START/FINISH: Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn.
DIFFICULTY: Easy. Only one significant hill, in Prospect Park near the end of the ride. You might well encounter cross winds along the Narrows and Gravesend Bay.
This is a ride I used to do early on a Sunday morning before breakfast. Take the West Drive through Prospect Park then take the route counter-clockwise. There isn’t too much traffic until Cropsey Avenue. Stop on the Bay Ridge Pier for a nice view of the harbor. Before the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge opened in 1964, a ferry took passengers and cars from this point to Staten Island.
Enjoy a great ride along the water, past the bridge and past Calvert Vaux Park (on the right, near 25 Avenue). Watch for traffic along Cropsey and Neptune Avenues, especially where those two streets intersect, then take the Ocean Parkway bike path (opened in 1895!) to Prospect Park. On the left, just before the Belt Parkway, is Abraham Lincoln High School, with too many notable alumni to list. Look it up.
The turn sheet for this ride is at https://goo.gl/maps/kGi5hJABCP5tKuJr5; start at step 8.
