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.
Leave the city behind and spend the day on roads with texture. A 610 km loop that starts and ends near Baldwin Harbor, about 9 h 13 of riding. On the way it passes Carmel Hamlet, near Kiryas Joel and Emerson Hill. The climbs: near Bradley Gardens, Scenic stretch in Eatontown and Ocean Grove.
Next is New York / Hudson Valley rides return.
Carmel Hamlet is the county seat of Putnam County, New York, a small town set around the shore of Lake Gleneida, about an hour north of Manhattan in hilly, wooded country. The old county courthouse, with its white columns, faces the lake, and nearby stands a bronze statue of a young woman on horseback: Sybil Ludington, who in 1777, at the age of sixteen, rode through the night to rally her father's militia after the British burned the town of Danbury in Connecticut. Her ride covered some forty miles over rough country roads, and local people are proud of her.
Read the complete Carmel Hamlet, 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 126 km into the recorded legs. Next is Food stop near Kiryas Joel.
The village of Kiryas Joel, in Orange County north-west of New York City, is one of the most distinctive communities in the United States, founded in the 1970s by Satmar Hasidic Jews and still almost entirely Hasidic today. It is a densely built, fast-growing village where Yiddish is widely spoken, shops close for the Sabbath and the rhythm of life follows religious tradition. Visitors passing through should be respectful and dress modestly if stopping.
Read the complete Food stop near Kiryas Joel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
A break here. Next is Photo stop near Bradley Gardens.
The high point of this section. Next is Shawangunk Ridge and Minnewaska checkpoint 8.
Most visitors to New York never see Staten Island except from the deck of the free ferry, which is a pity, because its interior holds something unexpected: a ridge of steep, wooded hills running through the middle of the island. Emerson Hill is one of them, a quiet residential enclave of winding lanes and large old houses among the trees, next to Grymes Hill, where Wagner College stands. The ridge is made of serpentinite, a greenish rock rare on the East Coast, and further south it rises to Todt Hill, the highest natural point on the Atlantic seaboard south of Maine.
Read the complete Emerson Hill write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Shawangunk Ridge and Minnewaska checkpoint 8. That is the ride. Next is Scenic stretch in Eatontown.
Scenic stretch in Eatontown is the summit of this stretch. Next is Shawangunk Ridge and Minnewaska high point.
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.
Read the complete Ocean Grove write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
You top out here; the road stops climbing. Next is Back to Shawangunk Ridge.
Salt air and gulls, not ridges: this finish sits at Point Lookout, on the western tip of the Long Beach barrier island on Long Island's south shore. The ride's name points at the Shawangunk cliffs two hours north, where climbers hang on pale quartz conglomerate above forest, so the contrast is sharp. Here the land is a sandbar a few metres above the tide, with Jones Inlet on one side, the open Atlantic on the other, and the neighbouring communities of Lido Beach and Baldwin Harbor tucked into the bay behind.
Read the complete Shawangunk Ridge write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Back to Shawangunk Ridge. That is the ride.
Food stop near Kiryas Joel → Photo stop near Bradley Gardens rides best with patience. Coastal roads change character with wind and visitors; keep overtakes boring and take the photo from a proper stop.
Photo stop near Bradley Gardens → Emerson Hill can flow quickly, but only if you keep village limits and junction sightlines sacred. Fast connectors are where rides get untidy when fatigue creeps in.
Use Scenic stretch in Eatontown → Ocean Grove as clean positioning. Keep it tidy, ignore impatient traffic and save the enthusiasm for the good road ahead. The value here is not drama; it is arriving at the riding section with space, fuel and concentration intact.