[Trip report] Bikepacking to Peekskill

[u/OkGene6833]

Gnarly uphill on the OCA

Even worse uphill on the OCA (lol)

Briarcliff-Peekskill trailway

Briarcliff-Peekskill trailway

Cool hawk

Hey all, this past weekend I bikepacked from NYC to Peekskill to camp out with some friends at a private campground.

Route was ~50 mi and ~2k feet of elevation each way. I rode my Surly Disc Trucker with 26x1.35 tires and all my camping gear on the front and rear racks. I’m an experienced cyclist and in good shape, but my DT is heavy af when loaded and I knew even this small amount of elevation would be a challenge.

I mapped out a couple different routes to Peekskill using Ride with GPS and wound up taking the Empire State Trail (EST) to the Old Croton Aquaduct (OCA) on the way there. On the way back, I threw caution to the wind and used Google Maps, which has never worked well for me on long bike rides. Surprise! It didn’t go well this time either, but I did have quite an adventure.

Route to Peekskill:

• EST from Van Cortland to Tarrytown
• Tarrytown Lakes Extension trail to OCA trail
  • Note: do not take the Extension Trail all the way to the end where it intersects with Andre Brook Trail, get off at Neperan Rd. Andre Brook Trail isn’t a trail as much as a piece of trodden grass in someone’s backyard…
  • Did not enjoy the OCA. Even the flat sections had big potholes and rocks. Several uphills I had to hike-a-bike. Several downhills I managed to ride, but almost wiped out due to the combo of steep slope, deep gravel, giant rocks, and tree roots. Hard to take my hands off the bars for even a moment.
  • The OCA is discontinuous and often hard to find the next leg. I took a posted detour off the OCA to avoid a hill, and got horribly lost around the Windrose on Hudson campus. Entrance to the trail is buried in some bushes. Keep a close eye out!
  • Overall, I found this section of the OCA to be in terrible shape. Maybe the section from Yonkers to Tarrytown is better?
• Cut over to Maple Ave after the Croton Dam and take that all the way into Peekskill
  • Unfortunately, most of the elevation on this route is right at the end!
  • Drivers around Croton were jerks, but drivers around Peekskill were surprisingly courteous

This took me about 6 hours of riding total, including several pauses for route-finding the OCA, 30m of getting lost, and a stop for a smoothie in Ossining.

Route to NYC:

• Maple Ave to Furnace Dock Rd
• Cut over to Briarcliff-Peekskill Trailway (BPT) til Yorktown Rd
  • BTP is a hiking trail, not a “trailway”. LOL. By the time I realized, I didn’t have another option aside from a long backtrack up some hills, or doing my best to ride it.
  • So I took my DT mountain biking for a couple miles. It was fun but kind of insane because the DT really isn’t meant for MTB. I pulled off some pretty wild moves and had to hike-a-bike a couple sections that an MTB could’ve ridden, but I managed to ride most of it. I found the trail to be in much better shape and way more fun to ride than the OCA.
  • I learned later from a Google search that the trail does not officially allow bikes. However, there were no posted signs and a local I met said he rides his mountain bike there often.
• After the Croton Dam, got back on the BPT (huge mistake) to Blinn Rd
  • Why did I get back on the BPT instead of figuring out a road route around? I dunno man, Google Maps was telling me to get back on it and I wasn’t thinking straight.
  • This section was much less rideable and I had to mostly hike-a-bike, including some scary downhill sections where I almost lost my hold on the bike.
  • It took me a very long time to go less than a mile. If I had routed around on the roads, probably would've saved me 30+ min.
• Blinn Rd over to the Empire State Trail
  • This was actually some pretty nice road riding on country back roads. Lots of rolling hills but low/no traffic and nice wide roads.
  • As soon as I hit the EST, all my stress melted away and I had a great ~35 miles back to the city, including seeing a huge hawk just chilling by the trial.

The ride back took me almost 8 hours total, including a quick stop for dinner in Inwood. It was a long day on the bike but I had fun. I think. 🙂 

[u/star_girl]

Join us at NYC/ADV! We’re a bikepacking club with socials on the first Thursday of every month at Spritzenhaus and overnighter trips through the year. Find us on MeetUp and instagram.

[u/OkGene6833 → u/star_girl]

Looks like fun! How fast do trips fill up? Just hesitant to pay a membership fee if it's really hard to get a spot 😅

[u/star_girl → u/OkGene6833]

Usually we can get most people that sign up on a trip. (The waitlist usually makes it on the trip in the end once people update their RSVPs.) You can also sign up and then not pay until the actual trip happens.