Bike Snob - Anonymous [9]
Keep on the Merrick Road. The rippling streams passed are more refreshing to the eye and cooling to the senses than the swamps of Rockaway Avenue.
I heeded the article’s advice, since I do hate swamps and didn’t savor the idea of getting mauled by one of Jamaica’s many alligators. However, unless you count rivulets of dog urine, there were no streams on or near Merrick Road, rippling or otherwise. There also weren’t any cyclists, apart from the odd delivery person riding a department store bike on the sidewalk. There were, however, many used car lots, as well as an abundance of fast-food chicken restaurants.
Still, despite the urban sprawl, it wasn’t impossible to imagine a time when this was a country road teeming with cyclists. While more or less straight, Merrick Boulevard isn’t dead straight, like newer roads. Instead, it follows the mild grade and contour of the land like an older road does. And as any cyclist knows, the difference between a plumb-straight road and an “organic” one is huge. It’s the difference between a pleasant ride and a mind-numbing one. Also, while the environs were far from pretty, there was still just enough room on the road to ride with traffic. I’ve certainly ridden nicer roads, but it was vastly better than Main Street in Flushing. Take away all the KFCs and traffic lights and you can picture a country road with cyclists waving to each other as they pass. Finally, I was plugged into the circuitry of history, and I was beginning to enjoy myself.
Follow the Merrick Road to Valley Stream and Pearsalls.
As I left Queens and crossed into Nassau County and Valley Stream, the road surface improved noticeably, and the used car lots gave way to new car dealerships. Also, Merrick Boulevard became West Merrick Road. The difference wasn’t exactly dramatic; it was more like the way you feel when you return to your hotel room after the bed’s been made and the bathroom’s been cleaned. But while tidier than eastern Queens, Valley Stream felt no less busy. There was also no giant rotating penny-farthing statue in the middle of a fountain illuminated by multicolored lights as I had secretly hoped.
If I’d been going strictly by the Times article I probably would have gotten lost, since Pearsalls became Lynbrook in the early 1900s when the residents cleverly (or lamely) transposed the syllables of nearby Brooklyn, from whence many of them hailed. (It’s a good thing they weren’t all from Canarsie, or else the town might have been called something like “Arse Can.”) Had I not known this I would have charged right through Lynbrook, dismissing it simply as an enclave of confused and dyslexic Brooklynites. Furthermore, there’s certainly no “general store” in Lynbrook (unless you count Green Acres Mall), nor does it resemble a country town in any way, which makes this next direction seem thoroughly ridiculous:
At this town, turn to the right upon reaching the typical general store of a country town. Mistake is not possible…
Mistake most certainly is possible. A more accurate direction would be “turn right upon reaching the White Castle.” In any case, though, it didn’t turn out to be a problem. I happen to know the intersection well, it also being the location of the movie theater in which I saw the Weird Al movie UHF in 1989 (highly recommended—a “Weird Al” Yankovic tour de force, and no, that is not an oxymoron).
Ride on through Fenhurst, Woodsburg, and Lawrence direct to Far Rockaway.
“Fenhurst” is actually the present-day town of Hewlett, Woodsburg is the old part of the modern-day town of Woodmere, and Lawrence is still Lawrence. There are also two other nearby towns called Cedarhurst and Inwood, and the whole area is collectively known as the “Five Towns.”
Making the right onto Broadway and entering the Five Towns, I saw something I hadn’t seen since Kew Gardens—a street sign with a picture of a bicycle. Beneath that bicycle were the words “Bike Route.” Finally, here was some indication that roads that had been traveled heavily by cyclists