Cycling New York's Capital Region: Cohoes Falls, the Niagara Falls of Eastern New York

The title isn't hyperbole. Cohoes Falls, the much, much, much lesser known huge waterfall of New York State is the second largest waterfall in the United States. Second largest, is that a typo? No.

So why don't people travel from all over the world to visit it? And why haven't you heard of it?  Unfortunately due to diversions for power plant and the canal, the falls doesn't run all year at the consisten volume that Niagara tends to. When it's flowing the 1000ft wide by 90ft high waterfall dumps a ridiculous amount of water volume over the precipous (at peak it comes within a mere 10% of Niagara Falls peak), but there are times throughout the year it's just a trickle. 

Unfortunately (actually, quite fortunately for those of us who live here), the Capital Region is terrible at marketing itself. It's also somewhat apathetic. With a location that puts it within 4 hours (a mere half day drive) of 90% of anything worth visiting in the Northeast US and some of Canada, it's a great place to live and I think perhaps some of that convenience makes the folks in the area not care too much.

Cycling: Is the Saratoga Battlefield the best Cycling in the (recreationally) Cycling Rich Capital Region?

Miyata 912 at the Saratoga Monument

Saratoga (Battlefield) National (Historical) Park is some of the best cycling in the Capital Region of New York State, which says a lot considering the myriad recreational cycling opportunities in the region that is also at the crossroads of the 700mi Empire State Trail.

Whether or not the Capital Region has great bicycle commuting infrastructure is up for debate, but the recreational cycling infrastructure is phenomenal. With hundreds of miles of protected bike and multiuse recreational paths within the region, as well as hundreds of miles of accessible sparsely traveled gravel roads in the surrounding hill towns, all within a short distance of the state capitol. Adjoining to the east, Vermont, with it's legendary gravel and mountain bike friendly culture. A little further north or west there is the virtually unlimited potential for backcountry MTB and adventure bikepacking in the Adirondacks

Even with the abundant options for cycling, it's possible the 10+ mile rolling historical loop, circling a pivotal battlefield of the American Revolution, is the best pedaling in the region.

Battlefield Loop map and stats with elevation profile (orange line at bottom of image)

Cyclist are free to cycle at any time, but after 430pm the gates are closed to cars each day, and the course remains open to cyclist only until dusk (though I've finished many a final lap in darkness). The best part, this isn't some straight boring flat bike path or tiny 3mi loop. There are a few descents you can tuck and coast over 30mph and easily hit close to 50mph pedaling. The final 2 miles to complete the loop involve a consistent climb on a straight roadway, gaining a chunk of the nearly 700ft total gain. Not the most fun way to finish a lap but makes for a great workout on the final push.

Unless you are in elite fitness and the steep climb and final ascent to complete the loop won't even raise your heart rate, this isn't your typical zone 2 bike path where you maintain constant watts and heart rate. The rolling terrain is best for your tempo/threshold rides where you go out and crush it for an hour or two. Or...it's a great place to just go ride, stop at the historical displays, maybe bring a picnic lunch, enjoy a chill day cycling around the guided loop, instead of driving your car. Totally up to you, but no matter what you choose it's a fantastic ride. 

Miyata 912 on the Battlefield

Pit Stops Matter: Why Weight and Aerodynamics Are (mostly) Irrelevant on Flattish Bike Touring (Bikepacking) Routes

Setup: touring is 4 panniers, bikepacking is the typical bar, frame and seat bag. Watts (effort) and rolling resistance are identical in both setups, only weight and aerodynamics are variable. Added into total time is a very modest +20 minutes per day for bikepacking to resupply. Race mode assumes less time. Times are based on modest 50mi days.

One of my favorite past times is seeing how long in a social media post with a loaded touring bike it takes for someone to ask "how much does that weight" and "that's a lot of stuff for a...tour" .

A few things to keep in mind before I get into the actual data.

Your base gear is mostly the same for a weekend, week, cross state, cross country or around the world tour. Depending on how remote the longer trip is you may bring more repair gear, or more of this or that. But it's also likely you'll filter out some stuff that is more faff than it's worth. While some people would say that's what you should be doing to get the load light for every trip, in cycling weight doesn't matter very much. Bikes are very efficient, and unless you spend all day climbing in the alps, weight just doesn't matter. Aerodynamics and rolling resistance actually have a greater influence in most cases. So bringing that saw to help build a nice fire and a chair to sit around it on a weekend trip isn't going to matter much. But on a month long trip, having a fire and camping might not be a nightly priority. So those things might get left behind. You may also need more things on a longer (remote) trip. Like a way to charge devices and charge devices that charge devices. Like a solar panel and extra battery storage.

Photo: (C) loadedtouringbikes.com

For me, I prefer not to spend time on my trip time stopping at a store. There's three reasons. Dietary restrictions, cost and time.

Even if the first and second don't apply to you, the third is actually relevant to anyone. I was listening to a podcast with Ted King and he and Jan Heine (owner of Rene Herse) brought up something I already knew from virtually any sport, or even just driving a car over a distance. Time lost by not moving is time that is virtually impossible to make-up. If you stop for a few hours on a drive, no matter how fast you drive you cannot make that time back up. If two groups of travelers start out at the speed limit, one stops for an hour the other doesn't. It's very unlikely the second car catches up without significant risk of a speeding ticket. We also know this is true in car racing. It's why having the best pit crew is almost as important as having the best driver. Pit stops matter!

Photo: (C) Evan Christenson Insta: @EChristenson

The same applies if two equal riders are riding together, one stops for an half and hour extra each day for food and the other just keeps plugging along, there is virtually no way -regardless of bike weight, aerodynamics and rolling resitance- that the rider who stops finishes with or before the rider who doesn't.

So bringing everything you need on a weekend to week long tour actually will have the more laden rider finish in front of the bare bones rider (at the same effort level), even at speeds as fast as 18mph, which is quite fast average for non competitive touring/bikepacking. The only rider that finishes ahead, the speeder who rides fast and rarely stops but for the bathroom and maybe a quick Coke grab out of the convenience cooler. That strategy isn't valid for most bikepackers. It's hard to do it in a race, and even harder when you aren't competing.

Refueling in Arlington, VT on a 65 mile, 6500 vertical gain NY/Vermont gravel grind

Data and how I came up with these numbers:

My data basically normalizes energy expenditure (effort= input watts) over identical terrain which in this case is the Erie Canal. I normalized rolling resistance between the two riders which you could argue is unlikely to be true, but let's assume the rolling resistance difference in the real world is very marginal (it's 12lbs difference, not 100lbs) if the touring rider uses an appropriate tire higher volume (fast rolling premium tubeless, latex or TPU tire). If they are riding 25mm Gator Skins, I imagine the losses will be significant with a big load.

With riding identical low rolling resistance and used commonly believed to be true watt penalties to calculate aero losses with each setup in  this worked out to be about 10-20 watts or about 3-5% lower speed at the same effort (watts). 

Weight only worked out to be a few watts no matter what calculator I used, and I knew this to be mostly true from when I rebuilt my road bike a few years ago and realized dropping 1-2lbs had virtually no benefit UNLESS I was climbing the steepest mountains all day, and to  convince myself that titanium bottle cage bolt and lighter seat mattered, I literally calculated best case climbing the steepest roads I could map out in calculators, I actually still have the screen shots of the 15 second savings. But when sanity caught up, it wasn't enough to fret over as a non-competitive cyclist. And when you had to go down those hills, the heavier bike actually was faster. Of course, descent increases average speed much less than ascent, so they don't cancel each other out. 

The results: 

• The rider at 12mph with bikepacking rig is the baseline, the rider with panniers at the same output is really averaging 11.6mph in my calculations based on aerodynamics and weight.

• For 15mph with the lighter bikepacking rig, the touring rider (with 4 panniers) is riding at 14.4mph, again, watts/effort/rolling resistance is the same. The losses are weight and aerodynamics.

• And 18mph bikepacking rig is 16.9mph in kitchen sink touring mode.

From here we can calculate time to ride 50 miles per day (average speed and miles). And compare the times. The bikepacking rig with minimal food is faster because it's more aerodynamic, not because it's lighter. However, once we add extra stops for food (and I was very conservative) the bike touring rig wins. And remember, I'm only assuming the bikepacker buys food and cooks at camp side by side with the bike tourer. If the bikepacker doesn't choose to eat at camp, these numbers increase quite a bit. You absolute cannot make up restaurant stop time, this I keenly know from long distance drives. 

Eating at restaurants vs camp would change these numbers significantly. Minimum I'd estimate if say fast food was 3 meals a day, would be 60 minutes, vs the 20 extra i worked in. 10 minutes from order to reception and scarfing down your burrito or burger and coke another 10 minutes. Of course that is incredibly fast. Ordering ahead only saves a few minutes unless you can order and ride at the same time. Crashing also cost time so I would recommend pulling over to spend 5 minutes ordering.

For me, I'd rather spend the time (and money) I would spend shopping enjoying my campsite and downtime. I can also spend more time on photography, site seeing, and grabbing a beer when I want to, not because I have to...and still meet my mileage and time goals.

I also understand for a lot of people, perception is everything. If the bike looks fast (and I'll admit bikepacking bags look sleeker and are modestly faster if everyone adheres to the same stops), you are perceived to be fast. However, fast is total trip time, not perception. And the less you stop, the faster you are, and no perception is going to change that. 

Looks fast(er)...

...IS faster

Bikepacking: Testing Out the K9Sportsack

This was the initial day of the K9Sportsack back in September of 2025. By November we used it to do a 66mi (3 day, but really overnight) bikepacking trip in Arkansas in the Ouachita National Forest that would not have been remotely possible without it.

From a Never Bike Tourer to Bikepacking in the Adirondacks: The Full Circle Journey of Exploration and Discovery

Adirondack bikepacking routes I created as of Dec 31, 2025

Back in 2020 during Covid I took my bikes to Arkansas to visit family. I hadn't ridden in Arkansas in 20 years and I was excited to ride there, even if it was a long way from my old stomping grounds. I got back from a ride and a family member asked me "with all the outdoors stuff you do, have you ever done any bike touring? Would you consider it?"

Without hesitation I said, "no, absolutely not." The reason I gave was I do a lot of slow deliberate wilderness type activities and to me, riding was about going fast. 50mph descents with my hair on fire. It was about cranking through turns and maintaining a high average speed and crushing sprints where I felt the need to. Every ride was an individual time trial. I was enjoying picking off Strava KOMs (I'm a good sprinter so those flat KOMs are actually achievable) and just having fun riding. No need to burden myself with a ton of gear and turn every ride into a multi-day planning and packing event. 

Not too long after that I got more into gravel riding. Despite what the bike industry tells us, gravel isn't a new thing, when I was a student at the University of Arkansas we often rode gravel on mountain bikes, usually to bridge single track sections, sometimes to get to trails in the Ozark NF or Arkansas State Parks from campus, and after college I rode a lot of gravel on my hard tail because my back just couldn't handle the multi-use (hiking trail) single track that was the norm in New York. Plus, gravel was that sweet spot between MTB and road. It was out in nature, quieter roads, sometimes it could be chunky or even mildly technical (Vermont Class 4 roads are a great example of this), but it was still spinning gears and riding fast. 

Ted King on a paved section of the 1000 mile Arkansas High Country Race in 2020 (credit bikepacking.com)

 

I'm not sure how or why (besides targeted Google advertising, of course) but I saw the Arkansas High Country Race and Vermonter Ted King had won it. I thought that looked cool. They rode fast (relatively speaking), they traveled fairly light, and they looked like they were still riding hard. It erased my pre-conceptions of a bike tourer having 100L of panniers filled with heavy cast iron. In my mind, bike touring was essentially backpacking in the 1970s. Except, like backpacking, bike touring has evolved and with it came the ultralight bikepacking. This isn't much different than the evolution of backpacking where people went from cast iron to JetBoils with titanium mugs, or 10lb canvas tents to 1lb frameless tarp tents, and external framed packs to carry that load to lighter, more compact and nimble internal frame packs. 

Bikepacking is a volatile term. Sometimes it's used to blanket describe riding a bike to multiple points over multiple days. To others its covering the same terrain in the same style you would backpack. Too me, bikepacking is anywhere you NEED to use a water filter. So gravel roads or even paved roads in the middle of nowhere can be bikepacking. Bike touring is anywhere you simply fill your water from a hose, fountain machine, or buy bottles. I realize people can and will endlessly debate what it means to them, and I'm not here to tell you what it is or it isn't. That's up to you. I once debated someone that said if you weren't literally pushing or even carrying your bike for most of the trip, it was bike touring. To me, if I'm carrying my bike half the trip, I'd rather leave it home and go backpacking. I didn't buy a bike, deal with all the mechanical nuance and cost, just to need a pair of hiking boots. I want to ride it!

(credit bikepacking.com and Restrap)

So how did I get from "hell no" to "maybe I'll try it" to "I'm all in" and now creating routes in the vast Adirondack Wilderness? Well, sadly my dog Colvin, died in 2023. In his early years we did some mountain biking, but by the time I got back into riding, even though he was still bagging difficult peaks for a 10yo dog in 2020, it was too much to ask of him to ride with me. His final years were spent hiking, sometimes very hard peaks or routes which he enjoyed, and that was best for him. I'd ride on rest days for him but we focused on getting him out into the mountains and local trails as much as possible. About 7 months later in the summer of 2023 I got my next gen trail dog, Marshall. By 2024 I realized this was the time to get back into mountain biking and off-road bikepacking and make use of Marshall's endless energy. He is my first truly high energy dog in the sense he doesn't have a chill switch. It's go, go, go. 

You have a small window (about 5 years, ages 2-7) to ride hard with your dog. Hard? This absolutely doesn't mean abuse them with overuse, it just means where they can ride* day to day and recover optimally. Where riding at 20mph for short stretches and 15-30mi days are not pushing them to the limit. After that window you need to start considering the dogs recovery much more, mayber sticking to more technical single track where you are riding much slower and even moving on to a cart and bike touring. I will say people tend to overthink how fast a MTBer is riding. Typically average speed is under 10mph for the day, usually between 6-10mph for single track trails. That is a 6-10min mile, and trust me, your dog isn't working that hard in proper temps running 10 min miles over a typical 10-20mi day if they are already properly conditioned.  A 10min mile is 250min or about 4 hours of activity over an 6-8 hour day of riding if you stop and smell the roses, filter water, go for a swim, and take some photos.  Again, not a serious strain on a properly conditioned dog in the optimal age range. Add in a backpack like the K9 Sportsack and you can ride probably around 40-45mi on the high end if you bag the dog for long gravel descents, pavement, and long flat stretches of gravel. 

*when I use the term ride, I'm riding and the dog is running or the dog may be in the Sportsack, but he's never at the wheel, my dog training skills only go so far and he loves to run as much as I love to bike

Well, that is the backstory on how I got into bikepacking and why I began developing routes in the Adirondack Forest Preserve. I'll be posting those routes here along with maps, route GPX, photos and trip reports. 

As a side note: I've gotten some mild natured hate from some gate keepers in the Adirondack cycling community. Don't ruin a good thing for us was the consensus. But I promise you this, in 3 years of Adirondacks bikepacking, mostly on weekends, I have NEVER seen another cyclist either day riding or bikepacking. NOT. ONE. What that tells me is not only are ADK backpackers a secretive bunch (afterall, to get mad means you do ride, but to see no evidence means you keep it quiet), but they may not even exist at all in numbers necessary to prove they do. I guess what I'm saying is I understand the sentiment but I don't believe sharing my routes is going to change bikepacking in the Adirondacks dramatically in the near future. And if it does long term, it will likely mean better infrastructure and more potential route terrain. I do, however, hope it changes the anti-bike culture in the Adirondacks which is sort of ingrained in people due to the Forever Wild wilderness ethic that permeates folks who know of and love the Adirondacks. 

Cycling to the top of Cohoes Falls: The Waterford Flight of Locks

At the top of the Waterford Flight of Locks

Those in the Capital Region of New York might not pay much attention to the Erie or Champlain Canals; afterall, that which surrounds us is often least visible.

From the gatehouse of the first lock on the Waterford Flight of Locks

Waterford, New York is the crossroads of the Champlain and Erie Canals. It is also home to the worlds highest elevation gaining series of successive locks. There are single locks both on the Erie Canal and around the world that gain more elevation in a single lock than any of the Waterford Flight of Locks, but none gain the 169ft the Waterford Flight gains in about 1.5 miles to bring boats above Cohoes Falls, which is the Capital Regions version of Niagara Falls. A true engineering feat.

I've lived at the cross roads of the Erie and Champlain Canal for a good chunk of my adult life and like most people didn't pay much attention to it. When the Empire State Trail, which follows greenways and bike paths up the Hudson River from NYC to Albany, and then to Buffalo (west on the Erie Canal) and Canada (north on the Champlain Canal) was unveiled I also dismissed that. The main reason was I hate multi-use paths. Kids, pets, roller bladers, joggers and walkers all share these paths and as a cyclist you are non protected and most at risk for getting injured. A walker can step out of the way at the last second, but if I cyclist makes a last second, last ditch move, it could end with them planting face on the pavement.

The Empire State Trail which is formed by the Hudson River Greeway, the Erie Canal and the Champlain Canal

Over the last 6 years I've gotten deeper and deeper back into recreational cycling and along the way, I've become more and more road averse. Drivers are just very distracted today, even those who aren't on their phones, and cars are bigger, cycling infrastructure on road ways is still largely just a 3ft shoulder in most places, and less in plenty. As a result I've gravitated to gravel, trails, and bike paths.

The rebirth of the Erie Canal as a mostly protected bike path for a good chunk of it's 500 (NYC to Buffalo) miles and it's proximity to Amtrak service out of the Capital Region (there are 3 stations within 20 miles of the Erie and Champlain Canal intersecton) made it very appealing to me over time. I've both ridden the Empire State Trail \locally in the Capital Region and in sections via Amtrak.

Smelling the flowers on the Erie Canal Trail outside of Weedsport, NY

While not a wilderness experience by any means, there are plenty of spots on the EST that you will find yourself surrounded by nature.  

HEET: It's not just for cars! - Fueling an alcohol stove while bikepacking-

HEET it's not just for cars. If you're bikepacking in Vermont or the Adirondacks finding stove fuel might not be easy due to lack of towns, stores and service hours in the Adirondacks and the bucolic nature of Vermont just not having many large towns that you generally plan to bikepack through.  Isobutane (MSR, Snow peak, Jetboil, etc) also are often out of stock even in sprawling metropolitan areas and suburban big box stores. 

It's also tough to cook like a gourmet chef while bikepacking because it's essentially ultralight backpacking. Just add water is about as gourmet as it gets if you aren't eating at a restaurant or -more often usually- a gas station or hopefully fast food. For this reason an alcohol stove makes the most sense. Just one setting: high. Six minutes to boil a half liter. Super compact, light, cheap (you can even make one yourself from a soda can) nothing to break. 

Most importantly (and the reason for this post) is fuel is easy to find at any gas station in America. HEET is always available at gas stations, convenience stores, big box stores, grocery stores, hardware stores. HEET is cheap, burns clean, and it's sold in a size you can manage to use on a route. It only takes 1 minute more to boil 16oz using HEET over denatured alcohol but every Stewarts shop in Vermont and the Adirondacks stocks it. You'll always have a hot meal and coffee or a cuppa.