Length: 15.2 miles

Elevation change: 1,061 feet

Nearby Towns: Millbrook

Begin and End: At Tribute Gardens in Millbrook, NY

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The interior roads of  the Cary Institute’s campus wind through wide-open hayfields, upland forests and wetlands, over quiet inlets of Wappinger Creek. Once cultivated farmland, the open and forested acres are now home to an incredible variety of birds and small mammals. 

This botanic garden and ecological “think tank” outside Millbrook, NY has since 1983 served as one of the world’s leading independent environmental research organizations (It is home, for example, to long-term studies on the ecology of tick-borne disease). A large part of the campus is open to the public to explore. Take a break and lock your bike up at the two-acre Fern Glen, a display of native plant communities with a boardwalk, pond and observation deck.

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I love the old dirt roads of this ride. I return to them again and again for the pure pleasure of rounding a corner to that eternally-satisfying combination of silence and fields beyond fields. In spring, the peepers in the wetlands of the Cary Institute keep up the chorus. In summer, cicadas clang in the high grass surrounding a hillside apple orchard. In fall, the ferns stand out against the chaotic color of fallen leaves. There are seemingly endless combinations of rural dirt roads that split these natural worlds, in this part of the valley. This combination is a favorite.

This ride starts at the pristine public Tribute Gardens in the heart of Millwood, New York. Leave your car in the paved area near the bathrooms and maintenance building (although you won’t see marked parking spaces; just pull over to one side).

The route swings north and out of town, crossing the east branch of Wappinger Creek  and entering the quiet woods and farmlands along Valley Farm Road. 

You’ll enter the Cary Institute at the corner of Fowler and Petit Roads.

The Roads:

• Woodstock and Petit Roads are both dirt roads, but still it’s relatively easy terrain, and nothing too rough for your tires.
• Some Cary Institute roads may not be open to car traffic, but you can ride your bike through the paved sections of the park.
• While I avoid any double-lined roads as much as possible, there’s no avoiding Route 44 (the Sharon Turnpike), which is your return back to Millbrook village. It’s not bad and there’s a wide-enough shoulder.

Afterwards: There are several nice cafes and restaurants in nearby Millbrook, New York, and you could spend the rest of the afternoon in the shops in this pretty little Mid-Hudson town.

After a recent ride, I drove into Millbrook for a lunch of steamed mussels ($12.00) at Cafe Les Baux, a charming French cafe with outdoor seating on Church Street. And after lunch, wanting a coffee for the ride home, I stopped at Babette’s Kitchen on Franklin Street (the main road through the shops and restaurants). I picked up a decaf coffee and delicious sour cream muffin.

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