Part of my Jersey Shore experience, aside from bodysurfing, gin & tonics, pork roll and Springer’s is of course, bicycling. In 2022, I posted a fairly extensive guide of bicycling from the Wildwoods to Sea Isle City, via Seven Mile Island.
In 2023, I went ever further north.
Previously, my northern-most cycling in Cape May County was to about 29nd Street, Sea Isle City, before turning around. One Tuesday in July, I was feeling good and even though I was pedaling into the wind, I kept going.
Strathmere
Adjacent to Sea Isle City, the Strathmere bicycling experience is about the same. Bay Avenue has narrow bike lanes on either side. There is a stretch with sparse houses on the bayside and the dune on the beach side. As the density of homes increases, the side becomes a shoulder/parking lanes. The experience is largely the same – a two lane road but without specific accommodations for cyclists.
COMFORT RATING: 10 year-old with supervision
Corson’s Inlet
At the Corson’s Inlet drawbridge, the roadway narrows and there is no bike lane/shoulder. As with other Ocean Drive corridor bridges, cyclists are not charged a toll. This bridge isn’t as steep as some of others either.
Shoulders return on the undeveloped island beyond the inlet. The southbound side is generally wider because it isn’t adjacent to the dunes and doesn’t have sand gathering on it. The speed limit is up to 45 MPH there too.
The Rush Chattin Bridge is a fixed span but strangely, the narrow paths on the other side of the bridge’s jersey barriers are blocked off from Ocean Drive. There is probably more to that story.
COMFORT RATING: 12 year-old with supervision
Ocean City
Once off the Chattin Bridge, Ocean Drive is again a two-lane 45 MPH road with shoulders for about 3/4 mile. The road curves into 55th Street for several blocks. At West Street, the main route goes left to continue northward. A dedicated bike lane is provided in each direction of West Street. Approaching 34th street, a busy intersection with access to the mainland, the bike lane merges into a sharrows lane for several blocks. Southbound retains its bike lane.
COMFORT RATING: 10 year-old with supervision
Between 35th and 12th streets, Haven Ave, one block west of West Ave. has some dedicated off-street sections. I didn’t ride on it though.
At 23rd Street, the Ocean City Boardwalk begins, so I cut over to it. The Ocean City Boardwalk is an actual boardwalk too. Between 23rd and 14th, it’s just a boardwalk with dunes on the ocean side and beach houses and an occasional hotel on the street side. At 14th, it widens to a more “traditional” boardwalk and the custom seems to be for bicyclists to stick to the center. Most of the amusements are on the street side.
At 5th Street, the boardwalk narrows again for the most part all the way up to St. James Place. All told, the boardwalk is about 2½ miles long.
COMFORT RATING: 7 year-old with supervision
St. James Place ends at Atlantic Ave. I probably turned right there and followed the road to Wesley Ave. That becomes Gardens Parkway which has service roads along it. At Newcastle Road, the service lanes end as the next block begins the bridge to Longport. That’s where I decided to turn around as the bridge looked longer and steeper than I wanted 23 miles into my ride. Perhaps another year.
COMFORT RATING: 10 year-old with supervision
Adding it up
This was the first time I biked in Strathmere and Ocean City. All told, I added about miles of Jersey Shore coastline to my list.
I have biked between the last island before the mainland on Ocean Drive and the northern end of Ocean City as well as the length of Long Beach Island. Adding those two disparate sections up, I have biked about 53 miles of the Jersey Shore out of 127. I recall biking from Little Silver to Long Branch when I was a kid once, but I don’t think we biked “along the coast” on that ride. I was pretty young when we did it.
- The Ocean City boardwalk was my third Jersey Shore boardwalk “clinched” if you count the Sea Isle City promenade.
- I also biked the length all of Ocean City, Md. and that boardwalk.
- The Virginia Beach “boardwalk” is another one I clinched.
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