CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Riverdale it runs 769 km to Albertson; allow about 12 h 06 of riding. The stops in between: Bear Mountain Bridge, Cold Spring, Storm King Highway and Seven Lakes Drive. Sea Bright is the high point. It keeps to quiet secondary roads.
30 km on Storm King Highway → Seven Lakes Drive.
Riverdale sits at the northern tip of the Bronx, where New York City presses up against the Hudson and the Palisades rise across the water, and it is probably the greenest and quietest corner of the borough. Big old houses sit on a ridge above the river, and the Henry Hudson Parkway runs along the shore, an elegant, curving road from the 1930s built to give city families a pleasant drive.
Read the complete Palisades Parkway north write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Palisades Parkway north is where the day begins. Next is Bear Mountain Bridge.
The Bear Mountain Bridge, opened in 1924, was the longest suspension bridge in the world at the time of its construction and the first to span the Hudson south of Albany. It leaps across the river at its narrowest and deepest, between the steep granite flanks of Bear Mountain on the west and Anthony's Nose on the east, and the setting is dramatic: dark cliffs, a wide gleaming river, forested hills layered one behind the other. A toll is collected, and motorcycles pay like everyone else.
Read the complete Bear Mountain Bridge write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bear Mountain Bridge comes up 52 km in. Next is Cold Spring food stop.
Cold Spring is the kind of Hudson river village that looks like a stage set, a single steep Main Street of antiques shops, cafés and brick storefronts running down to the river and a small bandstand on the waterfront. It has fewer than two thousand residents, and it fills each weekend with day-trippers from the city who arrive on the Metro-North train. Across the water rise the walls of West Point, and the Hudson narrows here between steep, wooded hills, a fjord-like stretch called the Highlands.
Read the complete Cold Spring food stop write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
A break here. Next is Storm King Highway.
Highway 218 cuts along the side of Storm King Mountain like a shelf, and few roads in New York State feel so dramatic. The route was blasted out of the cliff in the early twentieth century, a narrow ledge above the Hudson with a low stone parapet and a sheer drop to the river on one side and rock on the other. Opened in the early 1920s, it was among the first scenic roads built expressly for motorists, and for a rider the experience is intimate, twisting and slow, with the river shining far below.
Read the complete Storm King Highway write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Storm King Highway, early in the day. Next is Seven Lakes Drive.
Harriman State Park is the second largest park in New York, and Seven Lakes Drive is its backbone: a quiet, winding road across the Ramapo hills that most people in New York City never realize is an hour from Times Square. It was built in the 1920s as a parkway for pleasure driving, long before anyone thought of it as a motorcycle road, and it still has the character of its time, with stone culverts, gentle grades and no commercial vehicles allowed. The park exists thanks in part to Mary Harriman, who gave land in 1910 in memory of her husband, the railroad magnate, with the aim of keeping the Highlands from the quarries.
Read the complete Seven Lakes Drive write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Seven Lakes Drive sits at 208 km, about halfway. Next is Back to Palisades Parkway.
That makes this a place to look at the Palisades rather than ride on them, and it is a good view. The cliffs are a wall of dark basalt, more than five hundred feet at their highest, formed when molten rock pushed into softer sandstone about two hundred million years ago and cooled into tall columns.
Read the complete Palisades Parkway write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 677 km. Next is Hudson Highlands and Storm King.
Fill up here — 365 km left and no pump marked after this. Next is New York / Hudson Valley rides return.
Central Valley is a small community in Orange County, New York, wedged between the Hudson Highlands and the New York State Thruway, and its claim to fame is that it sits beside Woodbury Common, one of the largest outlet shopping centres in the United States. On a weekend the shops draw tour buses from all over the region, and traffic backs up on the approach roads. Woodbury, the larger town about six kilometres away, has about eleven thousand people and plenty of fuel, supermarkets and diners.
Read the complete Near Woodbury, on the way back write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
New York / Hudson Valley rides return, about halfway. Next is Food stop near Franklin.
Food at 417 km, roughly 7 hours into the riding. Next is Photo stop near Dayton.
Central New Jersey is not where anyone goes looking for mountain roads, and Dayton, part of South Brunswick township, makes no pretence otherwise. It sits in the flat country between New Brunswick and Princeton, crossed by Route 130, the New Jersey Turnpike and US 1, with warehouses, office parks, farms that have survived development and a lot of commuters. Think of this as a place to regroup on the way to the good stuff rather than a destination in itself.
Read the complete Photo stop near Dayton write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Photo stop near Dayton comes up 469 km in. Next is Hudson Highlands and Storm King checkpoint 8.
The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge fills the sky over this part of Staten Island. Concord is a residential neighbourhood on the island's eastern side, a few streets back from the water and just inland from the bridge, a quiet mix of detached houses, small apartment blocks, churches and corner shops. When the bridge opened in 1964 it was the longest suspension span in the world, and it changed Staten Island forever, linking it by road to Brooklyn and turning a semi-rural borough into a commuter suburb almost overnight.
Read the complete Concord write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Finish at Hudson Highlands and Storm King checkpoint 8. That is the ride. Next is Hudson Highlands and Storm King high point.
Sea Bright is barely a town at all in the geographic sense: a strip of sand a few hundred metres wide, with the Atlantic on one side, the Shrewsbury River on the other, and Ocean Avenue running down the middle. A great grey seawall shields the road from the ocean, and on a windy day you can feel the spray even though you cannot see the waves. Beach clubs, seafood bars and surf shops line the street, and in summer the whole place hums.
Read the complete Sea Bright write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
You top out here; the road stops climbing. Next is Hudson Highlands and Storm King scenic road.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sea Bright write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hudson Highlands and Storm King scenic road sits at 625 km, late in the day. Next is Back to Hudson Highlands.
The Hudson Highlands are a long way up the river, so think of this as the opposite end of the day: a quiet suburban finish after the mountain miles. It is a place that rewards slowness, with leafy streets, stone walls and the odd glimpse of an estate gate behind high hedges.
Read the complete Hudson Highlands write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Finish at Back to Hudson Highlands. That is the ride.
Palisades Parkway north → Bear Mountain Bridge is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bear Mountain Bridge → Cold Spring food stop is 15 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cold Spring food stop → Storm King Highway is 6 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Storm King Highway → Seven Lakes Drive is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Seven Lakes Drive → Back to Palisades Parkway is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Back to Palisades Parkway → Fuel stop in Albertson is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fuel stop in Albertson → Near Woodbury, on the way back is 92 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Food stop near Franklin → Photo stop near Dayton is 102 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Photo stop near Dayton → Concord is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.