Frenchtown - Coffeetown - Easton

Delaware River looking North from Riegelsville, PA

One day last fall, as I was geeking out on road maps, I found myself looking at the ridge above the Delaware River, northwest of Riegelsville, on the Pennsylvania side.  There were road names up there that I needed to ride on.

I'd been wanting to see where the Lehigh and the Delaware Rivers meet, too.  If I were to start a ride in Frenchtown, I could get up to the ridge and see the rivers.

I didn't get around to coming up with a route until January, but even that was just a draft.  I'd probably have to drive up there first.  Then JeffX took a solo loop from Frenchtown to Easton.  He came back with pictures.

One thing led to another, and within a week the two of us had hatched the plan.

Four of us made the trip, which was the perfect number for an exploratory ramble like this.

Jim, always fast with the blogging fingers, posted his summary of the ride before his saddle got cold. Me, I got caught up in other stuff. So, instead of boring you with narrative, I'll bore you with pictures.

I put most of the hills in the first 20 miles.  The biggest one that I knew about was Bridgeton Hill in Upper Black Eddy, 4 miles into the ride.  The rest was unknown territory.

Bridgeton Hill Road is a beast, but it lets up in the middle.  This was the best time of year to climb it because, with no leaves on the trees, we could look down to the river far below us.

Lonely Cottage and Frogtown Roads were the only ones that approximated flat once we reached the ridge.

For the first time since the fall of 2010, I was in my granny gear.  'Nuff said.

This is the view from the top of Buckwampum Road:

When I got up here, JeffX asked if I was going to take any pictures.  Not having eaten or slept much or well over the preceding few days (combine tinnitus with TMJ and see for yourself), I didn't have much to pull from.  So I said, "Let me try to stop feeling like I'm gonna throw up first."

 
Just past where Joe is standing, the road dipped down again.

JeffX would ride ahead and stop, telling me where I needed to take pictures.

We turned onto Gallows Hill.  I had Led Zeppelin's Gallows Pole stuck in my head for the rest of the ride.

This view is probably from Gallows Hill, but it might be somewhere along Durham Road.  It was a this point, I think, that everyone realized we were on a poky sort of ride that was going to be stopping a lot for pictures.  We needed to catch our breath anyway.

This is the hill that made me use my granny gear.  Jim didn't get enough of a running start and had to turn around and try again.  I think we were on Durham Road at this point.

If I could dye my hair any color, I'd dye it the color of this Durham Road chicken.  Seriously. 

And, now, the reason I dragged everyone up into these hills:  Coffeetown Road.  It led from the ridge to the river.

We backtracked a little along the river in order to stop at a small market.  Then we headed north again.  Up here the canal was empty because of construction.  The towpath, more of a moonscape than a trail, had been washed out by spring storms a handful of years ago.  It was a scar between us and the Delaware River.

The road got busier, the woods giving way to industry.  We were in Easton.  JeffX pointed to a park on the right.  We pulled in and I grabbed my camera.  

Lehigh, Delaware.  Delaware, Lehigh:

We crossed the Lehigh into the city center, to another park along the water.  From here, we could see the Lehigh spill into the Delaware.

Jim and Joe amused themselves with a cannon.

We crossed the Delaware into Phillipsburg.  Jim was in awe of the old buildings.  I didn't stop for pictures, and I regret it.

A hairpin turn under a tall railroad bridge put us on a hill again.  We didn't see the river for a while.

When we did, Jim was in his favorite place, a stretch of road he'd only seen once, last summer, on the Anchor House ride.  He'd been pining for it ever since.  We were west of Bloomsbury, just north of where the Musconetcong River meets the Delaware on the New Jersey side.

We crossed the Delaware once more in Riegelsville so that we could ride a stretch of the Pennsylvania side that I'd never been on.

After that, we made a bee-line for Bridgeton, crossed the Delaware one last time in Milford, and headed back to Frenchtown.


This was one of those rides that I don't do much of anymore, one where we stop to look at everything and don't give a tinker's damn rat's patootie about the pace or what time we'll be home.  And it was fun, all of it.  We can't ride like this every weekend, and we shouldn't.  But when we do, it's worth it.

And nothing went wrong with Miss Piggy, either.