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”Discovering the Northwest Lancaster County River Trail, the Heritage Rail Trail County Park and the Enola Low-Grade Trail.
We needed a break from work. But with coronavirus still raging (even if the numbers are way, way better), we didn’t want to go far. And we weren’t ready for a hotel.
So … Lancaster and York counties in southeastern Pennsylvania. Three trails. Two nights of camping. Here’s what we found.
Continue reading “3 days, 3 bike trails in Lancaster and York counties, Pennsylvania”A new section of the Delaware River Heritage Trail will take you to Roebling .. almost.
The goal: biking to the Roebling Museum from our house.
The museum celebrates the company that built the Brooklyn Bridge, which opened 137 years ago to the day of our ride. I admit, I only learned that after we got home, but still, pretty cool. (And yes, the museum is closed because of coronavirus but it was the turn-around point for a ride a couple of years ago. Then we could say we’d ridden all the way to Riverside, about 5 1/2 miles from the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge into Philadelphia)
The more immediate reason is that a new section of the Delaware River Heritage Trail is under construction and will push the route south to Roebling (and eventually all the way to Camden and the Ben Franklin Bridge to the heart of Philadelphia). Right now it’s the alt route for the East Coast Greenway between Trenton and Philadelphia — we’ll see which route gets finished first.
So I wanted a look.
We used an app called Komoot to map out our route. Enter start point, enter end point and it maps out a bike route for you. Think Google Maps, and easier for mapping than Ride With GPS. And it was super easy to tinker with (for example, it kept us on Old Trenton Road toward Mercer County Community College longer than I’d like, rather than having us turn left at a traffic light onto Robbinsville-Edinburgh Road and then right onto Line Road, where there’s no through traffic for motorized vehicles at the West Windsor-Hamilton line but is open to bikes.) It was going to be about 21 miles each way.
The new trail didn’t show up, but hey, it’s not quite finished. We heard it was rideable anyway… Add on a few miles for that — maybe 25 miles each way?
But first we had to get through Hamilton, Mercer County’s largest city. I had to wonder if officials there have heard of bike lanes …
Traffic was light, but I credit the coronavirus for that. Otherwise we were biking on a road that crossed one major retail strip and crossed roads that led to other big retail centers. We crossed Interstate 195 and then US 130 a couple of times. I’d be happy to weave through residential neighborhoods, but not to get dumped out on an even busier road. (If I ever try this during normal traffic, I’m avoiding Hamilton and adding on a few miles via Allentown.)
Then we got to Bordentown, home to a signer of the Declaration of Independence (Francis Hopkinson), Napoleon’s oldest brother and once the king of Spain and Naples (Joseph Bonaparte), the founder of the American Red Cross (Clara Barton) and the man who proclaimed “Give me liberty, or give me death” just before the start of the American Revolution (Patrick Henry). We missed his statue by a couple of blocks. I know Bordentown better for its restaurants, but sign me up for a walking tour of this tiny town!
Bordentown also is where we picked up the Delaware River Heritage Trail. It does go north toward Trenton — it shows up on Google Maps as the D&R Canal, but I’m told the entrance from Trenton is hard to spot, that it doesn’t connect with the D&R Canal sections further north.
However, we were headed south, through Fieldsboro and to the QuickChek gas station at the corner of US 130 where the new segment of trail begins and lets us avoid this busy highway. Green paint at an intersection for bikes — that’s new for my part of NJ! The trail took us through Crystal Lake Park, onto a quiet road (fresh sidewalk for those who want it), then back to trail and under US 130.
And then …
New Jersey Transit isn’t quite ready for this trail to cross the RiverLine tracks. It has blocked off the next section of already-paved trail with a fence, and we weren’t ready to look for the goat paths to get around it.
More of what we saw at the railroad crossing:
Nor was there an easy way to get onto US 130 at that point and brave two lanes of fast-moving traffic by using the shoulder for a mile or so until we could turn right into Roebling.
So we turned back, just a few miles from our goal. We’ll try again when this section of the Philadelphia region’s Circuit Trails has its ribbon-cutting. (Actually, we didn’t wait for that and biked from Trenton to Camden — here’s how)
A 46-mile day.
A gorgeous day, and a trail has reopened. What more could we want?
The D&R Canal towpath has reopened — yay! And it’s finally sunny and warm! Time for a longish but easy bike ride.
So on Saturday we headed to the blue water tower along the Delaware River in Morrisville, Pa., the same place we met friends last year for a “weird beer” ride to Neshaminy Creek. Only this time we were headed north, chatting with a friend as we went (with social distance, of course) along the Delaware & Lehigh Trail.
Our first stop: this odd historical marker at the edge of Morrisville. It’s taller than me and commemorates the nearby spot where William Penn bought the first section of Pennsylvania.
Continue reading “30 socially distanced miles on the D&L and D&R trails”
It’ll make you want to be on your bike!
Just about everyone who knows me knows that I’m a big fan of the East Coast Greenway, a 3,000-mile route connecting cities from the Canadian border in Calais, Maine, down to Key West in Florida. I’ve ridden almost all of it, admittedly liking some parts more than others, and remain hopeful that I’ll be able to meet up with some of my Greenway buddies at the end of the summer to close my final gap.
But when we have to social distance when we get on our bikes and can’t head out for multi-day rides, all thanks to the coronavirus, and it’s rainy or threatening to rain, like this entire weekend, we need a little something to dream about.
And so I offer this video from one of my Greenway buddies about the nine weeks (one a year) that a semi-permanent cast of characters spent biking the 3,000 miles.
If you want to follow in our tire tracks, you can get free cue sheets in the maps section of the Greenway’s website. Enter your start and end point (because no one says you have to do the whole thing, or all at once), and it will spit out every left and right turn you need. Yes, they are good for walkers too. And of course you can read about my experiences on the Greenway by clicking through on this blog. I’d also recommend this blog chronicling an end-to-end ride.
Finally, the Greenway blog has plenty of tips for riders and walkers, including camp sites along the route, plus bike shops, breweries, ice cream shops, coffee shops, national parks sites, minor league baseball, museums, even college campuses.
What a way to see the East Coast of America!
WFH = I’m eating too much. I need a bike ride. Where to?
It’s not even been a week of working from home and staying indoors a lot. This is going to be hard. I’m eating too much, even if I (futilely) try to barricade the door to the kitchen. I can always go outside to fight the war against the evil hairy bittercress weed that would take over the yard in a heartbeat, of course. But sometimes you just need a bike ride.
Saturday afternoon was sunny and fairly warm (missed the true hot day on Friday because, you know, work). Where to go?
I’d been getting emails most of the week from Flounder Brewing, that nano brewery we checked out last fall as part of my “weird beer” rides. I couldn’t tell if they were still open and selling crowlers (32-ounce cans), but we figured it was as good a destination as any. 17 miles each way, a mix of trail and road.
Continue reading “Going stir-crazy over coronavirus — so let’s bike to support a small brewery”
Exploring by bicycle 