This Department is conducted in the interest of Bicyclers, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on the subject. Our maps and tours contain many valuable data kindly supplied from the official maps and road-books of the League of American Wheelmen. Recognizing the value of the work being done by the L.A.W., the Editor will be pleased to furnish subscribers with membership blanks and information so far as possible.
Copyright, 1896, by Harper & Brothers.
The difficulty of getting out of New York city by proceeding directly north, and the fact that there are only two suitable roads, which makes bicycling out of New York in time monotonous, can be obviated by crossing the Hudson and proceeding by several good roads up its western bank. For the next few weeks, therefore, we shall give in this Department maps of the country along the Hudson as far as Newburg.
The map this week includes Hoboken, Jersey City, the marshes back of these cities, and the roads as far north as Englewood. There are several ways of starting from New York into this country. You can cross the Hoboken Ferry at either Barclay, Christopher, or Fourteenth Street to Hoboken, and go out of the city direct to the Hudson County Boulevard, which is the best road running north. By an examination of the map the rider will easily pick out the different ways to reach the boulevard. It is perhaps wiser to cross from Fourteenth Street, as the ferry lands in Hoboken further uptown; but it is possible to ride from any of the ferries northward, keeping generally to the left into West Hoboken; thence to the boulevard, by Scheutzen Park, leaving Union on the eastward, passing through New Durham and by Guttenburg to Fairview, and thence to Ridgefield. The Northern Railroad of New Jersey should always be to the westward, and the road itself runs along the side of the hill, which rises to the Palisades. The Hackensack marshes are across the river to the left going north. At Ridgefield the rider may either continue on through Leonia and Nordhoff, running direct into Englewood, or he may turn to the left across the Northern road, crossing a branch of the Hackensack afterwards, and running along its bank, finally crossing the West Shore road and the main river, keeping to the right at Little Ferry, and running direct into Hackensack. It is then possible to proceed northward from Hackensack through Fairmount and Cherry Hill, or to run eastward through Tea Neck to Nordhoff, thence turning to the left northward on the boulevard, and running into Englewood. From Hoboken the rider, if he is going westward towards Passaic, should cross the West Shore road at Tyler Park or at Scheutzen Park, running direct to Secaucus, and thence cross the marshes and the river into Rutherford and direct to Passaic.
It is also possible to cross the ferry at Fort Lee, but there is a long hill which it is foolish for any one to ride, rising for something over a mile. The rider may either follow the bank of the river and run along a good road through Linwood, turning to the left to run into Englewood, or he may proceed to Leonia, and there turn northward to Englewood. The black roads on the map are in almost every case good roads, and especially in and around Englewood, Tea Neck, Nordhoff, and to the north of these towns the roads are in capital condition. Of course time may be saved, if the wheelman lives uptown in New York, by crossing at Fort Lee, but he must remember that he has to rise between 250 and 300 feet above the river at once, and this necessitates a long walk. The Fort Lee Ferry leaves New York at 125th Street.
Thebe is still another way of crossing, which is from the 42d Street Ferry to Weehawken. On arriving at the Weehawken Ferry the rider should make at once by the shortest roads for the Hudson County Boulevard, as it is distinctly the best wheeling road in that vicinity.