Cycling Iron Bridge Road
Ride 1 mile gaining 511’ at 10.3% average grade.
This is ranked as the 7th most difficult hill climb in New Jersey.
Summary by PJAMM ambassador Dan Razum.
The climb starts near the Musconetcong river, with nice relaxing scenery. This climb isn't going to be relaxing though, it's got some steep gradients that are pretty far from relaxing.
We start near a river but we don't cross it so the name of the road doesn't refer to a bridge over a river but rather a bridge over train tracks, as we shall soon see.
The road starts out shallow but it quickly gets steeper. After about a quarter mile there is a sharp ramp up to a bridge. The ramp to the bridge is definitely steep, as evidenced by the grooves in the road, from cars scrapping the road. The bridge is iron with a wooden deck and it goes over a train track. Also, it's one lane. If you descend Iron Bridge Road, you most certainly want to control your speed over this bridge, it would be easy to catch air if you're not careful!
After the bridge, the climbing resumes and it continues to get steeper. The road is unmarked, no centerline or shoulder, but it is smooth. Near the top the road flattens out and we pass a school right before reaching the top. Given the location of the school there could be traffic on school days, but during the summer, when we climbed, we didn't see any cars on the climb.
Finish.