Don’t get me wrong. I’m not playing the “ain’t things great in California” card. I love the Hudson Valley. I’ve made my home here. It’s beautiful and scenic, and I’ll bet you see it in a totally different way from atop a bike. The rail trails connect all over the place, and they’re a great option recreationally. Undeniably, bicycling is fun, it keeps you fit, it’s green.
The bike trail map on the village of Saugerties home page looks enticing (www.village.saugerties.ny.us and search for “bike path” or go to the tourism section).
But what is it really like out there, bicycling around Saugerties? Can you really get around that way around here?
Roads built for buggies
Restaurateurs James and Rickie Tamayo ride around the village almost every day, according to Rickie. “We think it’s great,” she says. “Jimmy might get on his bike and ride down to the health food store to pick something up, then ride down to get my biscotti at Hudson Valley; we do little trips in the village like that all the time.” Being in the restaurant all day, she says, they’ll go for a bike ride just because it’s a sunny day and they want to get out of the kitchen for a bit. “I call that kind of bicycling ‘stroll bicycling,’ because we do it instead of taking a walk,” she tells me. “We’re not speed-riding, we’re not exercising, we’re just riding for the fun of riding.”
Rickie says she and Jimmy started biking after he injured a knee while hiking. “It’s a funny thing to think of with a bad knee,” she says, “and we were shocked when the doctor said ‘quit walking and start biking,’ but there’s no impact on your knee with it, no weight on it.”
As for the motorists, she says that in the village “they’re pretty good.” She notes that even though there are a lot of cars, they can’t go more than a block or two without needing to stop. “Motorists can’t build up speed in the village,” she says, “so they’re more aware of you and they see you.” She and Jimmy don’t really ride on the main roads like Old Kings Highway, though, because, she says, they don’t feel safe.
“It’s not the motorists’ fault necessarily,” she says, “but the roads in Saugerties are not built for bicycling. Old Kings Highway, or the roads further out from the village, they’re narrow, and people are doing 50-60 mph and it’s not that they’re rude, there’s just nowhere for them to go or us to go. These roads were built for buggies, and it shows. If you’re going a far distance, you’d better be well lit at night and be a defensive rider.”
That is so true many times I had to swerve to avoid bring hit by a car turning on red at the main intersection, cars seem to think that you need to move out of their way they generally do not share the road
Same dangerous experience for me, at Main & Partition intersection – drivers seem to have little regard for bicycles sharing the roadway.
I think this would be a great issue for local environmentalists to champion, along with fracking. As Saugerties did with the lighthouse and other communities have done with rail trails, form a group of people dedicated to holding fundraisers and seeking grants. It won’t be cheap or fast but it’s a great cause, addressing obesity and carbon emissions at the same time. Plus I think if you’re on a bike you just naturally get a better feel for the community, you feel more connected, which is good for the community.