No experience riding some of this except some on the Erie Canal. I do know of one member here -JPPE or something, did a supported cross country a few years ago, used US Rt 20 the whole way to Mass. He documented his ride with daily ride reports posted here. There’s also a YT series “Roland and Julia”, they did Kansas City to Kittery Maine, see the Erie Canal Trail from Buffalo to maybe Amsterdam then cut up to Vermont and NH. In Ohio they rode up from Cincinnati on the Erie-Ohio trail. Thru Indiana and Illinois they road local farm roads, which they very much enjoyed, The NY Erie Canal trail is flat, except that it is not complete as a trail and detours onto highways where it sometimes has rolling hills. An option to get up,to Albany is the assorted trails that start in Van Cortland Park in the Bronx, becomes the South County Trail, then the North County Trail, then the Putnam Trail to Brewster, then the Maybrook and Duchess trails to the Hudson, then to New Paltz and into the Walkill Trail to Kingston. That’s 110 miles of paved or gravel trail out of NYC to about halfway up to Albany,