While suburban sprawl has ruined a lot of the riding in the immediate environs of Trenton, superb road cycling is available less than half an hour away both east and north of Trenton (if you’re willing to throw your bike on a rack). Alternatively, you can use the canal for access to some lovely riding in the Delaware valley north of Washington’s Crossing.
This is a 19 mile cycling route through rolling horse country which is about as good as it gets. If you’re an experienced cyclist, it’s the sort of ride that’s perfect to do fast. The pavement is great, there’s almost no traffic, and there are just enough hills to keep it interesting. For inexperienced cyclists, the rolling hills will be somewhat challenging, but not exhausting.
Cycling out of the Delaware Valley into the rolling countryside surrounding Stockton and Sergeantsville, you could be forgiven for thinking you’d been beamed up to Vermont. It’s truly special. This is NOT a route for a novice rider. If you ride it all, it’s about 25 miles, and quite hilly.
The goal was to find an outstanding road cycling route as close as possible to Trenton. It’s only 20 minutes away: starting at the Delaware and Raritan Canal Park parking lot next to the Washington Crossing bridge. With an extension, it’s about 21 miles (or you can cut it to 12 with a short cut and skipping the extension). Virtually all of the roads get very little traffic. None are ugly, some are downright bucolic with gorgeous horse farms and extended views.
This is a lovely ride through rolling countryside in and around Stockton and Lambertville. The Route passes within a 100 yards of the Woods Edge Wools Farm
Riding a bicycle, walking the dog, or XC skiing in the winter, are all things you can do along the towpath of this superb “linear park”, which (with a few interruptions) connects Frenchtown to New Brunswick. It’s an easy ride on a MTB or hybrid, a bit more challenging (due to the occasional loose hard-pack) on a full-out road bike.
It still says “The Garden State” on our license plates, but in most parts of NJ it would really be more appropriate to say, “Suburban Sprawl State”. However, if you follow this ride, you may feel you’ve ridden through a time warp. While there is some recent development along the way, for the most part it looks like it did in 1960. And these roads touch on some of the most beautiful farmland and scenery you can imagine for Central NJ.
This isn’t the most beautiful cycling route on this website. However, it is a reasonably pleasant 26.5 mile route that starts and ends within the City of Trenton. It’s a particularly good ride for someone who’s looking for a decent, regular training ride where you don’t want to take the time to drive to the start.
In 2010, Mercer County merged 5 separate parks into the “Mercer Meadows, a 1,619 acre utopian park for walking, cycling, and wildlife observation. Primarily consisting of acres upon acres of wildflower meadows, it’s a beautiful place for an easy stroll or a relatively flat ride through some very pretty terrain. The heart of Mercer Meadows is … Continue reading Pole Tree Pasture
In the 1800’s, America relied upon canals (and the towpaths that ran alongside them) as a vital link in our transportation infrastructure. Until they were made obsolete by the rise of the railroad, canals provided one of the best ways to move goods (in our region that was often coal) from one area to another.
Two historical canals flank the Delaware River, and each has been turned into a state park (Pennsylvania’s Delaware Canal State Park and NJ’s Delaware & Raritan Canal State Park). They have gravel towpaths along the entire way, making for easy and beautiful cycling (provided you are on a mountain bike or hybrid–it will be harder on a road bike). That’s 130 miles of canal towpath, all intersecting in Trenton or Morrisville. It’s an utterly incredible local resource. My favorite trip is this lovely ride from Trenton/Morrisville to Lambertville/New Hope and back. The ride can be about 33 miles long, or about half that if you cross at Washington Crossing State Park instead of continuing all the way.
This is a charming (and generally easy) 6 mile ride which begins at Mercer County’s South Riverwalk Park (which sits above the Route 29 tunnel), goes through Trenton’s oft-forgotten Marine Terminal Park, through the Abbott Marshlands along a orphaned section of the Delaware and Raritan Canal trail, and all the way to downtown Bordentown. It’s a really charming ride, and it’s flat as can be for almost anyone. Plus, if you start in Trenton, you end up in Bordentown where you can get a nice bit of lunch before you cycle home.
There are many great ways to tour the hidden parts of Trenton. Everyone loves the Mill Hill House Tour, or the tours sponsored by The Contemporary Victorian Townhouse Museum. And of course, we’re particularly fond of our own self-guided tour of the battles of Princeton and Trenton. But one of my favorite new ways to take in … Continue reading Social Cycling
