Philly to NYC

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Has anyone here ever taken this trip. I'm a bit new to cycling but I was wondering if anyone could tell me how they did it.

I live in the middle of New Jersey, and very familiar with the roads between Philly and New York. How much time do you have for the ride. There are some beautiful roads in NJ for cycling when you are between the cities, but the roads in north-east Jersey, can be very tricky. I wouldn't ride on them, and I've been cycling for over 30 years, including some riding in mid-town Manhatten during the middle of the day.

If I were to take the trip you are talking about, and didn't have time to take the scenic route ... I'd ride east out of Philly, over the Ben Franklin, take Rte. 30 east, pick-up Rte. 130 north, catch Rt. 1 north, merge with Rt.9 (becoming Rtes 1/9), and pray like hell from there ... getting over the Hudson River will be a challenge too.

If you have the time, basically follow Rt. 202 North out of west Philly (King Of Prussia) ... you'll have to find a route east from Rt. 202 once in north jersey ... Rt. 46 to the GW Bridge would be most direct, and very busy, but safer than the eastern route I mentioned..

Good luck ...

No offense to "the engine" but I live in North Jersey, and his suggestions will only get you killed.

It is illegal to ride a bicycle on a divided hiway in New Jersey. Routes. 1/9 and 46 are both divided hiways. Even if it were legal, riding a bike on 1/9 or 46 would be suicidal.

If I were you, I'd ride up to the Del Water Gap and into Sussex County, NJ. From there I'd ride the back roads through Sussex, Passaic and Bergen counties to Fort Lee. In Fort Lee you can ride over the George Washington Bridge to Manhattan, and pick up the Greenway for the trip downtown. Be advised that Northwestern New Jersey can be quite hilly. There are also some killer hills leading up to the George Washington Bridge.

If you don't want to ride across the Bridge, you can pick up River Road in Fort Lee and ride down to Weehawken. In Weekawken you can take the New York Waterway ferry over to Mid-Town. You will be charged $1 extra to take your bike on the ferry -- in addition to the normal fare.

My approach to going from Philadelphia to New York City was to skate every mile of it -- on inline skates. Also I did it in separate stages, not as one continuous multi-day tour -- when I got some time free with good weather, I'd skate another section -- finishing at a train station on the Northeast Corridor line of Amtrak + NJ Transit. Reports on details of each segment are linked from
this page of reports (http://www.roberts-1.com/sk8hv/v/2/nj/trenton/reports/06-reports.htm).

I used almost no bike paths -- mostly skated on the public roads except from some bridges over major rivers. The motion of skating tends to take more "width" than bicycling, so I worked pretty hard to find roads with less traffic (not always possible). The small wheels of inline skates don't work well on rough pavement, so I tried to find roads with better asphalt (not always possible). As a result I think the routes I describe in those reports are more complicated than what most bicycle tourers would want. But it might provide some ideas.

Along the way I saw:
* the golden dome of the New Jersey state capital
* the university campuses of Princeton and Rutgers
* exact "center of energy" of NJ transportation (crossing of Tpk + GSP)
* George Washington Bridge across the Hudson River
* Broadway, Riverside Drive, Central Park in Manhattan

Ken

P.S. Actually I'd rather ride from New York City to Albany -- either as a continuous whole tour or in different sections. I've repeated that as a continuous tour recently -- see this report (http://www.roberts-1.com/bikehudson/v/nyc_albany/main/reports/kenr_june-2007.htm).