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I live in Brooklyn, NY and in order to get in a decent 30+ mile ride (road bike) I either need to do 9 loops of Prospect Park (ugh..) or head into Manhattan, go up to the GWB, and onto 9W. Then I need to come back. Getting to the GWB is a real pain from Brooklyn and not reasonable time-wise weekday mornings before work, since it takes over an hour just to get out of the city.

Question: Do you guys know of any 30+ mile rides that are unimpeded by pedestrian or car traffic starting around Prospect Park? Happy to head to East New York or Queens.

Thanks.

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  • Welcome to Bicycles @ilan. You could try Strava; here are some rides around Brooklyn. If the link doesn't work you'll have to sign in to the Strava site.
    – andy256
    May 20, 2015 at 0:35
  • Thanks. Yeah I see these rides. I kinda wanted some commentary around which of the non-Manhattan rides people like most for high speeds, since almost all of them appear to have lights for a good portion.
    – ilanman
    May 20, 2015 at 1:06

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There are essentially no rides that are 'unimpeded by pedestrian or car traffic' around Brooklyn, because Brooklyn is on a densely-populated island adjacent to another even more densely populated island so there's no nearby countryside, and we still use our rail lines very heavily so there are no rail trails.

The 30-miler I've found with the most 'open road' feeling is heading to Breezy Point on side streets through Flatbush— take something like E. 35th Street down to Marine Park, then take the bike trail along Flatbush Ave. to the Marine Parkway bridge and Rockaway Point Boulevard. There are very few lights between the Flatbush Ave. bike trail and the tip of Breezy Point, so about half of the ride is unimpeded.

I usually loop back via the Belt Parkway bike trail and take Bedford Avenue back north.

Basically, something like this: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Prospect+Park,+Brooklyn,+NY/Beach+227th+St,+Breezy+Point,+NY+11697/@40.6275278,-73.9439275,13z/data=!4m34!4m33!1m25!1m1!1s0x89c25b1087680443:0x178bf7c600df7a98!2m2!1d-73.968956!2d40.660204!3m4!1m2!1d-73.9620066!2d40.6631979!3s0x89c25b0d7ded003b:0xc1bbc03310eefdd0!3m4!1m2!1d-73.9476347!2d40.6597135!3s0x89c25b655fbe3f19:0x2445bed892551a5c!3m4!1m2!1d-73.9438733!2d40.6425748!3s0x89c25b5a445c57a3:0xa1b0241726698868!3m4!1m2!1d-73.9313515!2d40.6063921!3s0x89c2436130911e41:0x34bf5c3bfeec3860!1m5!1m1!1s0x89c243fe55767105:0x64ffd3f4302f0ba6!2m2!1d-73.9328573!2d40.5524677!3e1

But if you want easy access to 'real' road riding from the city, you'll probably want to live in Northern Manhattan or the Bronx.

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  • Yup, that's what I thought, but was hoping someone else knew something I didn't. Thanks.
    – ilanman
    May 21, 2015 at 23:30

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