56 Miles and Riding

Photos by Shino Yanagawa
Words by Dashaun Simmons

This past weekend my man Dan sent out a text for a ride on Saturday. I haven't had a big ride in a while on the ole bike so I was down. The team consisted of Shino and myself, Dan, Hue, Keith and Divine. We met up at Prospect park and after some delay departed to head down Ocean pkwy towards Brighton Beach. However on the way we planned to get some Di Fara but when we saw the double long lines we decided to just get a banana, a water and keep it moving. By this time my other friends Richard and Kris were en route from Bed Stuy to meet us.

Back on the trail of Ocean Pkwy we encountered a group of riders who seemed to be enjoying the day just much as we were. The ride down Ocean Pkwy was scenic, filled with trees and beautiful homes. That's a stretch of Brooklyn that I feel is often missed by most. Once we reached Brighton Beach we made a left at the boardwalk and walked down to the Sheepshead Bay end. This is where Kris and Rich joined our party and we broke out in search of food.



We found a pizza shop under the B train in an area I'd never been in before. The pizza was good and after some sustenance we were off to reach the Belt Pkwy bike path headed towards Queens. This was my first time seeing the actual "Sheepshead Bay". It's a nice area with restaurants and nice homes. It didn't even seem like we were in NY let alone Brooklyn.



Once on the Belt we rode to Canarsie Pier and found a couple of cats flying kites along with a food truck to sell us water and Gatorade. We then continued along the water passing fishermen and small (dirty) beaches passing East New York and leaving the borough. Shino yelled out when she noticed the sign "Welcome To Queens". This was the first time we rode into Queens.

Queens led us to ride up Cross Bay Blvd and head across a bridge to reach Far Rockaway (this is where Kris and Rich got off our crazy ride). Once in Far Rockaway we reached the beach on the west side of the island. As we walked up to the boardwalk after my suggestion to look at their water compared to Coney Island Divine turned to me and said "I'll go in the water if someone goes with me". As we got to the sand I looked out and I couldn't believe that the water was CLEAN! Divine, Shino and all all got in the water and felt so relaxed after a long ride.

After relaxing and talking on a bench for a while we got back on the bikes and rode to the end of the island. Right before getting on the bride we spotted a food truck and got down on some knishes and hot dogs. At this point the sun was setting and you could see all of the riders hitting the bridge to head home. The ride home was sweet and I would do it all over again in a second.