Bring your electric bike to experience New York’s Hudson Valley in a way few others do: take the back roads to historic villages, elegant farms and secret gardens.

How would you describe the Hudson Valley?

Those sublime, rolling, green open fields with red barn flashes? Colorful brick cities of once-prosperous and faded history? Alleyways with snuggled-in taverns and coffee houses? Paddocks of dreaming cows and sheep, paddocks that shoulder up to dropping, swinging roads that wind out of sight?

It’s all of these, and so much more. For the e-bike rider, throw in those million miles of low-to-no-traffic unmaintained roads, and those sweet surprises that you’d surely miss if you were driving in a car.

A poem carved into a marble stone in the woods.  A 200-year old mile marker. A tumbling waterfall. A barn at the corner of nowhere and nowhere, selling books.

A smiling goat.

Sunrise, Perkins Memorial Tower atop Bear Mountain, in the Hudson Valley.

Of course, the Hudson Valley has a whole stack of bicycle paths made from former railways: The Harlem Valley Rail Trail, the North and South County Trailways in Westchester County and the Putnam County Rail Trail. The Hudson Valley Rail Trail. The Wallkill. The Albany-Electric.

And now, a new state-spanning Empire State Trail that goes through the heart of the valley, from New York City, up to Brewster and through Hopewell Junction and on to Poughkeepsie, then across to the other side on its way to Albany.

Our Routes

But our Hudson Valley routes are designed to take you and your electric bike safely off the rail trails and on to low-traffic and dirt country roads.

These rides all have cue sheets with step-by-step navigation instructions for you electric bike adventures. With the free RideWithGPS app on your phone, you can see your position on the route, and get audible turn-by-turn directions.

Turn on your bike and find yourself along a sort-of paved byway through a gorgeous valley. Then turn it off for a break and take in the silence and the solitude, grasses waving in the soft, warm breeze.

Good eats also abound in this part of the state, an agriculture region of worldwide importance. You’re in for a festive finish on any of these Hudson Valley e-bike routes, in places where breweries channel the valley’s historic past and the food is creative and local.

These routes are for the sight-seers, the wanderers, the photographers, the curious. They’re not meant to be raced along; they’re meant to be savored, with every curving crossroad a place to pull over, and breathe.

I remember one early morning ride, turning a corner into an open meadow, when a tapestry of dew-hung orb webs, clinging to milkweed, sparkling in the slanting morning sun, took my breath away.

I loved exploring these Hudson Valley electric bike routes for you, and I hope you have a good time out there, should you decide try them out.

Find out more about New York State’s e-bike laws.

Two red barns in Craryville, New York, in the Upper Hudson Valley.

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