Papa Tom

This isn't the most direct route in the world, but it's simple and it avoids most of the main roads.

At the intersection of W. John and Rt. 106 (Wendy's on the left, diner on the right), go straight across Rt. 106 (busy road) and straight across Rt. 107 (another busy road that runs parallel) and continue onto E. John Street. At the end of E. John, turn right onto Bay Ave, go under the rr trestle, and turn left onto Woodbury Rd (busy road) for just a few blocks. You'll pass a half-as-ed bike shop on the right, if you need anything. When you reach 7-Eleven on the left, turn left onto Bethpage Rd and immediately right onto Twin Lawns Avenue. This will take you parallel to Woodbury Rd while avoiding the mess.

At the end of Twin lawns, turn left onto Miller Rd. Miller will turn sharp right at a small industrial complex and then come to a STOP sign two blocks in. Turn left at the STOP sign onto Miller Place (small green sign reads "To 495"). Stay on Miller Place, cross under the Northern State Parkway, and you will soon be parallel to the LI Expressway (495). Google Maps shows Miller turning into Marlene Place, but ignore this. When faced with the choice of bearing left onto the LIE Service Rd or bearing right into what looks like a safer, quieter route, bear LEFT. Sorry, you need to ride the service road for a short distance here, but luckily, you can stay to the right, rather than having to merge left in all that exiting traffic.

At the traffic light for South Oyster Bay Rd., go straight and continue on Terrehans Lane. Take Terrehans to the end and turn left onto a quieter section of Woodbury Rd. Pass Lark Drive and Wren Drive and make the third right, right before the LIE overpass, onto an unnamed street. This will take you to Manetto Hill Rd. I have ridden this road many times and it is not as bad as it might look on Street View. It's DEFINITELY not as bad as Merrick Rd, anyway! Take Manetto Hill a couple of miles, past 2-3 shopping centers (including Fairway) and you will eventually arrive at Washington Avenue (YWCA and Dr. B. Well Natural Foods on the left). Turn left on Washington and take it all the way down to the bike path entrance, just before the LIE. Note that you will pass the Plainview-Old Bethpage Community Park, which has some bathrooms, on your left about halfway down Washington.

To head south on the path, you need to turn right off Washington Avenue. From here, it's a nice ride (with a couple of decent hills, but nothing like the ones you will have skipped) all the way to Bethpage State Park, where the original section of the bikeway picks up and takes you all the way down to Massapequa. As you approach Merrick Rd on the bikeway, you have the option of getting off the path and following my alternate route (detailed at nyrides.freehosting.net) or continuing to Merrick and turning right all the way to Cedar Creek Park, dodging speeding motorcycles and opening car doors all the way

Have a great ride, and let us know how it worked out.

Ferdinand NYC

Thanks to Steve and to Papa Tom for all the ideas! If I wind up making the trip, I think I will use plenty of what you guys have suggested.

It appears that you meant Dutch Broadway, not Dutch Plains, as that last bit, right? (By the way, I can remember my aunts pronouncing that as "Dutch Broad-WAY", with the stress on the "way". Was that just their strange quirk? Or do people really say it like that?)

Steve B.

Sorry, you are correct. Dutch BroadWAY (yuk, yuk)

Ferdinand NYC

It worked out very well! I did a total of 67 miles. The Bethpage Bikeway was very pleasant, more than 10 miles from Washington Avenue down to Merrick Road. This is far in excess of the Shore Parkway (Belt Parkway) Bike Path, which is only about 6 miles long. Riding on the Bethpage Bikeway was a good way to listen to the first half of the Chelsea match.

And there were no significant hills; so this was a great bonus.

I followed your suggestions almost to the letter.


I couldn't help myself -- I had to see why I shouldn't bear right onto what looks like a safer, quieter route. And it turns out that there was no problem in doing that. The street (which is indeed signed as Marlene Place) merges with the L.I.E. Service Road a few blocks down.


Continuing from my comment on Marlene Place, here are a few other nit-picky comments about street names.


The signage changes from "Miller Road" to "Miller Place" before that intersection with the "To 495" sign. It changes at the point where the road makes a right-angle turn to the right, as shown in Google Maps.


There is a street sign that labels that street after Lark Drive and Wren Drive as "Manetto Hill Road W." The sign must be new; it's not there in the image from 2012 in Google Maps Street View. That sign is visible in Bing Maps Streetside.

That street has no label in Google Maps; but in Bing Maps it is labelled as part of Woobury Road (despite the picture that shows the streetsign reading "Manetto Hills Road W").


Yes, I saw that. It was quite pleasant. I needn't have worried about it.


And I followed Steve B.'s suggestions for coming back. The long extent of Clark St./Ave. (actually Clark Blvd./St./Ave., because I had to go over to Massapequa Park briefly; so I picked up Clark at Park Blvd. where it was "Clark Blvd.") makes it very useful. And the same goes for Grand Ave. / Smith St. from Bellmore to Merrick, and for the Seaman Ave. - Lakeview Ave. combination from Freeport all the way to Lynbrook.

Even though I had initially expressed scepticism about avoiding Merrick Road, I can see now that that alternate route was much more pleasant. On account of the long straight runs of those streets that I mentioned above, there wasn't much noodling around; so I still felt like I was going fairly directly.


I will surely make use of all of this new knowledge on future trips out to Long Island. Thanks to Tom and Steve for the help.

Papa Tom

Ferdinand:

I'm glad that you had a good ride, but I have to say that I actually drove a good part of my route from Hicksville to Manetto Hill Road today and it was really some pretty bad advice I gave you.

To make a long story short, given that you are used to roads like Merrick, you probably should have just gotten from West John to Woodbury Road and taken it all the way to Manetto Hill. I think my route took you too far out of the way. Sorry...I guess I'm not always on my game.

kaos joe

Hey Ferdinand, glad you had a nice ride, welcome to LI! I don't know if you've ridden over them but the hills on the bikeway north of Washington Ave. are really not much.
When you passed through Massapequa Park, if you saw a guy walking an 80 pound dog and a 7 pounder (the odd couple), that was me.

Ferdinand NYC

Oh, no; your route was just fine. I wasn't looking for the most direct route; so using those streets that I had never used before was worthwhile.

Also, remember that I mentioned earlier that I had gone straight up Woodbury Road once before. Last year I had to go out to Northport for something, and I took Woodbury Road from Hicksville all the way up to Northern Blvd. (I actually didn't intend to stay on it that long. I had intended to take Pulaski Road from its beginning out of Woodbury Road; but I failed to spot the junction, and I stayed on Woodbury Road.)

I remember feeling a bit constrained by the thinness of Woodbury Road relative to its traffic, and not being altogether comfortable. Though I did enjoy seeing the historic marker at the Nassau-Suffolk border which states that this was formerly an "international" border between the Dutch and English colonies.

Despite my slight discomfort with Woodbury Road, I would have taken it back to Hicksville from its intersection with Pulaski Road on on my return trip home from Northport. Unfortunately, I got a flat as soon as I set out from Northport, and I just walked to the Northport LIRR station.

If I ever have to go to someplace way out on the North Shore again, then I would certainly use Woodbury Road. But for my purposes this past Saturday, your suggested route was better.



Ah, an interesting comment. Both Papa Tom and Billy1111 described those hills in pretty stark terms at the beginning of this thread.

The one previous time that I had ridden on the Bethpage Bikeway, I went northward from Merrick Road up to Washington Avenue, and then got off to head back home. I wasn't trying to avoid any hills; I just saw on the map that the route after that went on the L.I.E. Service Road, which didn't seem all that interesting.


I am sorry not to have noticed you! But if you saw a guy with the New York City and Philadelphia flags fluttering from his helmet, that was me. I would have gone through Massapequa at around 1:30.

One thing that confused me down there was when the Bikeway hit Sunrise Highway. There were no markings to tell riders to go west on the south sidewalk of Sunrise Highway in order to continue on the Bikeway. If I hadn't seen other cyclists doing that, I wouldn't have known to do it. I would have had to look at the map on my phone.

Anyway, a good ride overall. I enjoyed the streets as much as, if not more than, the Bikeway. I have a friend who lives in Farmingdale. The next time I visit him, I will probably use the reverse of the route which I used in order to go home, culminating with Clark Blvd. in Massapequa Park, and just go north to Farmingdale from there. That's nicer than dealing with Hempstead Tpke. all the way out from the City.

kaos joe

"Ah, an interesting comment. Both Papa Tom and Billy1111 described those hills in pretty stark terms at the beginning of this thread. "

Stark? Nah, a couple of minutes in a lower gear. Now, THIS s.o.b. was STARK.