We looked hard. What we found instead.
Oh I looked for the Jersey Devil on this 51-mile ride on the Tour de Pines, particularly around Leeds Point, the eastern-most part of our route and its alleged birthplace.
No luck.
Continue reading “Tour de Pines 2021, day 3: The hunt for the Jersey Devil”A tale of immigrant New Jersey deep in the Pine Barrens.
We aborted this bike ride after nearly 5 miles (I’ll spare you the explanation, but all is fine — we’ll find another day to ride the 52 miles, maybe a bit less, and finally see Chatsworth, the heart of the Pine Barrens).
On the other hand, I had time to explore historic Whitesbog Village, once New Jersey’s largest cranberry farm and a place where they apparently treated their workers better than the rest. It also was home to Elizabeth Coleman White, who developed the blueberry cultivar we eat today.
Continue reading “Tour de Pines 2021, day 2: Historic Whitesbog Village plus Potato the baby pig”We biked nearly 50 miles in southern Burlington County.
This is my third year exploring New Jersey’s giant Pine Barrens ecosystem and preserved open space, thanks to the Tour de Pines bike rides organized by the Pinelands Preservation Alliance. It’s back as group rides this year, though over four days instead of the five pre-COVID.
Continue reading “Tour de Pines 2021, day 1: Cranberries and ice cream sandwiches”I dreaded seeing the damage from Henri and Ida. What a mess.
The remnants of Hurricanes Henri and Ida walloped New Jersey in August and September, and the D&R Canal towpath was smack in the path of both. The Millstone River flooded, Canal Road flooded, all kinds of major roads flooded … it was not pretty.
I dreaded seeing the damage to the canal towpath (also part of the East Coast Greenway).
We finally biked the section from Trenton to Princeton after Sunday’s big rally for the Essex-Hudson Greenway. Here’s what we found:
Continue reading “Hurricanes Henri and Ida ripped up the D&R Canal towpath”Gov. Murphy, commit to building this trail!
Today we joined the tail end of a bike ride from Newark to Trenton to tell Gov. Murphy that we want an old railway line turned into a 9-mile trail connecting Jersey City and Newark — the two largest cities in the state’s most densely populated counties — and on to Montclair.
Continue reading “Let’s get the Essex-Hudson Greenway built!”
This essay for Rails to Trails is my thanks to my neighborhood — especially the kids — for the highlight of my COVID year. May it bring a few smiles or, better yet, inspire you in some way.
Zeba, I hope you one day bike all of the East Coast Greenway and you’ll let me ride with you part of the way.
A scenic through Cape Elizabeth and beyond.
You know how you swipe someone’s ride off Ride With GPS or similar and it’s … not what you hoped it would be? Not this one!
We picked it because it went past a friend’s house and the mileage — about 34 miles — was right. One word: fabulous. A lot of quiet roads, roads that dead-end at beaches, roads with generally respectful drivers (and when they came a bit too close, odds were the cars had out-of-state plates).
Did we miss any beach?
Continue reading “This bike ride hits just about every beach in Cape Elizabeth, Maine”When you can’t get to the lavender fields in Provence, you can bike to these outside Princeton.
The lavender plant at my house spills over almost the entire width of the front walkway — a challenge for those put off by the many bees foraging for nectar. But how do I prune it? And what clever things can I do with the stems?
That’s made me curious about a lavender farm between Princeton and Hopewell with 15 varieties. Easy enough to bike there, I thought. Much of it is already the route we take when we want to punish ourselves with hill climbs in the Sourlands. And much closer than the lavender fields in Provence.
Continue reading “A lavender farm in New Jersey? You can bike to 2 near Princeton”The East Coast Greenway has a new route from Jersey City south that goes over two new bridges and bypasses Newark.
Now that the new Goethals Bridge connecting Staten Island and New Jersey is finished — and it has a bike lane — the East Coast Greenway has revised its route from Jersey City to Rahway. So of course I had to check it out.
Continue reading “We tested out the East Coast Greenway’s new route through Jersey City and Bayonne to Rahway, New Jersey — here’s what we found”I’ve been waiting for this lovely section of the Delaware River Heritage Trail to formally open. It finally has.
I’ve raved about the new trail from Crystal Lake Park to Roebling before — while it was under construction, while the railroad crossing was being finished … it even made my list of 5 great Central Jersey trails before it was formally finished.
So what more can I add? Beyond go. And offer up more photos to help tempt you.
Continue reading “This fabulous new bike trail in Burlington County is finally officially open”
Exploring by bicycle 