Upstate

This is a great ride for bike trip beginners. The path is easily accessible from the Metro-North station, and runs without hills or cars on silky smooth asphalt through farm country in Dutchess and Columbia counties.

Let’s get the caveats out of the way first. This is not the most scenic trip on this site, probably won’t get your adrenaline pumping, and I certainly wouldn’t call it leisurely. That said, this trip is just about the best darn intro to the challenges of multi-day bike tours packed into a single 53-mile jaunt in the saddle.

Looking for a ride that’s shorter on miles and longer on time out of the saddle? This one's for you. Kingston makes a lovely escape from NYC and has become quite the destination upstate in recent years.

There’s only one way to describe the ~850ft vertical drop exit from Mohonk Mountain House down a winding gravel fire road. Yup, it’s a screamer—and a world of fun! This is a fast ride on rough trails, beginners need not apply.

New Yorkers have been escaping to the Catskills for as long as New Yorkers have existed, and with good reason: the Catskills are epically beautiful. Now what was once dubbed the “Most Scenic Rail Line in the East” is one of the most scenic bike trails you’ll find anywhere. 

Before COVID turned half of Upstate into Hamptons-on-the-Hudson, there was just Hudson, the original “it” river town. Hype aside, Hudson is a great place to visit and an even better place to bike to, especially when the bike trip begins in the heart of the Mohawk River Valley.

If you do one bike camping trip in the NYC area, make it this one. A five-county tour taking you from the heart of the Hudson Valley to the mouth of New York Harbor, you’ll find scenery galore and plenty of facilities en route, all along a single 120+ mile network of continuous trails.

Follow the Hudson north into some of New York’s more picturesque river towns. From the GW to the Tappan Zee and back again, this loop of the lower Hudson makes for an easy four-season escape.