Day 2 - Breakfast Club, Passage through Suburbia

Our second day started with a 12 mile ride from Miller Place to St. James for a breakfast stop at the Tic Toc Cafe.  We had 7 along for this stretch of the ride (The Maggios, Colleen Rudman, Lem Coley, Pat Killian, Michael and me).   The breakfast really was a nice sendoff for me and Michael. 

Breakfast riders - Pat, John, Michael, Greg, that rascal Lem, Colleen, Michele

Today's ride was a very different ride from yesterday's.  We had to get through some pretty heavily populated areas.  Some sections of the route (like the stretch from Smithtown to Commack and the ways through Hicksville and Westbury) kept us on side streets going from one housing development to the next.  These stretches were reminiscent of rides I remember from my childhood - following Bike Route signs in Nassau County and seeing just where they would take us.  Those Bike Routes, which I think were brand new when I was a kid, used the development hopping technique to avoid main roads.  At other points today, we rode along main roads that were less than ideal for bicycles - like stretches of Old Country Road and Hillside Avenue.  (You can find the full route for the day at http://niagarabycycle.info/#TheRoute ) When we first reached Queens, the riding conditions were actually quite good.  Quiet streets for a while, then the Brooklyn-Queens Greenway trail which took us several miles through Alley Pond and Cunningham parks, then several miles along 73rd Ave with a nice bicycle lane.  

Michael cruising along the trail in Alley Pond Park

When we reached the point where we had to cross the Van Wyck and the Grand Central Parkway, things stopped being bike-friendly. We were on busy roads with no real room for bicycles until we got to the other side of Queens Boulevard.  Not pleasant but it didn't go on for very long and it's not the norm for city riding.  We should have good bicyle lanes for almost all of our trip through the city tomorrow.

Michael and I each got to ride past some places of personal significance since Nassau has a place in each of our pasts.   Here's a picture I'll include for my wife Lee.  We passed by the former Galaxy in Plainview - the site of our wedding reception nearly 31 years ago.  (The horse has no personal signifigance)

We ended the day at my nephew Brian's house in Middle Village.  We had a nice dinner with Brian and his wife Liz and got to hang for a while with very cute and happy 5 month old Patrick. So here's something you won't find in most cycling blogs - a baby video.

Patrick and his folks

 2 days down, 141 miles into the ride. 

 http://niagarabycycle.org/