Back in 1825, mules trudged along the Erie Canal towpath at a steady four miles an hour while the men who drove them sang the hours away. Today, you can swap out the mules for two wheels and cruise that exact same historic corridor at whatever pace suits you.
Stretching 365 miles from Buffalo to Albany, the Erie Canalway Trail follows the historic towpath as closely as the terrain allows. It serves as the grand east-west spine of New York’s massive 750-mile Empire State Trail, and about 87 percent of it is completely off-road.
We included it on our roundup of long rides that skip the trailhead because almost no other American trail packs this much continuous history into a route you can also just casually ride to lunch.
What the Ride Is Like
The trail breaks into named sections worth knowing before you plan a route. The Erie Canal Heritage Trail covers 114 miles between Buffalo and Newark on paved and stone dust surfaces. Further east, the Mohawk Hudson Bike/Hike Trail runs 86 asphalt miles from Little Falls to Albany, connecting to the Hudson River Valley Greenway…