The Ride
Whenever I have a ride planned to the other side of the Hudson River, a few riding buddies are always interested in coming along. Today was no different. Meeting my friend in Cross River, NY, I was onboard my BMW R1200GSA while he was on the R1250RT. While both bikes share the same basic engine layout of a boxer twin, my GSA is two generations behind. My bike with an 1170cc air/oil cooled motor put out 110 horsepower while my friend’s bike’s 1254cc water cooled engine generates 136 horsepower. My Beeline Moto’s compass pointed at our destination, indicating 78.9 miles in a straight line. Hopefully, I wouldn’t hold back my riding buddy too much with my >20HP power deficit. See our article on discovering new roads with Beeline.
We pointed our wheels west to match the compass along Route 35, aiming to cross the Hudson River at the Bear Mountain Bridge. Once past Yorktown, NY, we got on the Bear Mountain Parkway, which leads to Route 6/202, which climbs alongside the hills on the Hudson. We pass Camp Smith, home of the Army Reserve, as the road twists and turns with several elevation changes leading to the bridge. We pass the original tollhouse for the bridge along the popular route with local motorcyclists. The bridge was opened on November 27, 1924, and its 100th anniversary was just celebrated. Initially, the bridge and the road leading to it were private, so the tollhouse collected money for the upkeep. The bridge and the road were sold to the state in 1940, and the tollhouse was closed as tolls for the road ended, leaving just tolls on the bridge. Today, the bridge’s toll booths are also gone, leaving only the EZ-Pass sensors and license plate cameras to collect the fees for the bridge’s upkeep.
Across the bridge, we continued heading west, mostly along Route 6, which became more of a highway. We broke off near Chester, passing through the downtown alongside Valkyrie Coffee Roasters we’d previously visited. More backroads led us just outside of Middletown, NY, and then we climbed into the mountains northwest of it, passing through the villages of Otisville & Cuddebackville. Cuddebackville holds the title of the center of population in New York, according to the Census Bureau.
We passed Paradise, NY, alongside the Neversink River on Route 49 and then through Forestburg, NY, before we curved alongside the Mongaup Falls Reservoir that led us to Mohican Lake and Highland Lake just before we passed through Eldred. Tank of Coffee had previously visited Churchill After Hours in Eldred, NY, and it would be an excellent diversion if you were in the area.
One of the challenges of using a compass to get where you want is you don’t know which road you should take or even if the one you are on will still be a road. We ran into that case with only a handful of miles remaining to the coffee shop. The road turned into a seasonally maintained road. While it didn’t matter to me on the GSA, I stopped and offered to turn around for my friend on the RT. He said he didn’t mind, having done a lot of dirt bike riding in his younger years, so we continued as the path led down the hill we were on to let out on Route 97 as it hugged the Delaware River. With just about 5 miles left on Route 97, we turned off toward Narrowsburg and noticed the bridge heading into Pennsylvania, but we turned left onto Main Street to find 2 Queens Coffee just down the block.
We found parking on Main Street right in front of the coffee shop, and stopping the recording with Rever, we found we’d ridden 104.3 miles. See the route below.
The Coffee Shop
Narrowsburg is a hamlet in the western part of Tusten, NY. Located at the junction of Route 52 and 97, it sits on the Delaware River with the Narrowsburg-Darbytown Bridge, a prominent sight from anywhere in the hamlet. Narrowsburg is far from a bustling metropolis, with just 379 people in the 2020 census. But the small-town charm and the easily walkable downtown area make it worth the trip. Plus, the best motorcycle roads are far from major cities.
