Finger Lakes Overnight
A 526 km loop from Finger Lakes
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Why this ride
Scenery first, traffic last, with checkpoints that make sense on a bike. A 526 km loop that starts and ends near Wesley Hills, about 9 h 34 of riding. It goes by way of in Sussex, near East Stroudsburg, Presidential Lakes Estates and Ocean Grove. Much of it runs through woodland.
Roadbook
- Fuel stop near Wesley Hills
fuel
Fuel at 0 km.
- High point in Sussex
swim
High point in Sussex comes up 98 km in.
- Food stop near East Stroudsburg
food
A break here at 196 km.
- Near Presidential Lakes Estates, on the way back
swim
The Pine Barrens cover more than a million acres of southern New Jersey, a flat, sandy wilderness of pitch pine, scrub oak and cedar swamps in the most densely populated state in America. This stop lies on its northern edge, near Browns Mills and the military base at Fort Dix, in a landscape of sand roads, tea-coloured streams and small lakes.
The water here is the colour of strong tea, stained by iron and tannins from the cedar swamps, and it is clean, soft and slightly acidic. At Whitesbog, near Browns Mills, Elizabeth White and a government botanist developed the first cultivated blueberries in the early twentieth century, and the restored village is open to visitors. Cranberry bogs are still harvested in autumn, flooded so that the floating berries can be gathered.
The Pine Barrens are also home to the Jersey Devil, a winged creature with hooves and a forked tail, said to have been born to a Mrs Leeds in the eighteenth century and to haunt the forests ever since. Locals tell the story with a straight face.
For a swim, the lakes of the Pine Barrens are cool and dark, and some state forest lakes have designated swimming areas in summer, such as Atsion Lake in Wharton State Forest, to the south. Swim only in designated areas, as the streams can be deep and the bottoms soft.
On a bike the Pines are hypnotic rather than technical: long, empty, dead-flat roads through endless pitch pine, with the occasional cranberry bog flashing silver through the trees. Many side roads are soft white sand, which will humble anything on road tyres. Fill up in Browns Mills or another edge town, because the interior has very little, and expect greenhead flies in midsummer that bite through denim.
- Ocean Grove
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Ocean Grove is one of the oddest and most charming towns on the Jersey Shore. It was founded in 1869 as a Methodist camp meeting resort, a place where families came for a summer of sea air and religious revival, and it still has the feel of a Victorian time capsule: streets of gingerbread-trimmed houses with deep porches, and in the middle of town the Great Auditorium, a vast wooden hall that holds thousands of people and a famous pipe organ. Around it, in summer, stand the canvas tents of the camp meeting, small wooden cabins with canvas fronts that families have rented for generations.
For a long time the town was dry and strictly observed the Sabbath: until the late twentieth century, cars were not allowed on the streets on Sundays, and the beach was closed on Sunday mornings. The rules have relaxed, but Ocean Grove still has a calmer, more family-oriented atmosphere than many shore towns. Right next door, across Wesley Lake, lies Asbury Park, a much louder place with a famous music scene, the Stone Pony club where Bruce Springsteen made his name, and an Art Deco convention hall on the boardwalk.
The beach at Ocean Grove is wide and sandy, with a boardwalk and a fishing pier, and the water is clean and pleasant in summer, though it rarely gets truly warm. Like most New Jersey beaches, you will need a beach badge in season, which you can buy at the entrance. There are lifeguards in summer, and the beach is generally safe, but rip currents can occur, so swim near the guards.
The ride to Ocean Grove usually involves the Garden State Parkway, a toll road with heavy traffic, especially on summer weekends. Once you leave it, the local roads are slow and congested in season, with traffic lights and pedestrians everywhere. Off-season, the town is much quieter, and riding along the shore road from Asbury Park to Belmar and beyond can be a pleasure. There is fuel and food in Asbury Park and the surrounding towns.
- Monmouth Beach
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Between the ocean and the Shrewsbury River lies a strip of land so thin that in places you can see water on both sides of the road, and Monmouth Beach occupies a stretch of it. It is a small, wealthy borough just north of Long Branch, with large homes facing the river, a marina, and an ocean beach protected by a massive stone sea wall that runs for kilometres along this part of the coast.
The sea wall is the story of this coast. Without it, storms would long ago have washed away the narrow barrier, and the towns along Ocean Avenue between Long Branch and Sea Bright have been battered many times, most memorably in 2012, when Hurricane Sandy breached the dunes and flooded houses. Behind the wall and the dunes, the beaches have been rebuilt with sand pumped from offshore, and they are wide and clean in summer.
To the north lies Sandy Hook, a long sandy spit reaching toward New York Harbor, part of the Gateway National Recreation Area. It has beaches, maritime forest, the old military buildings of Fort Hancock, and the Sandy Hook Lighthouse, built in 1764 and the oldest working lighthouse in the United States. On a clear day, the Manhattan skyline is visible across the water from the northern tip.
For a swim, the ocean beaches here and at Sandy Hook are good, with lifeguards in summer, though Monmouth Beach's own beach is controlled by a beach club and badges are required. Sandy Hook's public beaches are the easier option, with a parking fee in season. The water warms through the summer, and on a hot day there is nothing better than a plunge in the surf.
Riding along Ocean Avenue is a pleasure: the sea wall on one side, the river and big houses on the other, and the road rolling north toward Sea Bright and the Highlands, where a tall bridge crosses the Shrewsbury and the land rises sharply. Traffic is heavy on summer weekends. Long Branch, three kilometres south, has fuel, food and every service, and the start and finish of a Finger Lakes overnight here means a long run north, so fill up and set off early.
- Near Lyndhurst
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The Meadowlands are one of the strangest landscapes in America: a vast flat expanse of marsh and reeds along the Hackensack River, criss-crossed by highways, railways and power lines, with the Manhattan skyline rising across the water to the east. Lyndhurst, Rutherford and East Rutherford sit on its edges, old towns of brick houses and main streets, with the giant MetLife Stadium and the American Dream shopping complex looming over the marsh.
The marsh has made a comeback. For decades it was a dumping ground for garbage, industrial waste and, according to legend, a few bodies, but much of it has been cleaned up and protected, and it is now home to herons, egrets, ospreys and even bald eagles. In Lyndhurst, DeKorte Park has boardwalks and trails through the marsh, with views of the skyline and the birds, and it is a surprisingly peaceful place.
Rutherford has a literary claim. William Carlos Williams, one of the great American poets of the twentieth century, lived and worked here as a doctor for most of his life, delivering thousands of babies and writing poems about the ordinary people and places of northern New Jersey, including his long poem Paterson, about the nearby city. His house still stands on West Passaic Avenue.
As the finish of a Finger Lakes trip, it comes after a long ride from upstate New York, with its lakes, vineyards and gorges. The road back usually comes down Route 17 or Interstate 80, through the hills of the Catskills or the Poconos, and then into the traffic of northern New Jersey. The last stretch, on the highways around the Meadowlands, is busy and confusing, with lots of junctions and lane changes, and you need to stay alert.
Fuel, food and services are everywhere, and the towns have diners, delis and Italian restaurants. Stop at DeKorte Park, walk out onto the boardwalk and watch the sun set behind the reeds, with the towers of Manhattan glowing in the distance.
- Back to Finger Lakes
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Wesley Hills and Pomona are quiet suburban villages in Rockland County, New York, in the green band between the Hudson River and the Ramapo Mountains. If you are heading home from the Finger Lakes, this is a gentle landing before the city: the roads are lined with tall oaks and stone walls, and the traffic thins compared with the highways to the south. The county itself is small, wooded and full of old Dutch names like Tappan and Nyack that go back to the seventeenth century.
The countryside here is better than its commuter image suggests. To the west the land rises into Harriman State Park, a vast stretch of forest and lakes, and to the east the Palisades cliffs plunge to the Hudson. The older roads, Route 202 and Route 306 among them, wind through small hills and open to short stretches of farmland, with tight bends in the shaded sections and stone-walled lanes just off the main route. Wildlife is part of the setting. Deer cross the road at all hours, and in autumn the leaves turn red and orange across the ridges.
It is not a headline stop, and that is fine. The practical value is that you are within reach of everything you need: fuel along Route 45 and Route 202, diners and delis in the nearby centers of Spring Valley and Suffern, and an easy route onto the Thruway or the Palisades Parkway if you want a faster run south. The Palisades is itself a rider's classic, a narrow, tree-lined road from the 1950s with stone walls, no trucks and a few overlooks above the Hudson.
History sits at the edges. This part of New York saw troop movements in the American Revolution, and General Washington's army camped across the river and in the hills of Rockland in the winter of 1780 and 1781. The Dutch farmhouses scattered here are some of the oldest buildings in the state.
If you arrive in the afternoon, there is an easy plan. Take the back roads through the villages, stop for coffee and a bagel, and let the light go golden on the maples before you commit to the final highways home. The ride rewards patience.