I love the Lawrence Hopewell Trail but haven’t been on its Full Moon Ride in – gulp! – five years. Time to go back!
I love the Lawrence Hopewell Trail but haven’t been on its Full Moon Ride in – gulp! – five years. Time to go back!
Continue reading “Lawrence Hopewell Trail’s Full Moon Ride is back!”Here’s the state of the D&R Canal towpath from Washington Road to the Lawrence Hopewell Trail.
At the beginning of May, we checked out the state of the D&R Canal towpath from New Brunwick to Princeton. For Memorial Day, we pushed further south.
Continue reading “The D&R Canal towpath from Princeton to partway to Trenton”Some kid-friendly bike rides in central New Jersey … also good when adults would prefer biking on trails instead of with traffic.
So you’re looking for a new place to ride your bike but don’t want to deal with traffic? Or you’re encouraging someone to bike who gets nervous around traffic? You need some kid-friendly options?
Central New Jersey has some great options, and more trails are coming (it’s just not a fast process, unfortunately). I think these five are fabulous; I hope you’ll love them too.
Of course there are more trails than just these five, so keep exploring and add your favorite to the comments section.
Continue reading “5 great one-day bike rides on central New Jersey trails”The D&R Canal and the Lawrence Hopewell Trail get you within 30 minutes of River Horse Brewing in Ewing, New Jersey.
This time we decided to try one of the big boys. River Horse Brewing started out in Lambertville and now is in a space in Ewing that could fit several of the craft breweries we have biked to.
No sours, no fruity beers in stock for me. So did we miss our best chance for weird beer by not trying Feast Mode, with praline and pecan notes? Or the bottle of witbier aged in a bourbon barrel?
I thought the note that came with confirmation of our sit-down order (oatmeal milk stout) was pretty weird:
Continue reading “A bike ride to River Horse Brewing in Ewing, New Jersey”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 found beer made using spontaneous fermentation and the technique of the ancients. And then (modern) ice cream.
Last month’s bike ride to Screamin’ Hill sparked a discussion of other area breweries — places I, as someone who doesn’t love beer, hadn’t heard of. But, hey, they make good bike-ride destinations. And the one four of us cycled to on Sunday definitely is out of the ordinary.
You see, the Referend Bier Blendery in Pennington (or perhaps it’s really Hopewell Township) believes in using the bacteria in the air for spontaneous fermentation. I’m not going to claim I understood everything about this approach, which goes back to the ancients and has at its core “as little interference as possible” in the process. But even I know that using a truck parked outside to house “The Coolship” is out of the ordinary.
Continue reading “A bike ride to even weirder beer in New Jersey”One more segment of the Lawrence Hopewell Trail is finished.
What a way to end National Bike Month and lead into National Trails Day — a ribbon-cutting for a new section of the Lawrence Hopewell Trail.
I’m a big fan of this 22-mile loop in Lawrenceville and Hopewell (between Trenton and Princeton for those of you not from here). I wrote about riding the entire loop in April, and we got excited at the sight of construction for this new piece of the trail.
This section, just 0.6 miles, lets users avoid busy Rosedale Road by going from Province Line Road into the ETS campus. Once there, you can ride a loop through the campus or just keep going south, across Rosedale and into a neighborhood and then the Carson Woods.
And once the ribbon was cut, joggers and walkers immediately started using it.
Put it this way: I couldn’t stop smiling.
Now I have ridden sections of the Lawrence Hopewell Trail many times, even at night during the annual Moonlight Ride. But Saturday was the first time I set out to ride the entire 22-mile loop. And I have to say the whole of this New Jersey trail is better than its parts.
Put it this way: I just couldn’t stop smiling.
The LHT has so much variety that you can’t dismiss it with oh, trails are boring. Sometimes you’re biking through the woods, other times through the fields or next to a lake. You go for miles through Mercer County’s largest park. There’s the options for a food stop in Lawrenceville. History at the “pole farm,” where 10-story (yes, story) timber poles stood for decades, supporting antenna wires that relayed phone calls across the Atlantic. It looks like spinach is already growing at a big organic farm. Lots of curves and turns, not the straight lines of an abanonded rail line that’s been converted into a trail.
The surface changes too. Sometimes it’s paved, but there’s dirt, crushed stone too. Sometimes it felt soft on my 28 mm road-bike tires (thankfully with some tread), and I felt I fishtailed a bit. Anyone on wider tires, though, will have no problem. And there was even a bit of mud to go around or (ugh) walk through, holding up my featherweight bike.
Signage — with one exception — is perfect.
Continue reading “New Jersey’s Lawrence Hopewell Trail is a gem you should discover”We explore the Mount Rose section of the Lawrence-Hopewell Trail, sandwiched between two gaps. With a lot of luck, one of those gaps might be closed this year.
Slowly but surely, the 22-mile Lawrence-Hopewell Trail is being built. My understanding is that the section from Bristol-Myers Squibb on Carter Road to a 90-degree bend on Cleveland Road will be built this year, taking the trail off a main thoroughfare that has no shoulder and can be unpleasant, especially if you don’t like riding with traffic. (SEE UPDATE BELOW) Right now, though, there’s only a small section on BMS property before you hit a “trail ends” sign (and then it becomes a private trail to the BMS entrance).
But what’s on the other side of Carter Road?
We recently had a chance to explore it, building on our exploration last fall of a “secret” section in the Mount Rose Preserve. Continue reading “Exploring another section of New Jersey’s Lawrence Hopewell Trail”
It’s easy to spend a weekend biking in the Princeton area.
Time to put some my knowledge about this area in one place. And for those who don’t want to just bike, there’s kayaking/canoeing and walking too.
Princeton, halfway between New York and Philadelphia, is more than the home of an Ivy League university. George Washington’s victory at the Battle of Princeton on Jan. 3, 1777 kept the American Revolution alive. Alexander Hamilton was alongside him, and Aaron Burr is buried in town.
Start: Princeton train station. Take New Jersey Transit or Amtrak to Princeton Junction, then transfer to the “Dinky” train for Princeton. (Note: Amtrak doesn’t offer bike service at either Princeton Junction or Trenton, one stop south). For those driving, park at Turning Basin Park at Alexander Road and the D&R Canal.
Continue reading “A weekend bike tour around Princeton NJ: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr”
Exploring by bicycle 