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Bike Trails: New Jersey
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NJ & PA Bike Trails
This summer and early fall we
spent almost every weekend riding our mountain bikes totaling 850 miles on
various trails in the local NJ and PA areas. We were pleasantly surprised by
the number of trails that existed right in “our own backyard” spanning the
gamut from the lesser known (and one of our personal favorites) Ironton Rail
Trail to the more popular Delaware & Raritan Canal and Delaware &
Lehigh Canal Trails.
New Jersey
Our early rides of the year in
June were on trails within a half hour drive from our house, like this 9 mile
Union Transportation Trail. As was the case for almost all of the trails we
were on, this mileage is one-way, so for us to ride out and back, the total
mileage was twice that.
On Father’s Day weekend we did
a 10 mile section of the 69.5 mile Delaware & Raritan Canal Trail. The ride on the tow path along the
Raritan Canal was very scenic. In addition to fish swimming in the canal and
turtles sunbathing on logs, the path also cut through a golf course and passed
by a lake skirted with lovely homes.
Our ride on a clear hot day at
Sandy Hook provided a great view of New York City (photo on left). Surprisingly
the trail also had bike maintenance stations equipped with an air pump, bike
stand, and various tools such as Allen wrenches and pedal wrenches for
emergency repairs (photo on right).
Although most of the time we
did easy rides on relatively flat and wide paved or cinder trails, occasionally
we would put our mountain biking skills to the test and venture onto more
challenging hilly, twisty, bumpy, rutty, and narrow dirt single-track. Click
the following link to view a video of Mo in action on the “tougher“
terrain in Turkey Swamp Park.
A 10 mile loop ride at Duke’s
Farm in early September featured the most amazing display of greenhouse orchids
we ever saw!
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