Photo by Dr. Haus
Well, I decided to do something crazy and take a week off work to bike around 200 miles to Cape May. As with most of my ingenious plans, I decided to do this on a whim and thought to myself, I am sure I can make it.
Photo by Dr. Haus
Day 1 consisted of getting myself out of the "city" area and to the coast. For this trip, I wanted to follow the ocean as much as possible for the views and honestly mostly for the flatness/emptiness I would find there. That experience would come more the second and third days as I worked my way down the Jersey coast.
Photo by Dr. Haus
For this first leg of the journey, I used my GPS until I caught up with my coastal route. A friend of mine's friend created a route for me that started in Sandy Hook and went all the way down to Cape May. I didn't want to ride my bike to Sandy Hook to start the ride there out of sheer laziness. I wanted to decrease the amount of miles so decided to cut diagonally to the coast to pick up the route further south. It was about 42 miles of some nice trails and road riding to get to the coast.
Photo by Dr. Haus
I was able to take the Henry Hudson Trail for part of the journey which is a trail I absolutely want to get back to on a day that I am not grinding out a huge amount of miles. I would have enjoyed taking more time on this trail and enjoying all the sights and sounds. Thankfully my road bike did okay on the trail given that it had minimum gravel. I did have to cut through an orchard prior to the Henry Hudson trail which was tough because my road bike wasn't made for that. At one point I had to walk my bike a few yards due to sandy conditions and my bike sliding around like my Corolla on ice.
The other highlight of this first day was riding on the Capital to Coast Trail which was a beautiful ride where I got to see an old fashioned train slowly moving down the train tracks. This part of the journey was one of my favorites and I want to do this trail again when I am not on a crazy mission.
Photo by Dr. Haus
I stopped for lunch in Manasquan (lovely diner with lovely staff) and then hopped on my bike to get another 20-30 miles completed before the end of the day. This is where I realized that correlation does sometimes imply causation as my mood on the ride was directly correlated to whether I was climbing or riding on a flat road. I can now say with absolute certainty I made the correct choice in taking a slightly longer route to Cape May by taking the shore due to the general flat nature of the ride (minus the bridges from hell but don't worry, I will be complaining about them in every subsequent post as well). Let's just say the bridge into Tom's River from Seaside Heights is offensive and it can fall into the ocean and I wouldn't even care (of course with no one on the bridge, obviously).
🌉
The most interest aspect of the final part of this first leg was that once I got to the coast I entered the Jersey Shore ghost towns of the Fall/Winter season. It was a combination of amazing (for my introvert soul coupled with not wanting to get hit by a car) and eerie (for the part of me that watches too many crime-based shows). Being in a tourist town is not new to me, I lived in one for 1.5 years straight out of school and I was reminded of how much I love these towns in the off-season (and some of the annoyances that come with being in a tourist town off-season). This made for an excellently solitary ride to end my day that started in the bustle of the city and city drivers (aka, gross). I completed the night in Tom's River, quite a bit sore but very proud as I made it significantly further than I thought I would on Day 1 of the Biking to Cape May adventure. Catch you in the next one!
Photo by Dr. Haus
