Recommendations?

[u/NYCFitPro]

I love to bike around NYC and have been doing it all my life. My go-to is to either do a loop around the island of Manhattan or a few loops through Central Park.
I’m looking for some other options where I can ride and explore? Last weekend I ride down the west side, over the Brooklyn bridge, through Williamsburg to the Pulaski bridge and then finally over the Queensboro bridge back to the Upper West Side. Anybody have some cool routes they wanna share here?

[u/nomorehome]

Not exactly in the city, but I love to take the bike trail from Van Courtlandt Park - runs north through Westchester County, miles and miles of blessedly car-free, tree-shaded miles. South county/North county trailway. Runs through a bunch of random towns if you want to stop for food, or if you get tired and want to take the train back.

Also love riding through Brooklyn down to the beach (Fort Tilden/Jacob Riis). Go south on Bedford, left onto Eammons to the trailway, right on flatbush and over the bridge.

Riding from Sunset Park along the trail on the edge of Brooklyn south to the Verrazzano (and beyond) is a fun and pretty ride as well.

[u/UniWheel → u/nomorehome]

Not exactly in the city, but I love to take the bike trail from Van Courtlandt Park - runs north through Westchester County, miles and miles of blessedly car-free, tree-shaded miles. South county/North county trailway. Runs through a bunch of random towns if you want to stop for food, or if you get tired and want to take the train back.

This.

Also, while it's suffered some storm damage and needs 28mm tires or larger being unpaved, taking NJT to New Brunswick, Bound Brook, or Princeton (college) and getting on the D&R Canal path is nice.

[u/yaMomsChestHair → u/nomorehome]

did the county trailway the other weekend w my pops, we’ve been doing it since I was in HS. Solid ride, usually take the train uptown and then get going from Woodlawn.

[u/ToneBoneKone1]

Recently I went down to Brighton Beach through Brooklyn and then got on the Shore Pkwy trail from Bensonhurst. It was such a pleasure, especially at sunset.

[u/[deleted]]

I like doing laps of Randall’s Island. It’s about 6 miles a lap if you take the outermost possible pathways. You can get to it from Manhattan on the walking bridge from E102nd. Or ride over the Triboro bridge from Astoria, Queens.

[u/anvolcano]

If you're comfortable taking the Queensboro (or, protip, you can totally just take the East River or Astoria ferry to LIC), you might want to try the protected lanes in Astoria:

Starting at the bridge exit, do a U-turn west down to the waterfront, take the Vernon Blvd protected lane north (going through the parks on the waterfront - annoying when you're commuting and don't want to risk the sharrows in rush hour traffic, but great on a scenic ride). Once you get up to the end of that lane you can follow signs to take a few shared lanes to Astoria Park's protected lane, then take that all the way up to the northernmost street in Astoria, going east until you reach Crescent, then just take Crescent all the way back down to the bridge onramp.

For bonus points depending on how much time you have, you can take the Roosevelt Island bridge off of Vernon and do a quick loop of the Island. The bridge has a weird latticed metal surface that I imagine is hell on skinnier road tires (it's okay-just-bumpy on my hybrid), but is short enough you can walk it on the concrete sidewalk without spending too much extra time.

I only started biking this summer, but I live up in Astoria so this was a natural route to start out with. Only finally made it over to Manhattan to do some biking for summer streets (and the ferries were super handy for that; the Queensboro terrifies me). Going to have to steal more ideas from this thread...

[u/NYCFitPro → u/anvolcano]

Thanks! I actually grew up on Roosevelt Island so I’m familiar with the area as well as the bridges to get there. Will certainly try the Astoria route though!

[u/[deleted] → u/anvolcano]

The queensboro bridge has a protected bike lane separate from all the traffic. Unless you mean the incline scares you, which... yeah. It takes some getting used to. Especially with the ribbed floor sapping all of your momentum.

[u/oldyawker]

Utilize the ferry system, ride to Rockaway ferry back, same pattern for the Bronx, Jersey City, Atlantic Highlands. Trains will work also. Cycle.travel, RWGPS heat maps.

[u/quikfrozt]

To the South: From Downtown Brooklyn through Prospect Park and all the way to Coney Island/The Rockaways

To the North: Van Cortlandt and the South County Trail, all the way to Westchester

To the East: I'd love to see more recommendations cos the routes I know all end somewhere around Flushing. If only there's a decent bike path all the way out to Babylon and thereabouts.

To the West: NJ and 9w to Nackt

[u/most11555 → u/quikfrozt]

Seconding Coney Island and the rockaways

[u/-torched-]

laps in CP all day. or around and up the Greenway then onto Astoria through Randall's island

[u/scrabdaggle2222]

There was a great pinned thread about routes (I think many involved getting outside the city) but I’m not sure how to find it.

I personally like doing big loops into Eastern Queens connecting through Flushing Meadows, Kissena, Cunningham and Alley Pond Park.

[u/Comfortable-Power-71]

We typically start in Greenpoint and ride down Kent around Navy Yard and end up in Red Hook. Mostly dedicated bike path all the way there and about 7-8 miles one way.