Biking 20 Miles on the Heritage Trail

MOUNT HOPE, N.Y.—The Heritage Trail runs a flat, straight 19 1/2 miles from downtown Middletown to Harriman.

I took my grandpa’s rusty bike, pumped up the tires, and set out from the trail head in Middletown at 11 a.m. for the nearly six-hour ride.

A week before, I’d walked a quarter mile of the trail, and it was then the idea that I should bike it was solidified. I’m not a cyclist. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever ridden for more than 40 minutes straight.

As it turned out, I found the experience a rewarding use of my weekend free time, and a pleasant challenge.

Among the qualities that make the trail shine are its bike-friendly paving, nearby amenities and shops, frequent road access, and uniform design.

Consistently 10 feet wide and paved with asphalt, the trail has only minuscule elevation changes and just a few bends. The resultant flat, straight road is perfect for biking long distances with little effort. There was never a frustrating moment or period when I had to struggle to ride uphill or grind the brakes.

There are many places to eat along the trail, which touches the main streets of several towns, including Goshen, Chester, and Monroe.

A convenient feature was the number of access points. It seemed to me every two miles there was somewhere to park your car and hop on the trail. The path was more crowded around these areas, although there were never so many people as to make riding a bike inconvenient.

The trail makes a great day’s outing. You can park the car at any access point, ride or walk a mile or two, and end up somewhere to eat lunch or dinner.

While litter and people’s backyards in urban areas can occasionally impact the scenery, most of the trail goes through tranquil, thick woods.

For those who want to try the full ride without getting dropped off or picked up, both the Middletown and Harriman trail heads are about three miles from their respective train stations. NJ Transit allows bikes on trains on weekdays between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. and from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. Bikes are allowed all day on weekends, and a one-way ticket between Middletown and Harriman costs $6.75.

The Trail Experience

To understand my perspective on the trail, it would be pertinent to introduce myself. I am 19 years old, about average weight, and not very physically active. I have almost no experience riding a bike for long periods of time.

Walking trail database AllTrails describes the Heritage Trail as easy, which is the case if you’re not trying to do all 20 miles at once.

The site says the average time for completion is 5 hours, 55 minutes. I managed it in 5 hours, 50 minutes, including an hour’s stop in Goshen for lunch and rest, and frequent shorter stops to take pictures and write notes.

I came across many different people—joggers, older couples on tandem bikes, roller skaters, mothers pushing strollers, and e-bikers. Some electric bikes are allowed on the trail.

My journey began in the parking lot at the defunct Middletown & New Jersey RR offices. The first time I tried finding the Heritage Trail, it brought me there, and I spent a few confusing minutes looking for the trail head. It was on the other side of the train tracks from the old station.

The trail follows an old train line and passes by suburban areas, businesses, and backyards.

Riding my bike along the beautiful tree-lined trail felt special and was not an experience I would have expected to associate with Middletown.

There are many bridges and overpasses, where the trail goes over or under Orange County’s streets. Middletown in particular has more of these than the rest of the trail.

I was immediately struck by the frequent benches and trash cans. Portable restrooms and bike repair stations are also present but less common along the trail.

The Middletown portion runs through streets and neighborhoods until it hits Mason’s Marketplace, a historic eatery. After crossing the road there, the trail enters a deeper woods, where the trees block the sky and give the sensation of passing through a tunnel.

Here the trail comes to a county wildlife refuge, where the forest flattens into a huge wetlands. I saw herons, ducks, and swans, but that was about all the wildlife there was on the trail, besides squirrels, groundhogs, and a dead snapping turtle.

Bushes of berries were thick along the trail there; the ground was stained purple, and my bike tires picked up the little dark berries. The August forest was a lush green and humid, and the landscape blanketed with yellow, white, and pink wildflowers.

Trailgoers walk under a roadway and emerge in the suburbs of Goshen, greeted by its mowed lawns and bright yellow private property signs.

The trail ends in downtown Goshen and starts up again a few streets down. It took two hours for me to get there from Middletown, so it creates a good opportunity to grab a meal or refreshments. The Trailside Treats Creamery is nearby, as well as lots of restaurants.

Using Google Maps, it took a few minutes biking down side roads to get to where the trail picks up again.

After Goshen, the trail runs parallel to U.S. Route 6 and its attendant loud traffic noise. The two split apart later.

The trail threads through woods and stone gulleys before hitting downtown Chester, right next to the old railroad. On the path is the Chester station, a gateway to the quaint village. Trains that ran there to pick up milk to ship to New York City stopped in 1983, and the station is now a museum.

Leaving the village behind, the trail has farmlands along one side and houses along the other.

Then on one side, an overgrown graveyard appears. From the asphalt, I could make out some of the carvings—the years 1822 and 1834. Faded American flags adorned some of the 40 or so gravestones I counted.

In the surrounding area there was a strong smell of cows, curdled milk, and cow patties, likely from a nearby field.

The abandoned Camp LaGuardia sits on the trail, though not in plain sight. There is an access point for people to park and join the trail. There are plans to link up the 10-mile Schunnemunk Rail Trail to the Heritage Trail at Camp LaGuardia, which would connect to the Town of Cornwall.

Then the trail enters Monroe and goes through a developed section that people in the area use to get around, so it gets even more crowded. There is access to buses as well as playgrounds and parks.

From there, the trail passes through woods and pleasant, though buggy, marshlands before ending at the opposite trail head in Harriman—the finish line of my journey.

I was quite tired by mile 15, and the last two miles, my legs were numb and cramping. But I enjoyed the ride, and I will do it again.

For anyone looking for an enjoyable experience, any part of the trail would make a good walk, pleasant ride, or a day’s outing. Just be sure to drink lots of water and take frequent breaks.