new trails

Three days a week, I drive south on the Garden State Parkway and marvel at a rickety footbridge that passes overhead. At some point, it occurred to me, "OH! That must be the Manasquan Bike Path!" [It's formally known as the Edgar Felix Bike Path.) And, since it seemed to be on my way to and from Ocean County College, and since I like to try new places to in-line skate, I decided I'd stop and check it out at some point.

I read that the eastern portion (the beginning in Manasquan) was rough (not fun if you're on skates with unforgiving hard rubber wheels), so I began at the western portion (the ending in Allaire Village's parking lot).

At first, it was pretty enjoyable. There was some debris in the trail, a few annoying road crossings, nothing major. And then I arrived at the part I'd been looking forward to: the bridges over the Garden State Parkway!

Eagerly, I rolled one foot onto the bridge.

And almost fell over.

The wooden planks were UNEVEN, UNSTABLE, and had GIANT GAPS between some of them: my wheels kept getting caught!

(The video below is poorly shot and may make you dizzy. Watch at your own risk.)

If you watch that video, the "thunk th-thunk" sound is one of the loose planks making racket as I tap it with my foot. Timewise, because my one-handed video skills suck and you may not know what you're looking for, you can see it move around 0:07. NOTE THE TRAFFIC zooming below (at 65mph in a 55 zone. They just changed the speed limit from 65 to 55 within this past year, and drivers haven't embraced the change yet.).

After it became very clear that skating wasn't working, I managed to make my way across the bridge by grabbing a railing (see that thing in the top picture that's hanging in pieces? that.) and pulling myself across the bridge, hand over hand, slowly and very unsurely.

I repeated this procedure for the second bridge. (Two bridges for two directions of parkway traffic... and one median between them.)

On the way back, I actually took off my skates and walked across both bridges in my sock feet. I have never been desperate enough to do that before.

I didn't manage to do the whole trail. Shortly after a really obnoxious road crossing...

(I looked at this and said, "You've got to be KIDDING me"), the trail becomes so bumpy and gravel-like that skating without falling over becomes impossible. I turned around and headed back.

This is a bike path. It wasn't set up with Rollerbladers in mind.