, the Walkway over the Hudson opened. This is a converted railroad bridge that crosses high over the Hudson between Highland and Poughkeepsie. Ever since learning about this, I’ve wanted to go see it.
Bike New York has run a Discover Hudson Valley Ride for several years and when I received this year’s announcement, I decided it would be a great opportunity to see the walkway.
There are routes from 15 to 105 miles. I chose the 44 mile route. I was up at 5 am, on the road by 6 and arrived and registered in time to start by about 8:40. I finished about 1:30 and then had lunch at the Hyde Park Brewing Company. I made it home by about 6pm, so it was a long day!
One might have thought that a ride along a river would be relatively flat. However, the route was mostly inland from the river and had to go across valleys cut by streams flowing into the Hudson, so there was a fair amount of climbing. I didn’t have to walk any hills, but there were quite a few people who did, especially later in the day when it got hot.
I finished with 44.6 miles and 2439 feet of climbing. The GPS track of my ride is available on ridewithgps.com. (Note that my estimate of the climb is lower than that of ridewithgps. We use the same data, but different algorithms!)
The ride was well organized. The cue sheet was easy to follow, especially with the road markings and the marshals standing by at turns that were easy to miss.