CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. 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.
Scenery first, traffic last, with checkpoints that make sense on a bike. Out of New Dorp Beach and back again: 239 km, roughly 4 h 34 in the saddle. On the way it passes near Rossville, Bayonne, Scenic stretch in Little Falls and in Ridgewood. Long stretches are under trees.
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 239 km. Next is Scenic stretch in Little Falls.
Somewhere to get off the bike, about 71 km into the recorded legs. Next is Photo stop in Ridgewood.
Food at 147 km, roughly 3 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 about 163 km into the recorded legs. 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.
Back at Back to Litchfield Hills. That is the ride.
Treat High point near Rossville → Near Bayonne as bend craft. Brake early, look high through the turn, and keep throttle changes gentle. It is more satisfying to link ten clean bends than rescue one silly one.
Scenic stretch in Little Falls → Photo stop in Ridgewood is the reward section in New York. Look through the bends, use legal pull-offs for photos and keep a little margin for tractors, cyclists and damp shade. The best ride here is smooth, not noisy.
Photo stop in Ridgewood → Levittown, on the way back is shade riding: beautiful, cooler and sometimes slick. Expect damp patches, leaves, gravel and wildlife where the trees meet the road.
Food stop in Freeport → Back to Litchfield Hills is the logistics leg. Watch junctions, villages and speed changes, then let the roadbook do its job: move you out of the clutter without spending your best attention too early.