Poconos River Road · short arc

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Highlands

   High ground is rare on the Jersey Shore, which is what makes Highlands special. The little town sits where the Shrewsbury River meets Sandy Hook Bay, at the foot of a steep wooded bluff, the Navesink Highlands, which rises abruptly from the water in one of the few real hills along the Atlantic coast south of New England. Down below are marinas, clam bars and a bridge over to the barrier beach; up above are old houses and the twin brownstone towers of the Navesink lighthouse.

   Read the complete Highlands write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Poconos River Road photo pull-off is where the day begins. Next is Scenic stretch near Eltingville.

2. 2. Scenic stretch near Eltingville

   Planning note

   Scenic stretch near Eltingville comes up about 49 km into the recorded legs. Next is New York / Hudson Valley rides return.

3. 3. Sayreville, on the way back

   Sayreville was built on clay. For more than a century the pits along the Raritan river supplied brick works that sent millions of bricks up the river and across the bay to build New York, and the town's lakes and ponds are mostly old clay pits filled with water. Later it became a gunpowder and chemical town, and later still the hometown of Jon Bon Jovi, which is the fact most visitors already know.

   Read the complete Sayreville, on the way back write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 76 km into the recorded legs you reach New York / Hudson Valley rides return. Next is Food stop near Pompton Lakes.

4. 4. Food stop near Pompton Lakes

   Planning note

   Somewhere to get off the bike, about 150 km into the recorded legs. Next is High point in Fair Lawn.

5. 5. High point in Fair Lawn

   Planning note

   High point in Fair Lawn sits at 150 km, about halfway. Next is Poconos River Road checkpoint 8.

6. 6. Near East Rutherford

   The Hackensack Meadowlands were once written off as a wasteland of marsh, dumps and smouldering garbage, the place where gangsters supposedly disposed of their problems. Today they are something unexpected: a recovering wetland, full of herons, egrets and ospreys, wrapped around a stadium that holds more than eighty thousand people. This finish lies at the edge of that landscape, near East Rutherford, Carlstadt and Moonachie.

   Read the complete Near East Rutherford write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The route ends here after 225 km. Next is back to Poconos River Road.

7. 7. back to Poconos River Road

   Fordham is the Bronx at its most characteristic, a dense, cheerful neighbourhood of apartment buildings, shops and street life around Fordham Road and the Grand Concourse. Fordham University was founded here in 1841, when the area was still countryside, and has been run by Jesuits since 1846, and the campus, with its Gothic stone halls and tree-lined lawns, is a surprising pocket of calm in a very busy borough. Edgar Allan Poe lived in a small cottage nearby in the late 1840s and wrote some of his last poems there, and the cottage still stands in a little park.

   Read the complete Poconos River Road write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back to Poconos River Road closes the day.