[Ken Roberts]

I've been out riding my favorite big steep hills in west + north NJ. They're still a good interesting challenge for me. Main thing I've noticed this year is that some of them have gotten better:

* Fiddlers Elbow: lower half was torn up for construction in springtime, but now it's been repaved better than ever. And the new paving of the upper half from last August has settled in nicely.

* Barry Dr (big interesting climb up north of Vernon + Highland Lakes into the NY state border) has been nicely repaved.

Hard for me to remember any of my usual climbs that's in bad condition any more.

So I'm waiting for a non-hot day to try my big link-up of steep climbs out west, like 15000 vertical feet total for the day, including 6000 ft in sections with steepness at 12% grade.

Not a "favorite", but . . .

* Washington Av / rt 529 in the southwest Watchung up from rt 22 near Dunellen has been nicely re-paved. (next road east from Warrenville Rd). I never used to ride it because it's not as wide as Warrenville Rd and has at least one section with questionable visibility with overtaking cars + trucks. But now it seems a little bit wider than before, and I find I sometimes climb it at times of low traffic.
(but the gentle connection from its top to the top of Washington Rock Rd has nasty erosion and potholes, worse than ever).

Ken

 

[jkmacman]

alpine climb, alpine climb, alpine climb

if i only had 1 hr left to live, i'd cycle river rd aka henry hudson dr

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/37778610

i cycle river rd most tuesday mornings, albeit where this pic was taken is not on my weekly route

 

[fiddlers25]

Ken,

re Barry Drive, is it paved all the way from Rt. 94 to Highland Lakes? i never went that way before, njbikemap.com has it marked unpaved.

 

[jkmacman]

my harriman loop

put this one up already under devil kichen thread, but it's a keeper. when i get my road bikes dialed in, i hope to do this routeunde 2 hours

https://connect.garmin.com/activity/38266937

topo 8

for the xterra folks...
dig the appy trail on the topo 8. park the car at lautenberg ctr in sterling forest, bike to lake tiorata for a swim, lock/leave the bike near lake tiorata and trail run appy trail back to sterling forest/lautenberg ctr:thumbsup:


<iframe width='465' height='548' frameborder='0' src='https://connect.garmin.com:80/activity/embed/38266937'></iframe>

<i>annie gone fishing</i>

 

[NJcycler]

here is my loop

I did this ride yesterday. Over 4000' climbing in just under 49 miles. I was going to go and do Barrett Rd in to Highland Lakes but the possible threatening weather, humidity was brutal so I cut my distance down.
Holland Mountain still is one of my favorites. I did the math and the main climb avg is 8.3% with the max in the high teens.
The bottom of Glen Rd Sparta is an avg of 5.4% with the max in that 10% range.
Drew Mountain is in that avg of 5.4% with Max low teens. Maybe 13%.
The over 3 mile downhill on Rt 515 in to Vernon is so much fun. Speeds low to mid 40's just rolling. Some steep dangerous curves on it before Breakneck RD. Then you can tuck and fly.

I plan on doing Barrett and Iron Mountain very soon.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/38351206

 

[jkmacman]

I did this ride yesterday. Over 4000' climbing in just under 49 miles. I was going to go and do Barrett Rd in to Highland Lakes but the possible threatening weather, humidity was brutal so I cut my distance down.
Holland Mountain still is one of my favorites. I did the math and the main climb avg is 8.3% with the max in the high teens.
The bottom of Glen Rd Sparta is an avg of 5.4% with the max in that 10% range.
Drew Mountain is in that avg of 5.4% with Max low teens. Maybe 13%.
The over 3 mile downhill on Rt 515 in to Vernon is so much fun. Speeds low to mid 40's just rolling. Some steep dangerous curves on it before Breakneck RD. Then you can tuck and fly.

I plan on doing Barrett and Iron Mountain very soon.

https://connect.garmin.com/activity/38351206

cool loop thanks for sharing

you route passed next to mdr which boast the highest peak in morris county 1300', unfortuantly an mtb buddy of mine busted their collar bone there this week-end. i cycled there this past winter on the mtb trails and a bit of weldon rd. albeit the mtbing was not so good w/several feet of snow, but at least the snow would soften any impending fall. good place for the x-c ski:thumbsup:

mdr in the winter

 

[NJcycler]

cool loop thanks for sharing

you route passed next to mdr which boast the highest peak in morris county 1300'

MDR? Mahlon Dickerson?
there are all kinds of trails off Holland Mountain RD. there is a lot of woods back there with no civilization. I think the elevation up there ranges 1200' - 1300'.

I was trying to find the name of the peak.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Morris_County,_NJ,_highest_point.jpg


found it
Bowling Green Mountain. 8th highest in the state.
http://www.mountainzone.com/mountains/detail.asp?fid=6762256

 

[Ken Roberts]

Barry Drive, is it paved all the way from Rt. 94 to Highland Lakes?

Yes, for several years at least. I've ridden it between Breakneck Rd and rt 94 lots of times.

njbikemap.com has it marked unpaved.

Maybe there's some confusion with the Wawayanda road?

Ken

P.S There's a long-term problem with the njBikeMap.com project:
Roads keep changing.
If you don't know the year of observation for each piece of on-line data, it's hard to know how much to worry that it might have changed.
Most bicycling info that I put on-line is given with the year I last checked it -- like this.

 

[Ken Roberts]

I plan on doing Barrett and Iron Mountain very soon.

Another hill in that area that I like is Glenwood Mountain Rd (both sides). I like to connect to Glenwood from Iron Mt + Barry/Barrett with little or no use of rt 94 (not wide in that area) by riding on Canal Rd (dirt).

Ken

 

[Ken Roberts]

NJ Death Ride

Looks like Wednesday is promising as my big day for steeps. I was talking with Glen, and he's planning to drive from Philadelphia that day to do his own version on some of the same hills. He's training for a big climbing event out in California.

I was noticing that my set of climbs last year around Musconetcong and Montana [map] has about the same total vertical and distance as the famous Markleeville Death Ride in California -- around 15400 feet and 122 miles. Also like Markleeville, I'm going to ride more than once on some of the same roads, but only once in the uphill direction of each climb.

Two differences:
* NJ version has 20-30 climbs (versus 5 for California) -- so for most people it makes sense to use a GPS to do NJ.

* NJ version is steep -- includes 6000 vertical feet in sections at 12% grade or more. The California course has very little at 12% -- around three-quarters of their climbing is under 8% grade -- just long warmup hills by New Jersey standards.

Ken

 

[jkmacman]

Not to go on a tangent from the op but since the infamous death ride was mentioned I wanted to mention that team in training head cycling coach arnie baker has an ebook available with specifc detail including training regiment for this ride as well as high intensity training ebook

 

[jkmacman]

up from sea level: 0 to 468

did the river road again today and took the old trek 5600 (2003) post office bike 54 cm. after riding the 2007 giant tcr advanced medium in harriman over the week end, the trek felt like a perfectly worn into shoe. i am getting new set of neuvations tomorrow (for the trek) specificly for cycling river road (its very bumpy)

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/38592940

 

[fiddlers25]

Yes, for several years at least. I've ridden it between Breakneck Rd and rt 94 lots of times.


Maybe there's some confusion with the Wawayanda road?

Ken

the njbikemap guy just hasn't made it out there in awhile i suppose. i sent him email once on a section in morris that he had marked as dirt that is no longer dirt and he made the update.

what about iron mountain road, is that paved all the way till the road ends at wawayanda rd.? does it stay paved from that intersection back up towards Barry? is it paved from that Iron Mtn. intersection east to Warwick Turnpike? I'd like to do those roads but it's a bit far away and I've been avoiding it because I don't like riding on dirt. thanks much for the help, and also for putting all that climbing info on your website.

 

[jkmacman]

the njbikemap guy just hasn't made it out there in awhile i suppose. i sent him email once on a section in morris that he had marked as dirt that is no longer dirt and he made the update.

what about iron mountain road, is that paved all the way till the road ends at wawayanda rd.? does it stay paved from that intersection back up towards Barry? is it paved from that Iron Mtn. intersection east to Warwick Turnpike? I'd like to do those roads but it's a bit far away and I've been avoiding it because I don't like riding on dirt. thanks much for the help, and also for putting all that climbing info on your website.

hope to head up to wayway w/mtb some day

here this route has 2 good hills, actually one decent one and one little one, (i think it might have been on gravel, i remember a dude fell going up it, two rides with him and twice he fell

btw: waughaw rd, was the big climb , apshawa cross rd was the smaller climb
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/25123498

<iframe width='465' height='548' frameborder='0' src='http://connect.garmin.com:80/activity/embed/25123498'></iframe>


south jersey (maybe one hill on this route), nice route accross from philly through riverwinds, they have a good sprint tri there i did their first one
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/29829771

 

[fiddlers25]

btw: waughaw rd, was the big climb , apshawa cross rd was the smaller climb
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/25123498

yes waughaw has a really steep part. this weekend i did a route in the same area as yours with a couple extra climbs: http://ridewithgps.com/routes/106363

 

[NJcycler]

did the river road again today and took the old trek 5600 (2003) post office bike 54 cm. after riding the 2007 giant tcr advanced medium in harriman over the week end, the trek felt like a perfectly worn into shoe. i am getting new set of neuvations tomorrow (for the trek) specificly for cycling river road (its very bumpy)

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/38592940

that looks like a nice climb. I did the math based off your Garmin data. I have 2 sets of numbers. The second set is the climb past the downhill at the top to the next top of the climb.

1. First peak
Climb 412
distance - 3854' (.73 miles)
412/3854 *100 = 10.7% avg for the climb. Thank god it is short.

2. Second Peak
Climb 434'
distance - 6758' (1.28 miles)
434/6758 *100 = 6.4% avg for the climb.
Very respectable climb.

 

[Ken Roberts]

what about iron mountain road, is that paved all the way till the road ends at wawayanda rd.?

No. And even if you wanted to ride higher on Iron Mt Rd on dirt (My road bike works for riding on dirt) -- the continuation seemed like a big mess when I tried it last year -- not really ridable -- unless you include carrying.

So the connection between Barry / Barrett and Breakneck / Highland Lakes is in great shape (as of last summer), but Iron Mt doesn't seem to connect well with anything.

What's funny is that when I look at aerial photos on Google Earth, I see very plausible breaks in the trees where Iron Mt Rd ought to run -- but the surface between the trees hasn't been maintained, at least on the NY end.

The SW end of Wawayanda Rd turns to dirt soon after it splits away from Barry Dr. I've tried the NE end of Wawayanda in New York: Starts paved, didn't seem steep enough to seem worth trying again. I don't remember what happens on the NE end after the paved surface ends.

Ken

 

[jkmacman]

alpine climb only

The data I posted earlier is not from garmin, i simply loaded it on garmin site. its recorded on android w/mytracks. i replaced the header and uploaded to garmin.

here's the alpine climb, as recorded on a garmin edge 305 (it's more accurate then my garmin foreunner 405 i used before using mostly android, i also have delorme pn-40 mostly for off-road)

this route is sometimes used by century road club for there club tt
http://www.crca.net/

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/8391929

<i>climb starts here at sea level as you can see the pic of the hudson river as taken from same spot as previous pic of the rier rd </i>

 

[Ken Roberts]

the alpine climb

Yes it's about the best training hill close to Manhattan.
But often the surface is kinda eroded. How is it now?

Ken

 

[Ken Roberts]

Great day riding up + down hills on Wednesday, wonderful weather, not too hot, dry, blue skies.
Pretty much every steep hill on the Musconetcong + Montana ridges, plus a few more on the Pohatcong ridge between them [area map]

Glen come up from Philadelphia, he started later, we stayed in touch by phone, finally met at the top of the Halfway House climb on Montana. Chatted a while, rode on Coleman Hill together, then met again on Lommason Glen / Buckhorn climb -- chatted some more, then he headed south to get back to his closer-to-Philadephia parking spot.

My total for the day was around 17500 vertical feet -- more than 3 miles vertical. Including like 6800 vertical feet steep -- in sections of 12% grade or more. Without repeating any climbs.
(This set of climbs plus 4 more at the end.)

A bit bigger and much steeper than any of the climbing events I've heard of in the western U.S. -- Markleeville Death Ride, Shasta Summit Century, RAMROD.

Great that we have such a set of climbs here in New Jersey. In the midst of such pretty farm country.

Ken