Now I can bike the full 20-mile loop!
Let’s just say that this new boardwalk is one of the best parts of the Lawrence Hopewell Trail — and that’s saying a lot because this trail already had so wonderful spots.
Continue reading “That new boardwalk section of the Lawrence Hopewell Trail is beyond spectacular”At the Gingered Peach and Terra Momo.
Lunch and dessert? Or dessert and dessert?
This was a two-bakery bicycle ride, inspired by a late-2024 list of the state’s 71 best bakeries, as judged by NJ.com, the owner of the state’s biggest newspaper.
Continue reading “I biked to 2 of New Jersey’s best bakeries using the Lawrence Hopewell Trail”The quest for “weird” beer continues.
We braved the mud and the wind — oh that wind! — to reach the Druery Brewery using the D&R Canal towpath and the Lawrence Hopewell Trail.
Continue reading “A bike ride to a new brewery just off the Lawrence Hopewell Trail”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 discover more of the Lawrence-Hopewell Trail on a 20-mile ride that includes a few miles on the East Coast Greenway.
One of my longer bike rides over the past week was along part of the Lawrence-Hopewell Trail, a non-quite-finished 22-mile loop off the East Coast Greenway just south of Princeton.
We usually take the D&R Canal towpath (part of the East Coast Greenway) for about 5 miles to the turnoff to Brearley House and then ride past the Lawrenceville School and through Mercer Meadows, a big county park — basically going clockwise on the loop. This time we decided to go counterclockwise because we knew there was a section through the Carson Road Woods that we’d never been on.
Before we got to that, though, we found another section that’s been finished — a sidepath along Province Line Road. It’s the red dotted line in the upper right of this map, and its completion means the trail is 88% done. (See the full map here.)
I don’t have any photos, unfortunately, and it really seems like nothing glamorous — basically a wide asphalted sidewalk right at the side of the road, with no little strip of green acting as a divider. But it’s a key connection on a road that’s busy at rush hour and where motorists go fast at any time. One person I know grumbles about the drainage grates running across the sidepath every so often … and I could do without the rocks around them (probably also for drainage — UPDATE: driving by, that looks like it’s been covered). But it’s a big step.
After all that excitement, we rode the trail on the edge of a Bristol Myers-Squibb campus to reach Carson Road Woods. It has five miles of marked trails, including one mile that’s part of the LHT. Our route felt more meadow-y than the heavily wooded Maidenhead Meadows trail, another new section (for us, at least) near the start (the green dots leading to the parking sign on the map).
After Carson Roads Woods we rode through a neighborhood to Rosedale Road, where we’d seen an LHT sign but had no idea where the trail was. Now we know — neighborhood roads, then trail.
Had we continued on the LHT, we’d have gone through the ETS site, using a trail we’ve previously ridden. Instead, we turned toward Princeton and then home.
All in all, a 20-mile day. Essentially flat, but definitely one for the hybrids.
June 4 is National Trails Day and given that the East Coast Greenway is all about connecting trails (and quiet roads) into one 3,000-mile route … of course I want to mark the day with a ride on a trail!
June 4 is National Trails Day and given that the East Coast Greenway is all about connecting trails (and quiet roads) into one 3,000-mile route … of course I want to mark the day with a ride on a trail!
So I’m organizing this free family-friendly bike ride to promote the East Coast Greenway. We’ll ride a total of eight miles on the D&R Canal towpath in New Jersey. If you’re a hardy cyclist, it’s a great way to get friends and/or family out on a bike. And if you’re not a big cyclist, this is your chance to ride with me (and maybe 48 other people).
All you need to do is claim your spot here.
Bonus: The halfway point is Brearley House in Lawrenceville, and a representation from the Lawrence Historical Society will give us a short talk on the history of the house. Wonder if Washington slept here…
Exploring by bicycle 