Since I rode the subway in yesterday to give my legs a rest, I was antsy to spin the pedals a bit. On the few days every month that I find myself on a train, I'm struck by the bland normality of it all.
So in a fitting rebuttal to the previous day's lack of cycling, I decided to go check out the Rockaways and Floyd Bennet Field. I took my usual route to Prospect Park and after a half lap, I rode out onto Coney Island Ave and swung over to Bedford via Ditmas Ave, where one could easily be fooled into thinking they were in middle-american suburbia, as that Moohare recently pointed out.
Check it out, there was even a bona-fide strip mall somewhere along the route
Though in keeping with its Brooklyn-ness, there were plenty of salmon and aging-jew-minivan-operators to test your patience. Riding on Avenue U to hook up with Flatbush, I was surprised at the lush pastoral ambiance of south brooklyn...
I continued down Flatbush across the bridge over the Belt Parkway and was sternly admonished for riding in traffic (despite the fact that I was travelling at-speed or faster than traffic most of the time) by passing beach-goers. I relented and entered what I discovered to be an ample yet shoddy bike path leading to the marine parkway bridge and the rockaways beyond.
Though it was wide and sparsely populated on a friday, It was littered with trash and other irritating debris that made me regret getting bullied onto the sidewalk. However I quickly forgot about my frustrations because once on the bridge I was greeted with awesome views of the city to my back, and an unmuddied Atlantic Americana at my face.
Heading out to the point after crossing the bridge, I meandered into what I can only assume was some sort of gated beach community x hobbit 'collabo'. I realized this because happening upon the continuation of Bedford Avenue across from the mainland, I noted that the rockaway-ers are both fiercely patriotic, and habitually pedestrian...
Despite the obvious inconvenience of living on a pedestrian-only street, I like the set up and wish more places were like this. I didn't venture to the beach here, thinking I could make it all the way out to the point. Unfortunately, I was wrong; two sour women 'manning' a toll booth at the end of this street demanded I return from whence I came. I should've paid closer attention to the signage...
Fearing for the life-span of my drivetrain and needless arguments, I turned around and proceeded back across the bridge, the road bed of which is curiously made of steel grating so when cars whizz by on it, it makes the eeriest wooOOOooo sound.
Spooked and frightened I rode back up toward the city past a destination i have long desired to visit, Floyd Bennet Field.
Two of the original airplane hangars have been renovated into a sports complex similar in kind to a gym. The other four were in such disrepair, I was hardpressed not to go exploring.
But nothing was better than getting out onto the runways. despite the grass filled cracks in the pavement, I've never before biked on something so wide and flat ( ok, thats a lie, I did grow up in Houston after all). I easily hit a sustainable 26.5 mph, flying around the base with reckless abandon.
I saw this guy there sailing a tricycle, it appeared.
I was very curious about this land-boat and was determined to know more about its construction until I saw it break.
The guy at the helm started shouting explatives so I rode on, not wanting any part of his negativity, however justified it may have been.
As usual, the ride back was much the same as before, except instead of riding up through Prospect Park again, I took Bedford the entire way, past imposing public housing projects that signal one's return to the jungle.
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