Firstly, I love nature, so any well-intentioned effort to preserve nature gets extra love from me…read more Lisha Kill Natural Area is one of the best and most beautiful of the many beautiful parks and reserves in the area. And it also more than lives up to the "natural" in its name because there's vast unspoiled natural elements for many to enjoy and appreciate, including streams, unpaved trails, and hills. Speaking of unpaved, this park is largely not wheelchair accessible, and there's no public restroom that I'm aware of, either in the parking lot or within the park. Regardless of which trail you eventually pick, the first about 0.5 mile has steep hills before you cross a bridge over a small creek to climb up to a decision point. The trails are clearly marked with colours on tree trunks, so staying on marked trails has so far been easy. The parking lot has never been full, so parking has never been an issue. Enjoy!

Right down the street from us, the only old growth forest remaining in the CRUST (Capital Region of…read moreUpSTate New York), Lisha Kill is a semi-public park owned and maintained by the Nature Conservancy and open to the public ten months a year. (It's generally closed in February and March to avoid trail damage). It's a great day hike that can last just an hour or a whole afternoon, dog- and relatively kid-friendly. I avoided reviewing it, I have to confess, to keep it obscure, but now some other Yelper has listed it, I'll have to chime in. NO MOUNTAIN BIKING, no horses, OK? Snowshoeing is OK in winter months when it's open, x-country skiing not a good idea. There are few stands of old growth forest in New York outside of the Adirondacks. This area was originally slated for a connector highway in the 1950's, which would have crossed the Mohawk at Vischer Ferry, but early local conservationists rallied and prevented the project (of dubious usefulness) from coming to fruition. Some of the Eastern white pines and hemlocks in the preserve are over 200 years old; as the name 'old growth' implies, the area of the preserve has never been developed, despite being enveloped by intensive farm, and later suburban, development. The parking is behind the former Niskayuna Grange, previously the Niskayuna/Rosendale school until the early 20th century. This building is owned by the town of Niskayuna, and would be a great little visitor center for the preserve, only there's no money to do it. We're working on it. The building has some interest though as a surviving early school structure. Also note, as you pull in, the garage to your left (privately owned); this is the original Fire House for Fire District Number 3! There are two main loops and one small one, all well-marked. There's a steep downhill at the beginning (which, you got it, is an uphill at the end) that can be treacherous during wet weather. The first left you take is a gradual trail on a plateau, which you can use to dart down to the Lisha Kill (creek) at the end, or make a full loop back on the creek-level trail. Go to Nature.org and look for Lisha Kill to find a trail map. There is also an audio interactive feature available for your smart phone via QR codes at little mini kiosks through the trails, for a self-guided tour of the natural history of the park. The creek runs nicely most of the year, and is at the wading level, although it's pretty rocky for most of its run. Dogs will love this park (please be responsible, etc.), particularly your water-loving hounds. If you care to hike further afield, by crossing Rosendale Rd. at the far end of the Lisha Kill trail system, you can connect up to the "Mohawk State Park" (Niskayuna Town Trails) trail system that leads along the Mohawk river and Lock 7. Or, you can cross over and walk up to Iroquois Middle School, and walk through woods on the other side of the playfields to River Rd. Park, and connect up to the Mohawk State Park trails system on the other side of River Rd. Altogether the parks here form a sort of secret greenspace of over 1000 acres, interrupted only by the houses along Rosendale Rd. If you smoke, or leave litter, in this park I will personally come and find you and rip your soul from your sorry meatbag corpse. Is that clear?

Before you come here, if you want to hike behind the waterfalls, Indian Ladder Trail is closed…read moreduring the winter and through April due to ice. Other than that, all the trails are open and still fun to hike and enjoy the views. Also the state park is free during off season and much less traffic, which is a bonus. Luckily, I came in late March where most of the snow and ice has melted, and I could explore with regular hiking shoe. I did a loop at the Paint Mine trail. Maybe 2miles total. There are some small waterfalls there, fairly easy loop, no real elevation change. There are a couple overlooks at the park where you can see over the valley. If weather permits, you can see city of Albany at far away with a waterfall on the side. It was very foggy at my first day, so I had to go back again.

Today two friends and I visited the Nature Center to see a wildlife art show/exhibit. There were a…read morevariety of media: photography, felting, ink art, watercolors, acrylics and oil paintings and sculptures. The artists' pieces are beautiful. I was especially impressed with the paintings created on wild turkey feathers. Rarely do I head to Thacher State Park in March...I am so glad we did. I highly recommend viewing this art show now. It is running until March 29th. I look forward to returning to John Boyd Thacher State Park in warmer weather when the trails are open. Truly a treasure!

I ordered 2 Penguin squeaky horns through Amazon. Only 1 arrived in the package. I got a Super Fast…read moreresponse that they will send out the other one. Definitely a 5 star seller! You can see us riding on The PollyAnn Trail, Oakland County Michigan, and throughout many trails in Michigan! Polly the Penguin!

They failed to properly package the Pedro's bike wash that was ordered and as a result it was…read moredamaged before it left New York. Then they failed to refund as promised.

I needed my brakes on my Marin adjusted. The staff was very friendly. He adjusted my brakes and…read moregears perfectly. The only reason they didn't get 5 stars was the pricing of accessories seemed high to me. That may not be a fair considering I live in the south and I am new to the cycling world. The prices may be right on. A great shop and I will return when I am in the area.

I hadn't been on a bike in many years and I purchased a bike used from a friend. Matt took the…read moretime and energy to look my bike over and tell me exactly what it needed without over charging me. He has answered all my questions and I have had many. I wouldn't go to any other shop. Matt and the NY Bicycle company are top notch.

Great customer service and care and amazing help finding what you need…read moreGreat value in parts and a verry vast selection

I'm not that bright, and I injured my arm. Normally I'd just stop doing any physical activity of…read moreany kind as I healed, but I'm also old now, and need to move around to avoid packing on the pounds. What I'm trying to say is that I took up biking for exercise. I found a couple of beat up bikes to ride, but they needed some love. One tire was about to bust, the other's rear hub was a minor issue and needed new tubes and tires, so I looked around and found this shop. Bike Works knows their biz. It's not a huge shop, but the people are cool, and the mechanics know bikes. They quickly looked mine over, diagnosed the problems, and told me it might be a few days because they weren't sure if they had the right size tires in at the moment, or if they had to get them from the supplier in a couple days. (I don't know if it's this pandemic or if they are always this slammed, but it seems like half the area knows they're the best, because they're busy, too.) Turned out they had the tires, because they called me the next day to tell me I was good to go. I'm no expert either, but judging by the prices of tires and tubes I found online, they didn't charge too much for labor, which is nice. When I have more bike issues, I'm definitely coming back this way.

Bought a new bicycle last week.....both salesmanship and professionalism were excellent for all…read moreinvolved which included Jake and Alex. I've been back twice since my original purchase for different accessories and both times left feeling well treated and happy. Great store and great staff ! Dave M

Jake, Brad, and Dick are all extremely knowledgeable with bicycles, both sales and service…read more I have purchased several bikes here. The prices, customer service, and mechanical service are second to none! I will always get my bikes from Freemans Bridge Sports. They have a good variety of accessories as well.

I got a very good day of skiing at Gore Mountain; I have not skied Gore before so it is always nice…read moreto explore a new mountain. Getting from my hotel in Lake George to Gore was easy enough. At Gore I ended up parking in one of the more distant parking lots, but a shuttle was right there to deliver me to the base area. A short walk to the lodge where you can settle in and get geared up. There are baskets to store your bag and the lifts are nearby. A bit of a delay at the start of the day as they were still getting the trails and lifts ready. Then there was a single lift running for about 1 hour so the lines were fairly long; when they finally got the gondola and the upper lifts running the lines disappeared and the day became much more enjoyable. Gore has a bunch of different areas, I got through most of them, although I did not get to try the Burnt Ridge and North Creek areas, but did find plenty of nice runs. I spent the day on Blue and groomed Black runs and had a great time. Overall I enjoyed my day skiing at Gore Mountain, if you are in the area it is a good place to ski, probably not worth a long trip to ski, but certainly worth a visit. Gore and Whiteface use the same RIF card so if you have one it is well worth getting a day at each of them.

I unfortunately didn't have the greatest experience Gore could offer due to external factors none…read moreto Gore's fault. I definitely want to come back again and redeem my time here because I'm not a quitter. My boyfriend and I had come up to Gore on Friday the 13th in December 2024 no less. So maybe that's where all my bad luck came from ? PARKING There's a ton of parking, but coming later in the day results in parking far. It's quite a walk to the main lodge and kiosk when you do. Parking is free! PRICE I can't talk about price because my boyfriend works in the industry and got our tickets through his line of work. SNOW CONDITIONS Packed base, icy, mind your tailbone. I would highly recommend starting on some easy greens just to get the feel of the conditions. I've only been snowboarding for 2 years, but have had over 150 hours on snow already and 45ish days. But at the start of the season, everything is new ish again. My boyfriend is an experienced rider. Riding for over 10 years, way more days and hours than I have, and had his start in Colorado. I asked for greens just to warm up, while I do ride on blues, I was riding on a new board and it didn't end well for me. Failing to plan is planning to fail after all. I wish I got a trail map at the beginning, and they should be widely more available to find. Not everyone has great cell service in the mountains. While at the top, near Saddle Lodge, it starts off green, at the beginning of the season there's not many runs open and soon I found myself on a blue on a very playful and new board. It threw me in for a loop since my last board was VERY stiff. The complete opposite! During my second lap of the day I fell wrong and whatever was in my kangaroo pocket jabbed my rib. I couldn't get down on my own due to the pain and nausea and ski patrol had to bring the toboggan. I hated it. I hated having to cut it so short! Gore was a dream mountain of mine and I didn't get to experience it fully. My expectations for myself became defeated. Swallowing that pill was hard. I will be back towards the end of the season to reclaim my experience. After I have more practice on my new board. I just bought another one, which is in between both the stiff and very playful board. SKI PATROL I want to thank Zac for staying by me and my boyfriend while I tried to get myself down. I really didn't want to quit. I'm not a quitter but my boyfriend did say, "it's better to quit now and ride another day than make it worse and be out all season." After thinking about it and how dizzy and nauseous I was I gave in. Just knowing I had the support was reassuring. Zac was also very calm and reassuring. Once I made up my mind to that I couldn't go further on my own, he brought me down with the toboggan. I never rode on a sled before in my life, and it was fun, but let's definitely not make it a habit! It's been almost a month now and my ribs are 99% better. It was an intercostal muscle strain. It hurt like hell for a week and a half, but I rode again at a smaller mountain the next day because we didn't want to end the trip early. I had better runs, no falls, despite the insane amount of pain. GIFT SHOP I had a very lovely chat with the lady who works in the gift shop. I bought many Gore Stickers for my scrapbook! She and I bonded over our love of scrapbooks, and I know that's not something snowboarders regularly do. Mainly stickers go on helmets and boards, but I love them on & in my scrapbook. Pricing is definitely a little more than average. But the stickers are amazing quality so worth it! They also sell just about anything you would need in the shop at the base area lodge. We bought one of those screwdriver sets. OVERALL I highly recommend saving the PDF version of the trail map to your phone for easy access ahead of time before you go anywhere near the mountain. The views are out of this world!! Gore is definitely a place to ride and check out and I will be back with a better updated review!

To start ... we had a great time snowboarding. The conditions were slushy with 45 F temps (a few…read morepeople skiing in shorts & a "wife beater" t-shirt ... really??). There are some great vertical drops. But... this is a mountain mostly for people with experience. I think it was a small family place that has grown and become more popular. The facilities and slopes haven't kept pace with that growth. -Most of the trails were ungroomed -Trails are not marked properly ... something is labeled a black diamond on the slopes, but a double-black on the map -There is one green run for kids and only 2 wide open blues -Most of the blue runs are chutes or narrow lanes -There are 2 lifts only. Crowded in the morning, not a big deal later on Lift tickets -Fairly priced -I accidentally bought tix for the wrong date (Sunday instead of the Saturday were were) and there is a $20 "rebooking fee". Seemed like an unnecessary money grab. The staff person was curt and rude. The lodge -Geared towards families that come there a lot (they get lockers) -Apres ski bar/music thing ... which kind of looked fun, just saying -Small and crowded on a Saturday -It's hard to find a table at lunch. Eventhough there are signs warning against it, people put their bags on tables to reserve them. We sat at one such table for 45 min without issue, and the older couple rudely kicked us off saying it was there, they had claimed it and were theirs. -Another 3 tables were pushed together and taken over with piles of half eaten food and a sign saying "don't touch our food". This isn't your personal freaking dining room. -One kid (12 years old?) mouthed off to a staff member (30's?) who responded to the kid "how would you like it if I punched you in the eye". IDK what the kid said and maybe they are related. who knows -2 bathrooms with long lines and the downstairs one was in desperate need of cleaning. -I got a veggie burger that was not a black bean burger as promised and instead some awful veggie patty connoction. It was ok once drowned in ketchup. -The parking terrible. It's $20 for the better lot, which is unpaved and as it got warmer turned into a river of mud. I'll be hosing off my equipment and clothes for sure. Otherwise, the 2nd parking lot filled up and people had to park a 1/2 mile down the road.

I was very skeptical about coming to ski Plattekill in December with some friends, but they assured…read moreme that it would be fun and I did enjoy it. In the Catskills, I've skied Hunter, Windham and Bellearye, each multiple times. Plattekill is the smallest among them, but surprisingly has a 1100 ft vertical drop with skiable 110 acres. The main lift is only a conventional triple chair, so it can't handle a lot of people. The only other chairlift open is the adjacent double chair. It had been fairly cold early in the ski season, so they were able to make a fair amount of snow and had more than half their trails open after Christmas. The drive up is longer than going to the other 3, about 20 min further than Belleayre, which for us was over 3 hrs from NYC. The parking lot was not too crowded when we arrived around 9:30. Even though we did not park far, the hike to the lodge was steeper than I realized and even the area around the lifts were kind of steep and treacherous while carrying gear and hiking in clunky ski boots. My days of racing down the black diamonds are long over. These days, I just like to cruise down the green and blue trails. My favorite trail (and aptly named) has to be Shredded Mozzarella, a blue intermediate trail with undulating terrain and mostly groomed snow. My son really liked the blue trails here. The lodge is very crowded with most families squatting on the tables with their gear. We broke for lunch and were able to find an unoccupied table after a while. The food is typical ski lodge fare of chicken fingers, burgers, hot dogs & fries. I did get some hot chicken noodle soup though.

Although this rail trail was billed as being paved, calling it paved is a misnomer & it's a good…read morething our bikes could handle it because it is actually an all-gravel trail. We parked at the Woodstock-Dike Trailhead & the views of the reservoir & surrounding hills near there are beautiful, as is the fresh smelling air & green, green trees. Most areas you pass are pretty, such as wooded hillsides that slope down towards the reservoir, sounds of birds, lots & lots of forested spaces, a small residential area with KEEP OUT signs & small streams of water running alongside the trail. Tons of chipmunks crossing the trail. We saw lots of walkers, a few, fellow bikers & stopped briefly at a few of the large signs that tell of the history of how the reservoir was created as well as the rail trail. We misunderstood & thought this was a loop trail going all the way around the reservoir, but we were wrong. It only skirts the northern side of it, so we rode 8 of the 11 miles, turned around & ultimately rode 16 miles total. Good, bumpy, gravelly ride. Good signage, good parking, benches one the side of the trail as well as distance markers.

I loved walking this trail! Miles and miles of beauty, fresh air, tall trees and water views. It's…read morean 11.5 mile flat trail along the Ashoka Reservoir. Bikes and dogs allowed, and port-a-potties at each of the public trailheads. Plenty of parking. Beautiful and peaceful! If I lived here, I would go regularly.