Originally Posted by
Papa Tom
Have a great ride, and let us know how it worked out.
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.
Originally Posted by
Papa Tom
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.
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.
Originally Posted by
Papa Tom
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").
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.
Originally Posted by
Papa Tom
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.
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").
Originally Posted by
Papa Tom
I have ridden this road [Manetto Hill 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!
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.