Northeast - Need some route guidance: Northern NJ to Long Beach Long Island

I thought this would be easy to figure out but I am getting hung up in a few places.

1. How to get to the George Washington Bridge and 9W. I could ride 202 N until 9W, then ride south until the GWB but that adds an unnecessary loop to the trip. Does anyone have any routes offhand that would take me to 9 W or, ultimately, the GWB.

2. How could I go about navigating the bridges required to get me to Long Beach? I was thinking of taking the Cross Bay Boulevard, cutting East a bit on the main avenues there, then taking Nassau Expressway 878 S to cross over into Long Beach. My two issues are with the bridges—just from digging around on Google Maps and some quick internet searching, it seems they are set up with pedestrian paths. Are they actually accessible?

Many thanks.

I'm only familiar with a slightly different route from NYC: down thru Brooklyn you get to Sheepshead Bay. From there you have a nice MUP that curves around and down to the Gil Hodges Marine Parkway Bridge, which takes you to the Rockaways. On that bridge there are signs advising walking, but people commonly bike it.

Then you have about 10 miles to traverse the Rockaways -- several nice roads there, though a few are hairy. Then you cross the Atlantic Beach bridge. Here the signs are very serious and I would not advise riding on the bike/pedestrian area at all. On one trip I saw a fast biker riding in the main road. That bridge is .3 miles, then you have about 5 miles thru Atlantic Beach to get to Long Beach.

It can be a nice ride, but the route I took had many many turns, favoring bike-friendliness over speed.

You would NOT want to be riding on the Nassau Expressway. Go through the Rockaways, the boardwalk is not in great shape but it's better then getting hit by a car.

Get the New York City cycling map, or you can view it online -- see links from www.transalt.org (http://www.transalt.org) Resources page -- also has info about bridges ("fiboro") -- and some sorta bike maps for Long Island (not as good as the NYC map).


I thought this would be easy to figure out

To me that sounds like a pretty complicated tour to plan and execute.

Ken

maybe consider the ferry from the financial center to Atlantic Highlands, NJ. that will put you at Sandy Hook and from there, there are a myriad of bike paths, and roads that can take you to LBI. In fact, the MS society always does a ride from Cape May to Sandy Hook and back (over 2 days)...

Jay