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.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A one-way ride of 360 km, Middletown to Port Jervis - roughly 6 h 34 in the saddle. On the way it passes Hawk’s Nest cliff road, Delaware River view, New Jersey and Milford river stop. Back roads rather than main roads, where the map allows.
Onions are the quiet fame of Orange County, New York, and the fields lie just north of Middletown. The black dirt region, a flat basin of ancient lakebed soil dark as coffee grounds, was drained in the nineteenth century and turned into some of the richest farmland in the Northeast, growing onions, lettuce, corn and sweet potatoes, and in autumn the roads are lined with trucks loaded with sacks. Middletown itself, a small city of about twenty-eight thousand, grew up as a railway junction and a manufacturing town, and its old brick downtown has a faded but friendly feel.
Read the complete Middletown fuel gate write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Middletown is where the day begins. Next is Port Jervis food stop.
Port Jervis is a river town at the point where three states meet, and the meeting is the first thing the place wants to tell you about. At a spot where the Neversink River runs into the Delaware, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania come together, and a stone monument, set up in the 1880s, marks the point. The town itself lies on the New York side, with the pale hills of the Kittatinny Ridge in New Jersey rising to the south and the Pennsylvania bank across the water at Matamoras. About nine thousand people live here, and there is all the fuel, coffee and breakfast any rider could ask for.
Read the complete Port Jervis food stop write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Port Jervis food stop is where this day stops to eat. Next is Hawk’s Nest cliff road.
Route 97 between Port Jervis and Barryville is one of those roads that every rider in the north-east seems to know, and the section called Hawk's Nest is the reason. The road was cut into the face of the cliff high above the Delaware River in the 1930s, and for a few kilometres it clings to the rock, with the rock wall on one side and a stone parapet on the other, and the river a long way below. The curves are tight and sinuous, the views through the trees are wonderful, and the whole stretch has the air of a miniature Alpine road. There is a small pull-off at the overlook, where you can park and look down at the river and the forested hills beyond.
Read the complete Hawk’s Nest cliff road write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
138 km in you reach Hawk’s Nest cliff road. Next is Delaware River view.
The Delaware is one of the quiet success stories of American rivers. From its sources in the Catskills it runs for hundreds of miles to the sea at Delaware Bay, and for most of that length it is free-flowing, without a major dam on its main stem, which makes it the longest undammed river east of the Mississippi. The stretch here, part of the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River, a unit of the national park system, runs through a forested valley of low ridges and small farms, with the river broad and green in summer and grey and icy in winter. The pull-off here gives a view down onto the water, with a bridge or two and the hills beyond.
Read the complete Delaware River view write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Delaware River view, about halfway. Next is Back to Middletown.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Middletown fuel gate write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Finish at Back to Middletown. That is the ride. Next is High Point New Jersey.
High Point is the highest place in New Jersey, a fact that surprises people who think of the state as a flat belt of turnpikes and refineries. It sits on the Kittatinny Ridge, a long, straight line of old rock that runs from the Delaware Water Gap in the south-west up toward the New York border, and at 1,803 feet above sea level, it is a modest summit by Western standards but a real one. A stone obelisk, 220 feet tall and built in 1930, crowns the top, and from its platform on a clear day you can see three states: New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York. The Delaware River winds silver below, and the green farmland of the valley stretches out on every side.
Read the complete High Point New Jersey write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
High Point New Jersey comes up 344 km in. Next is Milford river stop.
Milford, Pennsylvania, is a village of fewer than a thousand people, and it has a very large story attached to it. On the hill just above the main street stands Grey Towers, a French-style chateau of grey stone built in the 1880s as the family home of Gifford Pinchot, who became the first chief of the United States Forest Service and later governor of Pennsylvania. Pinchot was one of the founders of the American conservation movement, and it was here, at his family home, that he and other leaders of the movement planned their campaigns. The house is now a national historic site, open to visitors, and the grounds are lovely.
Read the complete Milford river stop write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
A break here. Next is Delaware Water Gap.
A river that has been cutting through a ridge for millions of years leaves a notch like a missing tooth, and the Delaware Water Gap is exactly that. At this spot the Delaware slices through Kittatinny Ridge, with Mount Minsi on the Pennsylvania side and Mount Tammany on the New Jersey side, each rising about twelve hundred feet above the water. The gap is a classic piece of geology, with tilted layers of sandstone and shale exposed in the cliffs, and the Appalachian Trail crosses the river here on the Interstate 80 bridge, a spot where hikers and trucks meet.
Read the complete Delaware Water Gap write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Delaware Water Gap, late in the day. Next is Warwick return roads.
Warwick is a town built on onions, apples and a good deal of local pride. It lies in the Hudson Valley's Warwick Valley, a broad, green bowl of farmland between ridges of old rock, and the flat, black land to the south and east is known as the Black Dirt Region, a former swamp drained in the nineteenth century to reveal soil so rich and dark that it is called muck. Onions, lettuce and other vegetables grow there in vast quantities, and in the autumn you can see the crops being harvested by teams of workers under a sky full of gulls. About seven thousand people live in the town, so there is plenty of fuel and food.
Read the complete Warwick return roads write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Next is Back to High.
Port Jervis sits at a corner of three states, and if you stand at the right spot you can be in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania within a few paces. The Delaware River swings around, the smaller Neversink River joins it, and a stone monument called Tri-States Rock, set at the edge of the water, marks the place where the borders meet. It is a quirk of geography that has long amused visitors, and the town has the look of a place built when railroads and canals mattered: a grid of old brick buildings, a Victorian railroad station and hillsides with white church spires.
Read the complete High write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back to High closes the day.
Middletown fuel gate → Port Jervis food stop is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Port Jervis food stop → Hawk’s Nest cliff road is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hawk’s Nest cliff road → Delaware River view is 9 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Delaware River view → Back to Middletown is 68 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Back to Middletown → High Point New Jersey is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
High Point New Jersey → Milford river stop is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Milford river stop → Delaware Water Gap is 113 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Delaware Water Gap → Warwick return roads is 174 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Warwick return roads → Back to High is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.