Princeton Junction to Highlands to Manhattan.
This ranks up there with one of my best one-day bike rides. You really have to do it.
Continue reading “This is the best way to bike to New York City from New Jersey”I did it! I’ve biked the entire 3,000-mile East Coast Greenway!
I’ve done it! I’ve biked the entire 3,000-mile East Coast Greenway!
My final day began with drizzle in Stamford, Connecticut, and ended on the steps of the old Post Office across from Penn Station. Those last 40-plus miles encapsulated all that the Greenway is: wonderful trails (the Hudson River Greenway), comfortable residential roads .. and some crazy stuff.
Continue reading “My final section of the East Coast Greenway: Stamford to New York City”The bike trip that began in Albany and detoured to the Culinary Institute comes to a close with miles of a gentle downhill into the Bronx.
Wow, this was an easy way into Manhattan!
Continue reading “I finished my Empire State Trail bike ride! Day 5: Elmsford to New York City”A bike ride with a bit of history thrown in — a great combination. Happy 100th birthday, National Parks Service!
Saturday I helped out with the East Coast Greenway’s ride in New York City to mark the centennial of the National Parks Service. We hit three sites over about 26 miles. Bet you never heard of one of them!
We started out at Castle Clinton, at the southern tip of Manhattan, where we dodged tourists getting their tickets to visit Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. Castle Clinton was conceived as part of a series of forts built before the War of 1812 to keep the British from taking New York, as they did in the Revolution. It worked.
But the fort didn’t last long as a fort — it then became a party place (once trashed by Andrew Jackson and friends), a rather casual immigration station (before Ellis Island) and finally an aquarium. Thank you, Ranger Derrick Hand, for the quick history lesson!
Then we headed up the wonderful Hudson River Greenway to Grant’s Tomb. No ranger talk there, unfortunately. But I learned that Grant is the president who preserved Yellowstone — and yet we think of Theodore Roosevelt as the man behind the national parks.
I spotted a series of mosaic benches just outside, made, apparently, in the 1970s:
Is that Grant, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt on the right? The second from the left looks like Shakespeare, doesn’t it? But that makes no sense…
We crossed the High Bridge into the Bronx and new territory for me. Several greenways took us across the borough, and we had some glimpses of the Long Island Sound before we reached Westchester County. Finally some proper East Coast Greenway signs!
Pelham Manor has some gorgeous mini-manors. If you saw the prices for water and a red fruit punch (fancy Kool-Aid?) from these budding entrepreneurs, you’d know we are talking money.
We were only a few miles from our final stop — St. Paul’s Church in Mount Vernon. Told you you wouldn’t have heard of it!
This site isn’t open much on weekends, and Saturday was picked for the bike ride because they were marking Colonial Day. (A rather small celebration, I have to say. So the dozen-plus cyclists in our group were definitely noticeable.) The church dates back to before the Revolution. The Hessians used it as a field hospital during a minor battle ahead of the Battle of White Plains in 1776 (part of Washington’s retreat from New York, across New Jersey and into Pennsylvania before that Christmas crossing that led to the Battle of Trenton followed by the Battle of Princeton.) Alexander Hamilton came up here for a few legal matters — even once faced off against Aaron Burr, in 1786 (That’s the man who killed him in a duel). Bet they didn’t like each other then either.
And this is the grave of the doctor who was at Ford’s Theater the night Abraham Lincoln was shot and attended him until he died:
It’s amazing what you see and learn on a bike — this is the kind of ride I enjoy!
The train ride home, though, was the train ride from hell. First my train is cancelled. (I later learn it’s because one woman pepper-sprayed(!) another woman in the train while still at Penn Station, and the police were called.) I’m grateful I didn’t get kicked off the next train (they could have claimed weekend rush-hour restrictions for bikes, since it was after 5 p.m.). It broke down in New Brunswick. Lots of to-ing and fro-ing before the train gets pulled away and we finally get on another one. I could have biked home had I known we’d be there for two hours! In the end, what my rush-hour express train does in 35 minutes took four hours.
Can you name the 5 islands on this bike ride?
My training for the two Week-a-Year rides is slowly kicking into gear. Sunday I got on the train early to join the East Coast Greenway’s 5-Island bike ride. And what a ride! What a crowd! We’ve never had this many people on one of the New York one-day rides.
Here’s just some of the group at the northern tip of Roosevelt Island:
Yes, Roosevelt is one of the five islands we hit. Can you guess the other four?
OK — here’s the answer; Manhattan, Randalls and Ward islands and Queens. Plus we were in the Bronx, entering via the High Bridge and passing within a block of Yankee Stadium before reaching Randalls Island via the new Randalls Island connector. I have to say the High Bridge is nicely done and sorely needed by area residents, but it’s not exactly offering one of those beautiful vistas — unless looking down on lots of railroad tracks is your thing. In other words, I still want to get to the Walkway Over the Hudson in Poughkeepsie.
For those who do the crazy full 5-Borough Bike Ride, we saw more of the Bronx than you did.
The big crowd (and red lights) slowed us down. It got chilly. It even rained a bit. Some people got impatient. Others found it hard going as the miles mounted. But Roosevelt Island was worth the wait — especially because of this, the crazy squirrel. This one had clearly learned that humans = food, and he knew how to beg. And he also did something I have never seen a squirrel do: jump onto a bike:
My month of trails: the Hudson River Greenway, the 606/Bloomingdale Trail and the Chicago Lakefront, plus the Lawrence Hopewell Trail by moonlight.
For me, August turned out to be a month of riding on trails.
First up: the Hudson River Greenway in Manhattan, as part of the bucket-list Manhattan Loop Ride with the East Coast Greenway. About 40 of us rode to almost the northern tip of Manhattan (and getting a look from below at the newly reopened High Bridge), then down along the Hudson, around Battery Park and up the East River Greenway until it peters out just south of the United Nations.
While there is a stretch along the river north of the U.N., it dies again at one point, and you need to know your way through Harlem to get to another piece of greenway — and then not miss the hidden sharp left halfway down the ramp to the Harlem River Drive. Close the gap and add some signs!
Here’s the group in front of a fake Grecian temple with the New Jersey Palisades in the background. This sitting area north of the George Washington Bridge was built in 1925.
Then off to Chicago, where I took a Divvy Bike (Chicago’s bikeshare program) to check out the Bloomingdale Trail and the 606 (trail + parks). Just wonderful!
It is twice the length of New York City’s High Line, plus wider and open for bikes. Sweeping on-off ramps make it so accessible. The plantings are still going in so it’s not as lush (and won’t be as precious — but you can see the work of the High Line’s designer in the Lurie Gardens in Chicago’s Millennium Park).
And I finally got to bike along Lake Michigan too. I admit it didn’t take long for me to fall in love with Chicago all over again.
My East Coast Greenway training rides generally haven’t been that arduous this month — blame a lack of time. But I did bike down to the Shore again and again hit the few miles of trail that make up the stalled Capital to Coast Trail.
The month ended with a six-mile moonlight bike ride on part of the almost-finished Lawrence Hopewell Trail, which connects to the East Coast Greenway. Despite the full moon, there wasn’t enough light to cycle without a light (though some people certainly tried). I didn’t see any crashes, thankfully. The organizers smartly sent people headed off in waves, although there were still plenty of people to watch out for. You wondered when some were last on a bike! But at least they were on one!
Loved being able to glance at the moonlit lake, even if I waited until the end to actually stop. The crunch of tires on gravel drowned out most of the sounds of bugs and other bits of nature. Next time I’d either start late or make sure I have enough power in my lights to do a second loop.
And one day I’ll make it to that moonlight ride around Manhattan.
In the meantime, a video from the Moonlight Ride:
This is a bucket-list ride: A 32-mile Manhattan Loop ride, and part of it is on the East Coast Greenway.
This is a bucket-list ride: A 32-mile ride that goes around Manhattan, using part of the East Coast Greenway.
We’ll start along the East River and go north and counter-clockwise, through Harlem and along the Harlem River Park Greenway, eventually west to the amazing Hudson River Greenway all the way to Battery Park and then north along the East River … until the gap south of the United Nations, where the ride ends.
There are some streets and traffic to negotiate, especially on the east side, but mostly on-street bike lanes. There are some hills on northern sections.
The ride is Aug. 2 (rain date Aug. 9) and will go at an easy-going 10-13 mph, with stops. Yes, we will be riding as a group.
It’s sponsored by the ECG’s New York Committee. This is New York City, so yes, there is a charge. BUT it’s free for East Coast Greenway members, and if you are one of my sponsors for the East Coast Greenway’s Week-a-Year bike tour in October, you probably qualify as a member.
And the group will be far, far, far smaller than the insane number on the 42-mile 5-Borough Bike Tour.
Time to start training for the weeklong East Coast Greenway ride in October.
It’s time to revive this blog and start training — I’ll be riding in the East Coast Greenway’s annual weeklong fundraiser ride again come October, this time from Fredericksburg, Virginia to Raleigh, North Carolina.
So I rode two out of three days this Memorial Day weekend — the 40-miler was the “easy” way to Hopewell, while the 30-miler was the hillier way. So many cyclists wherever I looked! Sometimes it was a group decked out in lycra (oh, besides us), other times a family with a bike trailer for kids heading onto the towpath trail. There were even some (besides us, again) who’d ridden to catch our town’s Memorial Day parade.
So yes, May has been the month to start riding more than just to the train station and to work on the other end, plus the odd errand in town. One of my other notable rides was the 22-mile Four-Island Ride in New York with the East Coast Greenway.
But clearly I need to do more! This year’s ECG ride is being compressed into six days from seven because there wasn’t enough room for all of us in a small-town hotel. So this is what I’m facing:
Day 1: 68 miles from Fredericksburg to Richmond
Day 2: 31 miles from Richmond to Petersburg
Day 3: 80 miles from Petersburg to South Hill (hope it’s not too hilly!)
Day 4: 37 miles from South Hill west to Clarksville
Day 5: 59 miles from Clarksville to Durham (that’s the day we cross into North Carolina)
Day 6: 49 miles from Durham to Raleigh (I had no idea they were so far apart)
Exploring by bicycle 