Empire State Trail 2024 – Day 06

The flats are done

Rotterdam Jctn >> Stockport | 121km | 592m | 4h55m
August 28, 2024 | 29ºC, partly cloudy

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Smaller and bigger towns

Our sixth consecutive day on the bikes started with a welcome cloud cover, keeping the heat away from us for at least a little while in the morning. So far we lucked out with the weather – very sunny every day and temperatures above 25ºC throughout. Today we even started with a tailwind that helped us covering the initial flat and well-paved bikepaths into and through the town of Schenectady quite quickly. After a short sweet breakfast at a local bakery (which, weirdly enough, did not sell any coffee) we continued our last couple of east-bound kilometers before we turned south. From now on we would roughly be following the Hudson River all the way to New York City.

The Empire State Trail taking us through the small town of Schenectady, just some kilometers before we turned south towards Albany.

What really surprised me, by the way, was how well that whole trail had been marked up to this point. Along the canal, at each road intersection there would be visible signs indicating what trail you were on. And while it’s generally hard to get lost when you’re following a long body of water, the signage within smaller and larger cities as well as on potential detours was mostly really good. The blue and yellow circular signs indicating the trail on an outline of the state’s map was just everywhere.

Short picture stop in Albany before the trail signs led us onto a highway bridge to cross over the Hudson River.

After Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse, Albany was the fourth biggest town we had to get across on our ride so far. Each of the previous cities presented themselves in their own unique cycling-friendly or -unfriendly way. Buffalo with its great, smooth bike paths all the way through town; Rochester, with just as many paths, but much less maintained and pretty bumpy overall; and Syracuse, with it’s lack of bikepaths and some terrible routing. Albany, for what it’s worth, will always stay in my memory because of the bikepath literally being part of Interstate Highway 787, against traffic, only separated from large trucks by a waist-high cement barricade. Rough asphalt full of sharp-edged garbage, onto an overpass to cross the river. Not a very long stretch, but stressful enough to really appreciate the calm trails we’ve experienced most of the time so far.

Let’s share the interstate highway!

Hot on the trails

Once we left town, we were back on my beloved fine gravel trails. It was getting really hot (I love cycling in the heat!) and, finally, quite hilly, too! What a welcome change to the rather flat routes we experienced up until today. Hills may slow you down, but they also make cycling so much more interesting. Views change more often, the downhills let you coast and have some mini-recovery, your mind is a bit more busy concentrating on keeping a slower bike in balance, you’re using different muscle groups, and you can give your bum a break by getting out of the saddle up the mountain.

Very tasty sourdough sandwiches during our lunchbreak in East Greenbush, a small town south-east of Albany.

We were in pretty good spritis that afternoon. Not only because of the change of terrain and overall direction, or because of the cutest little sandwich restaurant that we found in East Greenbush; but also knowing that after a good portion of climbing we’d have a very long section (around 30km!) of gradual downhill riding, all the way to a small Inn that we booked for tonight in Stockport.

The smooth gravel trails don’t seem to end and are even more fun when they’re following a slight downhill grade.

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South-bound: Day 01 | Day 02 | Day 03 | Day 04 | Day 05 | Day 06 | Day 07 | Day 08
North-bound: Day 09 | Day 10 | Day 11 | Day 12 | Day 13 | Day 14 | Day 15

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