This bike ride from Hammonton is inspiring me to bike more in South Jersey.
Our second ride of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance’s 2020 Tour de Pines took us deeper into the Pinelands: A road lined with pine trees as far as you can see, a sandy road that we fortunately didn’t take, a fire tower we didn’t climb. Sunlight glistening off a lake on a sunny October day.
Continue reading “Biking deep into New Jersey’s Pine Barrens”Who the heck is Emilio Carranza? A doomed Mexican aviator. We learn his story on a 49-mile bike ride in rural Burlington County, New Jersey.
We’re doing the Tour de Pines again after having such a great time last year. Thanks to COVID-19, it’s do it when you have the time, rather than on a set day with dozens of other cyclists, like so many other rides.
Continue reading “Biking in the Pine Barrens: the Carranza ride”A day of more biking on roads than trails .. but there are big plans afoot in this part of eastern Connecticut.
Day 3 of our Connecticut-Rhode Island adventure was closing the gap between Day 1 and Day 2 — biking from the campground close to the Rhode Island line to Putnam, Connecticut, along the East Coast Greenway route.
This stretch was more road than trail, and a good lesson that you don’t have to bike on the route you’d drive.
Continue reading “Day 3 of a Connecticut-Rhode Island adventure along the East Coast Greenway”Cycling the East Coast Greenway: Thumbs up for the Washington Secondary Trail — and take this short detour to the homestead of one of George Washington’s right-hand men.
This is Day 2 of my effort to almost finish biking the 3,000-mile East Coast Greenway from Maine to Florida. The plan had been to bike all of the missing stretch — from Providence to New York City — with friends over the better part of a week in August.
Then COVID. Now the plan is for just two of us to ride just part of it and use a campsite as a base. This day’s goal: Providence, Rhode Island.
Continue reading “Rhode Island’s 5-star Washington Secondary Trail: Car-free from near Connecticut to the outskirts of Providence”I’ve cycled almost all of the East Coast Greenway. I’m spending three days riding sections I haven’t yet ridden, starting with Connecticut’s Air Line Trail.
It’s such a great feeling when you turn on your bike computer and it says next turn in 19 miles.
Continue reading “Biking the East Coast Greenway: 19 traffic-free miles on Connecticut’s Air Line Trail from Willimantic to Pomfret”Old Hights brewery is just off Main Street in Hightstown, N.J.
We heard about a new micro (nano?) brewery not far away… so we had another destination for a bike ride.
Old Hights Brewing Co. is just off Main Street in Hightstown. So after a 36-mile ride into the Sourlands and a bit of chilling at home the other weekend, we found the energy for a fast-paced 7.5 miles to pick up a four-pack.
Here’s what we learned:
Continue reading “We bike to yet another New Jersey brewery… and there is socially distanced outdoor seating”Biking in the Poconos and the Delaware Water Gap: A wipe-out, a climb … and later a bear.
My hands gripped the brakes.
I was headed down a steep descent on the McDade Recreational Trail a few miles north of Dingmans Campground. The surface was crushed stone … large-ish stone for a trail in my view, nothing like stonedust … and my back wheel was sliding a bit.
I squeezed the brakes harder.
My bike stopped … and I tumbled.
Continue reading “What it’s like to bike on the McDade Recreational Trail in the Delaware Water Gap”I thought this new section of the Lawrence Hopewell Trail was just one bridge over the Stony Brook. It’s much more than that.
There’s no quirky story behind this ride, just a fresh milestone for one of New Jersey’s best trails.
I thought this new section of the Lawrence Hopewell Trail that gets users off Old Mill Road was all about one bridge over the Stony Brook. When we rode it, I discovered that it’s several bridges with one big steel bridge as the centerpiece.
And by bypassing the equestrian center and master gardeners’ site in Mercer Meadows park, I’d estimate it lops a mile off the route.
Continue reading “The newest section of the Lawrence Hopewell Trail actually shortens this awesome loop ride”We head to Manalapan and a supermarket full of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian temptations.
We were like kids in a candy store, oohing and aahing over all our options.
Only instead of a candy store, we were eyeing the incredible range of hot and cold foods, the salads and the dumplings at a Russian supermarket less than 20 miles from our house. In this age of coronavirus, essentially unable to leave the U.S. and even facing a two-week quarantine when coming back from most states, this bike ride gave us a brief feeling of being somewhere unfamiliar. And doesn’t everyone check out supermarkets in a foreign country?
And yes, we heard Russian spoken. No idea what this sign says. Is it about store hours and senior shopping hours? Wear a mask?
Continue reading “Manti and samsa and caviar, oh my! Yet another foodie bike ride in New Jersey”We’re still trying to figure out how to cook with all those peppers.
Time for a new destination.
We settled on Evergreen Farm in Hamilton. A neighbor had suggested it in the spring as a possible place to buy shishito pepper seedlings. We never made it then, but we wanted a flat ride today. Just under 30 miles sounded perfect given the heat.
Besides, maybe we’d come home with mysterious fruits and vegetables.
Continue reading “How we ended up with 3+ pounds of chili peppers: A bike ride to a Korean farm in New Jersey”
Exploring by bicycle 