Northern Hudson Valley -- Bike Hudson Valley

Albany and north to the Adirondacks

This website is mostly about the areas from New York City to Albany. But the Hudson River actually starts much further north, high in the Adirondack mountains.

And there's more good riding between Albany and the Adirondacks. Here are some starting ideas for how to find and enjoy it.

Finding Partners

Get in touch with the Mohawk Hudson Cycling Club.

Routes

Cue sheets: The Mohawk Hudson Cycling Club website has links to some pages with route cue sheets for the northern Hudson Valley. Note especially this page of road routes.
Exploring: One place to look for fun roads is the area around Saratoga.
the book, 25 Bicycle Tours in the Adirondacks, by Bill McKibben and others (1995), has several routes in the northern Hudson valley.

River routes -- following the Hudson River

Bridge-to-Bridge loop routes

We like the idea of doing a loop across two bridges around both sides of the Hudson River -- and south of Albany we've found some loop routes that we enjoy (see Map | Text List ).

But north of Albany we haven't yet constructed loop routes of comparable quality (see Reports). Please let us know if you have a suggestion (and consider trying the Schroon River for a worthwhile loop route).

One-way tours

It can be worthwhile to make a one-way tour following the Hudson River. South of Albany, we've described a one-way route from New York City to Albany (see Description | Map).

This website does not have any River routes north of Albany, but we and other folks have done some exploration of one-way tours -- see

Reports on River routes North of Albany

Ken finished riding or skating roads along on at least one side of the Hudson River for every mile between the Upper Works (North) and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (South), in August 2004. Not in a continuous tour -- different sections in different months over a year-and-half.

Overall seemed like (a) pretty worthwhile riding Glens Falls and south; (b) some good sections between North River / North Creek and Glens Falls; but (c) not much of comparable quality north of North River (unless you like seeing lots and lots and lots of small-to-medium-size evergreen trees).

Farthest North -- to the Source

The source of the Hudson River is said to be Lake Tear of the Clouds in the Adirondack mountains. This lake is on the shoulder of Mt Marcy, the highest peak in New York State. You cannot ride to there on any road, but there is a road in the Hudson Valley which comes closest, and goes almost as far north as the lake.

The "farthest north" end of the road is called the "Upper Works", and it can be reached from Route 28N. Take Route 28 to North Creek, then north on Route 28N to Aiden Lair, and from there about another 7 miles to a Right turn with signs for something like "the High Peaks" or "Mt Marcy". (If coming from the west on Route 28N, this point is about 5 miles east of the town hall of Newcomb.) Go North on this road, looking for more signs like the previous one. It runs along the Hudson River, and ends at the Upper Works parking lot. KenR finally rode there in August 2004 (see Report).