Brooklyn (continued)

After last week’s ride to Brooklyn, I wanted to explore more of Brooklyn.

So I recruited a couple of friends to ride with me this morning and we headed to Coney Island.

We started over the Brooklyn Bridge and rode up the slope into Prospect Park.  It was a beautiful morning in the park and we cruised through the park quickly.

We then took Ocean Parkway and rode all the way to Coney Island.  Ocean Parkway has a nice bike path that made for a easy cruise through Brooklyn.

We got onto the boardwalk at at Ocean Parkway and rode west to the end of the boardwalk.  I stopped for a second to grab a quick photo of the Cyclone.

As we took a break for some water and dried cherries on the Coney Island boardwalk, Brad and Jimmy suggested we ride back around Fort Hamilton under the Verrazano Bridge.  We didn’t realize at that time that we’d be right into the wind, so we went for it.

We had to figure out how to get to the greenway but that wasn’t too difficult.  The view of the bay was amazing.  But the wind was strong in our face.  Jimmy and Brad started pulling away from me.

As we passed under the Verrazano Bridge, the wind got even stronger and I fell even further back.  The ride from the bridge to 65th Street was really tough for me today.

Once we got back onto the streets, in this case 2nd Avenue, it was easier.  The wind wasn’t as tough.  We rode through Sunset Park along 2nd Avenue, past the huge Brooklyn Army Terminal. 

We cut over the 3rd Avenue and rode up through Boerum Hill into dowtown Brooklyn.  We decided to take the Manhattan Bridge back into Manhattan.  It took us a couple tries to find the bike path over the bridge, but we eventually found it

The view of the Brooklyn Bridge from the Manhattan Bridge was spectacular.

Then we rode through Chinatown, Soho, and Greenwich Village to finish the ride.

The total ride was about 33 miles according to Jimmy’s odometer and it took us slightly over 3 hours.  It was a blast and we’ll surely do it again.  But next time, I am going to check the wind direction and go downwind around the Verrazano Bridge!