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
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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 roberts-roberts-Open ↗
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
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
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.
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