Tarrytown Croton Reservoir Roads

A 435 km loop

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Why this ride

Built for flow, views and useful stops rather than navigation busywork. 435 km round from Garden City - plan on about 8 h 04 of riding. The stops in between: in North Stamford, Scenic stretch in Parsippany and Califon. The climb of the day is near Sleepy Hollow.

Roadbook

1. Fuel stop in Garden City fuel

   Fuel at 0 km.

2. Food stop in North Stamford food
3. High point near Sleepy Hollow pass

   This is where the road stops climbing.

4. Scenic stretch in Parsippany scenic

   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.

   The area has a surprising amount of water. Lake Parsippany and the Boonton and Jersey City reservoirs lie close by, and Troy Meadows, one of the largest freshwater wetlands in the state, is home to herons and turtles despite the highways around it. Ride north-west and the ground rises into the New Jersey Highlands, a band of ancient gneiss ridges that runs towards the Hudson. That is where the roads start to twist: tree-lined two-lane routes past lakes and old iron-mining villages, with the Wanaque and Splitrock reservoirs as calm stops.

   The local riding is all about avoiding rush hour. Weekday mornings and evenings clog Route 46, Route 10 and the interstates, while early weekend mornings can be wonderfully empty. Expect potholes after harsh winters, plenty of traffic lights and the occasional deer bounding out of the woods on the smaller roads, especially at dusk in autumn.

   Fuel is everywhere, and as anywhere in New Jersey, an attendant pumps it for you. Diners are a local institution, many open very long hours, and this part of the state has plenty of them, along with bagel shops and delis for a quick breakfast before heading out. If you are heading for the Hudson Valley or the Delaware Water Gap, this is a good point to check the bike, fill the tank and drink one last coffee before the scenery improves.

5. Near Califon, on the way back swim

   This is the valley of the South Branch of the Raritan River, a trout stream that runs clear enough over its stones to keep fly fishermen loyal for generations. Califon itself is a tiny place, barely a thousand people, with an old railroad right-of-way now used as a rail trail and a main street you will cross before you notice it. Long Valley sits a few kilometres to the north, and the hills on its far side belong to Schooley's Mountain, the first stretch of real ridge you meet when riding in from the east.

   The riding here is gentle and rhythmic rather than dramatic. County roads follow the river and then climb over low wooded saddles, with horse paddocks, stone farmhouses and the occasional covered view across the valley. Corners come in long, readable arcs, the surface is mostly decent but patched after hard winters, and speed limits are low and enforced by small-town police who have nothing better to do on a Sunday. Early morning is the best hour, when mist lies in the river bottoms and the few cyclists out are still warming up. Autumn turns the maples loud with colour, and mid-October weekends bring leaf-peepers who slow everything down.

   Schooley's Mountain has a more surprising history than its quiet slopes suggest. In the nineteenth century people from New York and Philadelphia came here to take the mineral waters, and big wooden hotels sat along the ridge for the cool air and the cure. The hotels are gone, but the idea that this is a place to escape the city has not changed. Today the ridge is partly preserved as county and state parkland, and the woods hold white-tailed deer in numbers that make dusk riding a genuine hazard. Slow down when the light goes amber.

   For practical matters, Califon and Long Valley are both small enough that you should not count on fuel or a late meal in the village itself. Hackettstown, about fourteen kilometres away, is the nearest town of any size and has stations, supermarkets and plenty of places to eat. Beattystown is closer but little more than a crossroads and a few houses. If you are using this point as a start or finish, a swim is possible in the river pools in summer, though the water is cold and the banks are private in places, so ask before you wade in.

6. Photo stop near Yorketown photo

   Photo stop near Yorketown comes up 311 km in.

7. Ridgefield finish

   Before Hollywood, there was Fort Lee. In the early 1900s the cliffs and towns along this stretch of the Hudson were the centre of American film-making, with studios turning out westerns, serials and melodramas, and serial heroines were filmed dangling from the very cliffs you ride above. The industry moved west for the sunshine, but the story is a good one to carry into the last miles of a ride.

   Ridgefield is a small Bergen County borough just west of Fort Lee and the George Washington Bridge, sitting between the ridge of the Palisades and the marshes of the Hackensack Meadowlands. It is dense, busy suburbia, with Korean, Italian and Greek groceries side by side, and the restaurants along Broad Avenue in neighbouring Palisades Park make this one of the best places on the East Coast for Korean food.

   History runs deeper too. In November 1776 Washington's army abandoned Fort Lee as the British crossed the Hudson, beginning the long retreat across New Jersey that ended with the surprise victory at Trenton. A reconstructed camp in Fort Lee Historic Park sits on the cliff edge, with views straight across to Manhattan.

   Coming back from the Croton reservoirs and the river towns, the Palisades Interstate Parkway is the best way in, a wooded, curving road along the top of the cliffs with lookouts over the Hudson. Commercial vehicles are banned, which keeps it pleasant, but the police patrol it closely. The final stretch into Ridgefield is all junctions, lights and the approach roads to the bridge, which can lock solid at rush hour.

   Fuel in New Jersey is still pumped for you by an attendant by law, which surprises visitors; just stay on the bike, say regular, and let them work. Then go and find a Korean barbecue table in Palisades Park.

8. Back to Tarrytown Croton finish

   Garden City and Hempstead sit on Long Island's flat middle, far from the Croton reservoirs, in what was once a huge natural prairie called the Hempstead Plains. This was the only true prairie in the east, a grassland of tall grasses and wildflowers that stretched for miles, and nearly all of it has been covered by houses, shops and roads, with only small patches protected. It is a strange thing to ride across a landscape you know used to look like Kansas.

   Garden City was laid out in the late nineteenth century by the merchant Alexander Turney Stewart, who planned it as a model suburb with wide streets and substantial houses, and parts of that character are still visible in the leafy avenues and the big Gothic cathedral at its heart. The Hempstead Plains also became a cradle of aviation. Early flyers practised here, and in 1927 Charles Lindbergh took off from nearby Roosevelt Field on the first solo flight across the Atlantic, a moment recalled by a museum in the area.

   Riding in this part of Long Island is a matter of parkways, built in the early twentieth century under the planner Robert Moses with graceful curves, stone overpasses and landscaped verges, and notorious for their low bridges, which keep out buses and trucks. The Meadowbrook and Wantagh parkways head south to the ocean beaches. Traffic can be heavy at rush hour, and local drivers are impatient, so expect to be hurried.

   Everything you could want in the way of fuel and food is here, from bagels and pizza to Italian delis, diners and an enormous range of restaurants, and it is some of the easiest practical ground of the whole ride. The sea breeze moderates the heat in summer, but winter storms can bring heavy snow and ice, closing roads for a day or two.

   For a quiet moment, head out early, before the school run, and take the back roads through the older villages, where you can still find old farmhouses, cemeteries from the colonial period, and the odd stretch of wooded greenery. The Long Island Rail Road runs through, so watch for level crossings. The north shore, with its mansions and harbours, and the south shore, with its beaches, are each a short ride from here.

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