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 786 km, New Dorp Beach to Parsippany - roughly 13 h 14 in the saddle. On the way it passes near Rossville, Bayonne, Scenic stretch in Little Falls and in Ridgewood. near Mendham is the high point. Long stretches are under trees.
Litchfield Hills Coffee Loop is where the day begins. Next is High point near Rossville.
High point near Rossville is where this day stops to eat. Next is Litchfield Hills Coffee Loop checkpoint 8.
On the New Jersey side of New York Harbor, the Bayonne peninsula sticks out like a thumb between Newark Bay and Upper New York Bay, with the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline in view to the north-east. It is a working city of around sixty-five thousand people, built on oil refineries, shipyards and the port, and it still feels like a place where things are made and moved.
Read the complete Near Bayonne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 845 km. Next is Scenic stretch in Little Falls.
Somewhere to get off the bike, 169 km in. Next is Photo stop in Ridgewood.
Food at 225 km, roughly 5 hours into the riding. Next is New York / Hudson Valley rides return.
Levittown is one of the most famous suburbs in the world, though it does not look like much at first glance. After the Second World War, the building firm Levitt and Sons bought potato fields on Long Island and built thousands of identical small houses on an assembly line, sold cheaply to returning soldiers and their families. It became the model for postwar suburbs across America, with its lawns, curving streets and shopping centres, and it also became a symbol of their darker side: for years the houses were sold only to white families, under covenants written into the deeds.
Read the complete Levittown, 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 comes up 282 km in. Next is Food stop in Freeport.
A break here. Next is Back to Litchfield Hills.
Staten Island is the quiet borough, the one that New Yorkers from the other four tend to forget, and the stretch of shoreline near New Dorp Beach shows its slower side. Low houses sit behind a seawall, a long beach faces out across Lower New York Bay, and on a clear day the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge hangs in the distance. The island has the largest areas of woodland and marsh in the city, with a greenbelt of hills and ponds in its middle, and the pace in parts feels almost suburban.
Read the complete Litchfield Hills write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Finish at Back to Litchfield Hills. That is the ride. Next is North Fork Lighthouse Easy Ride.
Parsippany-Troy Hills is suburban New Jersey at its most typical: office parks, shopping centres and the enormous junction of Interstate 80 and Interstate 287, one of the busiest crossroads in the state. Nobody comes here for the scenery, but it is a useful launch point, because the good roads of northern New Jersey begin just beyond the town limits.
Read the complete Fuel stop in Parsippany write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Next is High point near Mendham.
The winter of 1779 to 1780 was one of the harshest on record, and the Continental Army spent it in huts at Jockey Hollow, a few miles east of Mendham, short of food, clothing and pay. Soldiers froze, starved and deserted, and some mutinied, yet the army survived. The site is now part of Morristown National Historical Park, with reconstructed huts, an old farmhouse and quiet woodland trails, and it is a moving place to stop.
Read the complete Food stop in Mendham write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
High point near Mendham tops the climb. Next is Food stop near Shrewsbury.
Inland from Shrewsbury and the Jersey Shore, western Monmouth County is a surprise to anyone who thinks New Jersey is all highways and suburbs. This is farm country, with horse paddocks, sod farms, orchards and fields of corn and soybeans, crossed by quiet roads and dotted with small villages. Allentown, a few miles west, is a delightful old mill town with a millpond, a main street of eighteenth-century houses and antique shops.
Read the complete Food stop near Shrewsbury write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
A break here.
A short red-brick lighthouse with a square tower stands on the corner of Ocean Avenue in Sea Girt, looking more like a Victorian house that grew a lantern than a proper beacon. It was built in the 1890s to fill a dark gap in the chain of lights along the Jersey Shore, and today volunteers keep it open for occasional tours. Around it, Sea Girt is a small, quiet, well-kept borough of shingled houses, wide lawns and shady streets, with a non-commercial boardwalk running along a clean, broad beach.
Read the complete Sea Girt write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
New York / Hudson Valley rides return, late in the day. Next is Scenic stretch in Old Bethpage.
Step into Old Bethpage Village Restoration and Long Island's suburbs vanish: a nineteenth-century farming village of houses, barns, a church, a tavern and a blacksmith's shop, many of them moved here from elsewhere on the island to save them from demolition. Costumed staff work the fields and crafts, and the contrast with the busy roads outside is striking.
Read the complete Scenic stretch in Old Bethpage write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Scenic stretch in Old Bethpage sits at 676 km, late in the day. Next is Photo stop near Fort Salonga.
Fort Salonga takes its name from a British stronghold of the Revolutionary War. Fort Slongo stood on a bluff above Long Island Sound, and in 1781 American troops crossed the water from Connecticut and raided it. Nothing much remains, but the name lives on in this leafy corner of the North Shore, between Kings Park and Northport, where wooded hills drop to rocky beaches and the Sound glitters to the north.
Read the complete Photo stop near Fort Salonga write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Photo stop near Fort Salonga comes up 732 km in. Next is North Fork Lighthouse Easy Ride checkpoint 8.
Kearny is a Scottish town that happens to be in New Jersey. In the late nineteenth century, thread mills and linoleum factories run by Scottish companies drew workers from Scotland and Northern Ireland to this hilly strip of land between the Passaic and Hackensack rivers, and they brought with them their churches, pipe bands and, above all, football. For decades Kearny was known as Soccer Town USA, producing an unusual number of players for the US national team, and the sport still matters here more than in most American towns.
Read the complete Kearny write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
North Fork Lighthouse Easy Ride checkpoint 8 closes the day. Next is Back to North.
Parsippany is a large, sprawling township in Morris County, with more than fifty thousand people, a lot of offices and a patchwork of highways, and it belongs to the belt of suburbs that runs west of Newark into the New Jersey hills. Its name may come from a Native word of uncertain meaning. To the north and west, the landscape starts to change, with ridges, lakes and woods of the Highlands rising, and the point lies right on the transition.
Read the complete North write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back to North closes the day.
Fuel stop near New Dorp Beach → High point near Rossville is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
High point near Rossville → Near Bayonne is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Scenic stretch in Little Falls → Photo stop in Ridgewood is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Photo stop in Ridgewood → Levittown, on the way back is 76 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Food stop in Freeport → Back to Litchfield Hills is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Back to Litchfield Hills → Fuel stop in Parsippany is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fuel stop in Parsippany → High point near Mendham is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
High point near Mendham → Food stop near Shrewsbury is 95 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Food stop near Shrewsbury → Sea Girt is 49 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Scenic stretch in Old Bethpage → Photo stop near Fort Salonga is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Photo stop near Fort Salonga → Kearny is 96 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.