superslomo

I just moved to Beacon from Brooklyn... while there's lots of great stuff on the West bank of the Hudson, I'm looking for some suggestions on connections from Beacon to Poughkeepsie, and Beacon to Cold Spring and Bear Mountain.

Any other ideas, and/or rides a little further flung are much appreciated.

With a new kid, and a long commute, some stuff that's 20 miles or under would be great, but longer days are also welcome.

Anyone know of any group rides out of Beacon or elsewhere in Dutchess County on weekends? I only get home around 7pm, and I'm on the morning train at 7am, so weekday rides probably not very doable.

Thanks!

02Pilot

If you want something off the beaten path (so to speak), I've enjoyed riding Indian Brook Rd. from 9D south of Cold Spring up into Fahnestock Park, then across Dennytown Rd. to Sunken Mine Rd. That's about 8 miles, graded dirt for the most part, and lots of up and down. If you want to make it more interesting there's a trail that runs south of Indian Brook, and you can loop up to 301 for the return if you're in a hurry. Adding the run to and from Beacon on 9D and you're probably looking at ~30 miles.

thirdstation

Welcome to the bucolic Mid-Hudson Valley!

The Quick Reference links page at the top of this forum's main page has a bunch of Metro-area links. The one that has the most information about the Dutchess county area is:
https://www.roberts-1.com/bikehudson - Bike Hudson Valley with rides, resources, and links

You might want to head over to Beacon Cycles on Main and ask where they ride. The two bike shops in Wappingers also do weekly rides (https://bikeway.com/ and https://wheelandheel.com/). Bikeway has a Saturday morning ride that should be heading outside pretty soon (hopefully). The first Saturday of every month is newbie friendly.

The direct route to Pok is up 9D which, as of this morning, looks like a war zone :-) It's the only North-South route that close to the Hudson so traffic can be heavy (and fast) at times and the shoulder is crumbly.

The local bicycle club is the Mid-Hudson Bicycle Club (https://midhudsonbicycle.org/). I'm not a member so, I can't tell you how active they are. I've only been cycling regularly since last Spring.

Over the last few years the number of cyclists on Dutchess-area roads has been increasing - if ever so slightly. Drivers are on the polite side if it's not rush hour. Most roads feature the occasional garbage truck and 18 wheeler.

You can sometimes cut through neighborhoods to avoid traffic but, most developments are designed as islands and you often exit near where you entered. And maybe this is just me but, they also seem to be built on top of hills :-) We have a preponderance of roads that feature words like ridge, hill, top, view, and mountain.

If you head east, northeast, and north of Poughkeepsie things start looking downright rural again and there's less traffic.

Avoid or limit your time on routes 52, 82, 9, 376, 28, 44, 55, 94. They are all main connector roads and are heavily used. They look really tempting on Google maps and you can't always avoid them -- 52 and 82 especially since they take you way east or way northeast. Just limit your time on them if you're by yourself.

Looks like there's a nice 10 mile loop from the train station out to Glenham and back. If you add a leg down 9D to Cold Spring that'll be 20 miles.

Good luck and post any good routes you find.

Lamabb

All roads that lead to and from beacon are horrible for cycling.

That aside, I suggest riding route 301, which starts in cold spring and ends in Mahopac. It is 22 miles one way, but you can always turn around at any point. It's a great road if you like hills, no turns, good shoulders and mild traffic.

I urge you to just go riding for yourself and explore the area. There's nothing like seeing for yourself.

superslomo

West across the Newburgh Beacon bridge seems to lead to some beautiful roads (once you get out of Newburgh, at least... The road to New Paltz is calling me on the "longer rides" front... I was just thinking about going over the river, up to the Mid-Hudson walkway and then the only issue is getting back from poughkeepsie... hence the question at the top of the thread.

All I can feel sure of is that the roads around Beacon certainly can't be any worse than the roads to/from our place in Brooklyn

I've gone and had some work done to my "station bike" at beacon cycles, and they seemed like good, low-key folks. I do get the sense that it's more of a MTB scene than road scene up here, but we'll see how it comes along.

thirdstation

Maybe not worse, but certainly just as bad :-)

This route is the most sensible for east of the hudson.

https://www.roberts-1.com/bikehudson/r/r/nb_mh/index.htm

The creator says it hasn't been checked since 2004 (on the bikely link) but, I've driven those roads and they are the most direct and bike-friendly and avoid the routes I mentioned earlier. If I were mapping a route from Pok to Beacon this is the way I'd go.

Getting through the city of Pok is relatively easy. It's the south Pok to north Wappingers area (near IBM and the Mall) that's the tricky part to get through. Roberts picked the best route through that area IMO.

I know some of the Bikeway guys live up in the New Paltz area and might be able to give you routes up that way.

superslomo

From what I'm gathering from local folks, the thing really worth doing is MTB in the area... I'll see about adding that in (need to replace windows, and do a million other little things before I can justify a new bike... but we'll see ) but I think crossing at Newburgh and heading straight north will bring some miles and smiles along the way.

Best case will be the occasional ride all the way up to the 'Gunks, but I'm not sure I'm in shape for it yet.

Might also just start going to do the Sunday morning local shop ride when the weather improves, and I'll get a good sense of what's good locally.