Before Hollywood, there was Fort Lee. In the early 1900s the cliffs and towns along this stretch of the Hudson were the centre of American film-making, with studios turning out westerns, serials and melodramas, and serial heroines were filmed dangling from the very cliffs you ride above. The industry moved west for the sunshine, but the story is a good one to carry into the last miles of a ride.
Ridgefield is a small Bergen County borough just west of Fort Lee and the George Washington Bridge, sitting between the ridge of the Palisades and the marshes of the Hackensack Meadowlands. It is dense, busy suburbia, with Korean, Italian and Greek groceries side by side, and the restaurants along Broad Avenue in neighbouring Palisades Park make this one of the best places on the East Coast for Korean food.
History runs deeper too. In November 1776 Washington's army abandoned Fort Lee as the British crossed the Hudson, beginning the long retreat across New Jersey that ended with the surprise victory at Trenton. A reconstructed camp in Fort Lee Historic Park sits on the cliff edge, with views straight across to Manhattan.
Coming back from the Croton reservoirs and the river towns, the Palisades Interstate Parkway is the best way in, a wooded, curving road along the top of the cliffs with lookouts over the Hudson. Commercial vehicles are banned, which keeps it pleasant, but the police patrol it closely. The final stretch into Ridgefield is all junctions, lights and the approach roads to the bridge, which can lock solid at rush hour.
Fuel in New Jersey is still pumped for you by an attendant by law, which surprises visitors; just stay on the bike, say regular, and let them work. Then go and find a Korean barbecue table in Palisades Park.