Empire State Trail 2024 – Day 10

Short but hilly

Hopewell Jctn >> Stockport | 117km | 911m | 4h54m
September 3, 2024 | 22ºC, clear skies

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Some route alterations

Today was the second day that we’d technically be riding on the same route we came down on. I was never a fan of out-and-back routes; especially that one, which would us lead over that long and sketchy highway bridge that we crossed on day seven. Instead, I altered the route and stayed on the eastern side of the Hudson. That wouldn’t cut much of the climbing, but somewhat of the overall distance. It also feels good knowing that there’s only a bit over 100km to cover which by now even sounded somewhat short.

Apparently the weather hasn’t been as great not too long ago. We were lucky that this road closure was at least walkable, otherwise that would have been a long detour!

The general weather pattern hadn’t changed and we were still lucky with so much sun, but it got chillier in the mornings. We started our ride at 8:30 at 10ºC. It wouldn’t take long until the sun sent down enough energy to warm us up; as if any additional warmup was even needed on this rather hilly stage. The roads themselves were mostly calm, winding up and down through forests and farmlands, little traffic. The cars that we did see gave us ample space and cycling felt quite save (in stark contrast to what we’d have to deal with just a couple days later!).

Refuelling at Stewart’s: Coffee and donuts on a sunny parking lot.

Food choices

One thing that didn’t quite work out the way we planned were some of the coffee breaks and lunch stops. Before the trip we had put options on our maps, and especially on days like today, those options weren’t too many. Some of those small towns only had one or two delis, or restaurants, or convenient stores, if at all. And often enough we came across the situation that this one option was closed for the season, only opened on certain days of the week, out of business, wouldn’t accept credit cards, or were closed for other reasons that we couldn’t find in advance. Instead of relying on those local businesses, we started appreciating the Stewart’s Shops that were pretty common in New York State. Almost like truck stops, that provided not only a gas station, but also a pretty good selection of cold and warm food and drinks and groceries for reasonable prices, too. The longer we were on the road the more often we restocked at Stewart’s – coffee and donuts in the morning, Gatorade during the day, and we even tried their pizza and mac&cheese once.

Other food stops were more healthy. This famers market somewhere around Rhinebeck gave us free apples!

Despite today’s headwind and the amount of climbing we were making good progress and arrived at the same cozy motel we stayed at on our way south during late afternoon.

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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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