Today’s plan was to get to Highlands, the northernmost point of the Jersey Shore, in time to catch the ferry to Manhattan at noon. This late in the season, the ferries from the shore are very infrequent, so if I missed it at noon it would be 4PM before I could catch one.
To take advantage of the shoreline, I planned to ride along the boardwalks and beachfront roads as much as possible.
Seemed like a good idea when I drew up the map, but on this particularly day I had to ride into a stiff and persistent headwind, 20 knots or more. There were not a lot of options to get where I was going, but I wound up popping off the shoreline to take parallel roads which were a bit less exposed to the wind.
The Jersey Shore off-season is kind of grim. The communities which were wiped out by Superstorm Sandy back in 2007 were rebuilt by disaster capital, bigger and gaudier than before.
It was sort of an odd way to be finishing a Climate Ride. The barrier islands which protect the East Coast mainland are naturally resilient; the sand is deposited from river flows, dispersed outwards by wave action, and the islands quickly move inwards or outwards with changes in sea level. That works fine until you go and draw property lines and build a town on top of them. Despite all the engineering that’s gone into jetties and seawalls along the shore, there will be another big storm that takes most of the stuff out again. Or just high tides that flood everything, as I experienced on a visit in 2019.
Riding through that environment, past the landscaping workers edging lawns and blowing leaves into the wind, was a little disorienting. Seabright was even worse; the riprap seawall was rebuilt higher after Sandy, so the beach isn’t visible from the road. Private property signs abound.
I was glad to reach Sandy Hook, which is a National Recreation Area with a more natural feel, and my first views of New York City. There’s tent camping at Sandy Hook, which would be a nice bike overnight from Jersey.
The ferry terminal is in Highlands, which is also more of a real place, an old seafaring community and fort town.
Ferry rides in New York City are always dramatic. (Except the Statue of Liberty is in New Jersey, people from New Jersey will tell you).
My timing was good; just as I landed at East 35th Street, Nancy finished up with her friend at the United Nations on 42nd. We met at a cafe and reunited for the first time in a week over a bagel and a spritz flight.
Then, off on East Side Greenway headed uptown.
The East Side Greenway has some nice sections, but isn’t as coherent as the West Side; there were a number of detours, and places where I had to take city streets.
The “protected” left-side bike lane on 1st Avenue is terrifying, between the left-turning cars and the both-directions food delivery workers on e-bikes. The traffic lanes are better. I am fine with low-speed chaos.
After seeing Summer of Soul, I wanted to visit Marcus Garvey Park, which I never had done growing up as a white kid from the suburbs. I think the park has changed a lot since 1969, so it was hard to orient to the scenes in the movie. But it was good to see some neighborhood activity going on.
More generally, I’d never ridden through Harlem. Near the Apollo Theater I passed the intersection of MLK and Malcom X (125th Street and Lenox), where there’s now a Whole Foods and a Starbucks. I also unexpected rolled through Sugar Hill, which of course put Rapper’s Delight in my head.
Getting onto the George Washington Bridge on a bike is tricky, but once you’ve found the path, it’s better than any of the Bay Area bridges.
Dropping into Fort Lee on the Jersey side, I picked up River Road and headed towards Jersey City. It was an arterial without much of a shoulder, so I got into commute mode and hammered. I had to stop a few times for views of the city across the Hudson.
Through Weehawken into Hoboken, then across Jersey City to my bother’s place on the west side, and the trip was done!