This ride begins in the town of Belvidere, NJ, at a cozy little eatery known as Thisilldous. Paul and I meet up by chance en route there along I-287, while Walter Barlow meets up with PoPs at his house. Jon Kadis and Marc Fusco each find their own way there. So after a satisfying breakfast, the group departs Thisilldous (after sending Marc back to the most expensive Sunoco on the planet for about 1.5 gallons of fuel) and crosses the bridge into Pennsylvania with the intent of travelling north on River Rd. and eventually pass through Stroudsburg on 191. Well, Jon misses the turn (intentionally? :-) ) and continues straight. [Jon adds: It wasn't quite intentional. More like: cross the bridge, look right, "Oh so that's where River Rd is," realize that its too late to make the turn so I decide that there must be another decent right turn to make not too far up ahead and keep riding.] OK, the rest of us figure. We can't get lost because we have no particular destination in mind. A few miles down the road, we turn right onto some road that goes between a couple of corn fields. Eventually, after following this road across 611 (where we stopped for fuel), then across 512, and eventually to some T intersection. Turn right, and we find ourselves faced with dirt roads, which makes Marc immensely happy, but the rest of us rather upset. So we turn around, and head back the other way.

After meandering around the lake there, we eventually find ourselves on 191 north (which is where we'd intented to generally head in the first place) and head through Stroudsburg, and further north. Change to 447 then 390. We hang a right on some unnamed/numbered road shortly after passing under I-84, then take a left on 402 north. Follow this all the way to US 6, and head west for a brief bit, and take a right onto another unnamed/numbered road. Follow this road all the way to 590, and then take 590 east to the Roebling Bridge, and cross into NY. Turn left onto NY 97 and head north.

Eventually, we take a right onto county route 134 in Sullivan County, which becomes 28 in Delaware County. Now this road is good at some points, and pretty ratty at others. PoPs discovered this road on his way home from Sturgis. It dropped us at exit 89 on NY 17. Follow NY 17 east one exit to NY 30, stop for fuel, and head north on NY 30. This time, we didn't run into the one cop covering this half of Delaware County before getting to Downsville. Instead, as we're leaving Downsville, we pass by the police station and see a cop moving out of the lot (he was departing for patrol, not because of us), but he never followed us. Then, after crossing into Catskill Mountain Park, somewhere before all the really nice curves start, we pass by a DEP cop. As I'm considering passing a slow-moving pickup truck, something in my mind repeated what Jon had said back at the Sunoco station... "Always check 6:00." Sure enough, there was the DEP cop, following us. No lights, though, so we proceed... at 60 MPH. Several curves in, he's still back there. Eventually, PoPs moves ahead and pulls the group over, and fortunately, the DEP cop continues on.

Wait about ten minutes, and then continue on. We joked about how the DEP cop is probably just over the next rise waiting for us... well, not quite... more like a few curves ahead. This time, however, he didn't follow us. The plan is now to stop for lunch in Andes at the pizza place we found last time, then loop back on County 1 and re-run 30. Not quite. The pizza shop is closed (close at noon on Sunday), so we eat at a place called Cassie's Kitchen. Finish lunch, and head out. This time, we found the turn we missed last time and found the rest of this route to be recently paved and pretty good. Now we come to an intersection where we can either turn left or go straight. We go straight. We should've turned left. It didn't matter. [Jon adds: Paul was leading with Joe O. behind. They stopped at the intersection and were discussing which way to go. I pulled up and signaled straight. I was wrong. That's what you get for listening to me. About a mile down the road I realized that I was wrong but the road was OK and had to come out somewhere and it wouldn't be easy to try to turn the lead bikes around so we rode on.] This road (Coles Clove Rd) was plenty fun, despite being a bit ratty in a few spots. It changed into Basin Clove Rd and then brought us to NY 10. Again... we're not lost... we just wanted to head in a general direction.

We follow NY 10 a bit and then turn left onto county 26, and follow county 26 back into Downsville. Stop for fuel (and a quart of oil for Paul), and then we try NY 30 again. This time we successfully get through without interference. Hang a right onto the NY 28/NY 30 combo, and follow NY 28 from there. Detour onto old NY 28 (kinda has to happen when someone from the fire department directs you there. Eventually, we find our way to county 47, and follow that south. Follow 47 to county 157 to county 19, and eventually wind up on NY 55 east. Head to the Roundout Reservoir and figure to follow either NY 55 or NY 55A, based on traffic when we get to the split. Well, since the cager in front went on NY 55, we went on NY 55A. Only scare was another DEP cop, but he didn't seem to do anything. Rejoin NY 55, and follow it to US 209. Stop for fuel, and find our way to NY 52 east.

Follow NY 52 to county 89, then to county 52, and then county 14. Hop on and off NY 17K to get to NY 211 and NY 416. Meet with NY 207 and follow a whole bunch of other roads, eventually finding ourselves on the eastern shore of Greenwood Lake, and cross back into NJ. A short stop at the dam by the Wanaque Reservoir, and we basically part ways, even though we start out going the same way. (Jon, could you please provide the details of the roads in this area?) [Jon adds: From NY 207 we went down Eggerstown Rd. (Orange Co. 77) After that we crossed Sarah Wells Tpk. and got onto Craigville Rd. (OC 51). We did a quick left-right across NY 94 and got onto Harscrapple Rd, which became Oxford Rd. That dumped us out onto NY 17M. We went east for for a bit and got onto Bull Mill Rd. Bull Mill ended at Laroe Rd. (OC 45) We went left until the road ended at Orange Co. 5. OC 5 runs into NY 17A in Greenwood Lake. We went around the lake on East Shore Drive and then onto Passaic Co. 511 to the Stonetown Dam. If you look at the map, its nearly a straight line south from Montgomery to the dam.]

Some of the roads were really good. There were a few that haven't been paved since the Revolutionary War, and a few that haven't been repaved since the Civil War. Look for a bunch of these roads to appear in future nj-cycles rides.

When we were moving on many of the good roads, I would guess that our average speed was about 70-75 MPH (not counting small towns, detours, etc).

Until the next installment...

Go back to:

The Lost Boys index

the ride index

my homepage