Sharon and I did a tour from New York to Pennsylvania by way of northern New
Jersey. We were surprised by how pretty and pleasant and easy it was on our
roads thru New York and New Jersey, given some posts on this newsgroup that
view crossing New Jersey as a "problem". Our experience was that the
toughest section was in Pennsylvania.
I suspect our experience was positive because we mostly stayed off major
roads, and followed the major valleys north-south instead of trying to go
east-west and "fight" the geology of the region. Along the way we saw many
pretty farms (some being worked as we past, like baling hay) and animals,
including lots of horses, a few cows, two wild turkeys, no camels, and one
elephant.
So to provide some ideas for future tour planning, below are some of the
roads we took from Wallkill NY to Bethlehem PA.
Ken
_________________________________________________
Wallkill NY to Sussex NJ to Bethlehem PA
Wallkill NY is in the valley of the Wallkill River, which flows into the
Hudson River at Kingston NY. There are several ways to connect to Wallkill
from New Paltz and Kingston or Poughkeepsie. For some routes we've used see
http://roberts-1.com/bikehudson/r/p/w/u/np_wv/map
In the sequence of roads below, the direction of each road is roughly
southwest or south, unless otherwise specified. I've specified a few of the
roads as "beautiful", and most of the rest were at least moderately pretty.
We rode it on the weekend -- of course some traffic patterns and volumes are
usually different on mid-week days.
From Wallkill in Ulster county, we rode . . .
- 208 (alongside the Wallkill River) into Walden NY in Orange county.
- 52 West to S Montgomery St - Orange County OC 29 (beautiful)
- 17K East into Montgomery NY, some local streets to
- east on Goodwill Rd to Beaver Dam Rd to Neelytown Rd
- 207 a short ways East (high-speed high-traffic)
- Hamptonburgh Rd
- Sarah Wells Trail (beautiful)
- Main St - 207 into Goshen NY (nice food stop)
- West Main St, then Rt 6 / 17M (high speed traffic but wide shoulders) a
short ways West to Police Dr (but it's one-way northeast-bound) or Maple Ave
- Maple Ave (Orange cty 31 + 37?) gets beautiful, turns west
- Onion Ave past non-onion farms, turn curves west with steep climb up to
big view east-ward
- short ways on Rt 12, then second left onto
- Pierce Circle (beautiful past the actual onion farms), leading to a mile
of dirt-gravel on Lyman Ave
- T at Turtle Bay and turn West back to
- Rt 12
- west on 62 a short ways, first left onto
- ? Lain Rd ? very steep climb (could have been avoided, with more traffic
on Rt 12 and Rt 1, but it was definitely worth going at least to the base of
the climb to see the beautiful farm which was once a rest stop on the
popular Country Roads bicycle tour. We just got off and walked our tandem
bike up the climb, then enjoyed the pretty descent).
- Lower Rd (beautiful), and continue straight across State Line Rd
New Jersey -
- 284 (high-speed high-traffic, but decently wide traffic lane plus some
shoulder) into Sussex boro NJ (we re-fueled decadently in a "just desserts"
shop we found off the main road)
- 639 and 565 (high-traffic, but mostly wide lanes with reasonable
shoulders), all the way to
- 206 South (high-speed high-traffic, but wide lanes with wide shoulder)
into big shopping area just north of Newton NJ (? perhaps much of this and
the next hill-climb could have been avoided by turning west just south of
626 onto the dirt-cinder Paulins Kill Valley rail trail ?)
- west on Park Rd (turn comes by Shop-Rite supermarket near Home Depot) up
hill, then straight across onto
- Plotts Rd, at bottom of descent just before railroad underpass turn left
onto
- Junction Rd (parallel to rail trail), straight across Rt 622 onto
- Paulins Kill Valley rail trail (dirt-cinder) (beautiful above the narrow
lake)
- walk bike down steep hill to South Shore Dr and continue along the lake
(we had a pleasant picnic with dessert food leftover from our stop in Sussex
boro)
- Kohlbocker Rd
- right onto 610, then bear left to pass by 619 and continue on 610 into
Stillwater NJ (where we re-fueled)
- 521 (Maple Ave - Stillwater Rd) all the way into Blairstown NJ
- 94 (high traffic but mostly wide shoulders) all the way to junction with
Interstate 80 (a few years ago we rode on prettier and quieter alternate
roads south of and parallel to 94)
- tricky traffic lane crossings (wouldn't want to do it in heavy traffic),
look for exit for "Columbia"
- northwest into Columbia NJ
- left on Green St
- across the Delaware River on pedestrian bridge
into Portland PA
Pennsylvania -
Here it gets tricky and hillier. I hope some local rider with much more
experience will suggest some improvements for this part. We don't much
enjoy 512 to Bangor, and we really really dislike riding on this section of
611. So we took a route which is more complicated. We ride this next
section a couple of times a year in the opposite direction, which is why
we're not sure what the signs and road names will look like, since we rode
sorta "by feel". But I think it's OK to miss a turn and end up on different
roads, as long as we head generally west, do not hit 611, and eventually
find 512. It might help to look for painted white arrows with "GG".
- south a little in Portland PA to traffic light
- Right on State St for 0.4 mile
- Right just before crossing creek by an old mill (before reaching Rt 611)
onto ? Jacoby Creek Rd ? or Boulder Dr ? about 0.5 mile
- Left on (unsigned?) Middle Village Rd across creek
- immediate Right onto Jacoby Creek Rd, which later passes by Railroad Ave,
crosses a one-lane bridge and becomes Million Dollar Highway, for a total of
1.4 miles.
- Left on Heiden Rd (opposite Audubon Rd) for 1.8 miles to its end at
Lillian Lane near Rt 512.
We don't ride the next section very often in either direction, so there's
probably a better route. Normally we would avoid more of 512 and get some
big views by riding the road to the right and take Ridge Rd between here and
Bangor, but that's a lot more climbing. This time we tried turning Left on
Lillian Lane a short ways, to 512 West up a hill half a mile to traffic
light, then Five Points - Richmond Rd south about 2 miles, turn Right onto
(unsigned) Locke Heights Rd, and use Springfield Rd and Flicksville Rd to
get to Rt 191 South. 191 gets some high-speed traffic, but has a wide
traffic lane, plus usually some sort of shoulder. We know prettier quieter
alternative (more complicated) roads to the west of 191, but we were tired
by then. So we took 191 thru Stockertown and Nazareth to finish in
Bethlehem.
Another idea for connecting with Portland PA is to stay close to the
Delaware River. We've enjoyed riding south on the Pennsylvania side as far
as Riverton - Belvidere. After that we find it's generally better to avoid
Pennsylvania and continue south along the Delaware on the New Jersey side.
_____________________________________