First Annual Capital Region Apples to Apples Ride
Apple orchards provide an excellent cross section of a community. The people-watching at these places is unparalleled. Settle in on a sunny October Saturday and you’ll be entertained for hours: first dates and fall photoshoots, tense family groups with surly teenagers, strollers, wagons, and dogs in fall themed bandanas, everyone dressed in their autumnal best, from hiking boots to high heels. It’s been a hot summer and people are ready to get their Fall on.
If you found yourself people watching at an apple orchard upstate this past weekend, you would have seen two people dressed in lycra, click-clacking their way toward the line for apple cider in bike shoes, adding additional flair to the orchard people-watching scene. Sure, we didn’t quite fit in with the traditional Upstate Orchard Crowd, but we were there for the same reason everyone else was: Fall.
The First Annual Capital Region Apples to Apples Ride was something we had been planning all summer. With our dear friend Nicole as our consultant, we put together a 62 mile bike route around the capital region that carried us passed 5 different apple themed stops. Throughout the day we ate and drank our fill with apple snacks; overall, it was an utterly autumnal afternoon.
We started with an apple cider doughnut at Riverview orchards 10 miles into the ride. We had to compete with the hornets to get to them—apparently they are attracted to the cider. We met a guy who told us about his misadventure getting lost on his bicycle in Montreal.
From there we skipped down the road to Bowman’s orchards where we washed down the doughnut with some apple cider. Bowman’s is a great example of how to really capitalize on the public’s desire to experience Fall. Very specific traffic flow directions, parking attendants and different lines depending on which element of the apple experience you were after.
Quenched by cider, we biked another 20 miles or so, crossing the Mohawk river and settling in on the bike path along the Hudson into Albany. Our next stop was at Nine Pin Cider where we enjoyed tiny wet-hopped ciders and another doughnut—biking fuel at its finest.
The next stop was really an iconic example of how seriously upstaters take the Fall apple orchard experience. Indian Ladder Farms and Cidery was absolutely teeming with all sorts of people, all with the same idea of how to spend a Saturday in October. We met up with some friends for a lavender honey cider under the pavilion of a crowded patio.
We left Indian Ladder bound for Altamont orchards where we crunched on honey crisp apples the size of our faces. Surprisingly, we weren’t sick of apples by that point.
We biked the last 10 miles back to our apartment and I noticed the leaves haven’t even fully started changing yet. Fall is very much just arriving to the Capital Region. But the people who live here, including these two cyclists, are certainly ready for it—make a visit to any upstate apple orchard and see for yourself.
