Nyack Gravel Adventure
Early August of 2024, my buddy Austin and I drove up to the lower end of Nyack, New York, and parked our car at the entrance of a rail trail. The route we had planned was about 36 miles with about 1600 feet of elevation. The original plan included a short hike at the out--n-back u-turn spot.
We left Brooklyn that Saturday morning around 9am, and arrived at the base of our ride at about 10:30am. We predicted as much, its not a long distance away, but traffic going directly through NYC is always bad, whenever you’re traveling. It’s always rush hour in NYC. We planned as much as we could - the departure time, the breakfast stop, the estimated total ride time, as much as we possibly could. Which ended up being for the best, as even though we underestimated the ride things still worked out really well.
The first leg of the trip was about 8ish miles through backyards running from Tappan to Nyack. I say backyards, but what I mean is a fully fleshed out rail trail turned gravel trail through the forest, which occasionally meant you could see the back of peoples houses. The trail behind the houses was awesome - it went through some really cool areas with great views of the Hudson and had some really cool green foresty tunnels to go through.
We went through that trail system for a while and popped back out onto the streets of Nyack. After about 20 minutes riding through downtown, we entered the Nyack Beach Park, where the trail along the river starts. I actually didnt set my bike up great, and forgot a water bottle cage, and so I was down the ability to carry one extra bottle. I was looking for some way to grab some water before we entered 1.5hrs+ of wilderness, and I didnt have any cash for the drink machine, so I found an empty bottle and filled it with water and stored it in my frame bag. It was really the only thing I could do, and thank God I did because I drank it not long later.
The trail that goes along the water in Nyack is beautiful. Its about three miles of on-coast riding, then climbs a bit into the forest, and theres about 4 miles of spacious singletrack. It has gentle rolling hills and hugs the edge of the cliff. You could certainly fall right off the side in some areas if you arent careful, so the city has placed metal fences along various parts of it. We rode to the end of it, stopping a couple times to take in the views.
When we got out of the woods, we were in Haverstraw. We made a short climb up on the side of a small highway to what we intended to be our trailhead for the hike portion of this trip. We couldn’t find the actual start of the trail, but thankfully someone was coming out and told us where to find it. After doing a little time-math, and realizing we were actually behind schedule, and hearing how long the hike takes, we decided not to do the hike. I don’t think it would have added all that much to the trip - the entire ride was filled with views at nearly every section.
After making our decision not to hike, we rode into downtown Haverstraw and got some drinks, and found somewhere to chill for a few and gather our thoughts. We checked the time, did some more time-math, and decided it’s time to head back. We rode back through the riverside trail, back through Nyack, and back through the original rail-trail turned trail. We made an offshoot into a state park to ride an additional section of gravel that we didn’t see on the way in. It was gorgeous, and probably my favorite section of the route.
After riding through that, and back on through town for about 15 minutes, we made it back to the car. Strava time said moving time was 3 hours and 16 minutes, average speed of 12mph, total distance 35.7 mi with 1,800 ft of elevation. 52% was off road.
Check the route file here if you want to give it a try for yourself! Ride with GPS Route
