The Best Bike Routes for Exploring New York City, According to an Avid Cyclist

I began my exploration of the countless bike paths in New York City as soon as I arrived. As a longtime cyclist in London, I knew that cycling is a satisfying way to get to know a city as a newcomer, and it’s no different in New York: you whip through neighborhoods, witnessing the landscape changing character dramatically between blocks. (My first ever bike ride took me past the copper-colored mansions of Brooklyn Heights, along the tourist-crowded cobbled streets of Dumbo, through Hasidic South Williamsburg and ended outside a crummy dive bar on Grand.) Riding a bike also requires a certain mindset, a kind of calm hyper awareness as you assess your surroundings. It means that you really notice things on a bike: potholes and perfectly flattened rats that need dodging, but also scraps of conversations, or the gauzy silhouette of the Empire State Building peeking out behind skyscrapers to signpost where you are.

While biking through Manhattan has its chaotic charms, I love to cycle around Brooklyn most of all, past elaborately named churches and along brownstone-lined streets, getting splashed by the water from hydrants as children play in the water on scorching summer days, wheeling my bike down streets closed for block parties, or pausing to admire families’ dramatic Halloween decorations. And when you puff uphill over the bridges from Brooklyn to Manhattan on a bright winter morning, the saturated colors of the city etched onto a clear sky, New York can literally take your breath away.

Navigating the bike paths in New York City can be intimidating, even for locals, but with a bit of research and planning you can take advantage of both official bike lanes and quieter backstreets. There are also riverside bike lanes running up both the east and west sides of Manhattan (with a thirty-block gap around the United Nations on the east side), as well as cycle paths contouring the key routes through Brooklyn. Whatever your style, on a bike, the city reveals itself to you.

Here are some of my favorite routes through New York's various boroughs.

Brooklyn Bridge Park to Red Hook

I love to cycle this route at sunset, when the skyscrapers glow pink above the East River. Start at the Dumbo entrance of the Brooklyn Bridge Park, and ride slowly through this cleverly landscaped park with its baby-blue umbrellas, families grilling, and piers speckled with joggers and soccer players. The park’s cycle path turns into a “waterfront” route (the actual waterfront is somewhat hidden by the Port Authority and Brooklyn Cruise Terminal), before curving into the cobbled streets of Red Hook. You can follow signs to Valentino Pier, taking in the sensational view of the Statue of Liberty amid buttery wafts from Steve’s Authentic Key Lime Pie—be sure to grab one. Maybe wind your way around the neighborhood’s old wharfs and small brick houses; or lock up your bike and check out an exhibition at the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition, then grab lunch at the kitschy crab shack Brooklyn Crab. Don’t leave without a visit to the much-loved (cash-only) dive bar Sunny’s, where there’s live bluegrass and country music most nights.

East and West Village gardens

The East Village can be strangely quiet on weekday mornings, which is when I like to zigzag on my bike between Avenues A and D, exploring the neighborhood's community gardens. The more than 50 gardens—ranging from scrappy lots with intriguing artworks to beautifully landscaped city oases—are the legacy of 70s and 80s activists, and are maintained by local volunteers. Peach Tree Garden, named for the tree in its center, is a personal favorite; while La Plaza Cultural, with its amphitheater, pond and shady trellis, is one of the loveliest. Stop in Tompkins Square Park (with a BEC from Tompkins Square Bagels), then cycle west down W 9th Street, watching the buildings get grander as you near the West Village. You’ll pass Jefferson Market Garden, a gorgeously manicured quiet spot beneath the fiddly gothic turrets of Jefferson Market Library, then continue down Christopher Street to the Hudson, pausing in the garden at St. Luke in the Fields to breathe in the scent of Buddleia.

Prospect Park, Green-Wood Cemetery, and Park Slope

There’s always great people-watching in Prospect Park: on the cycle path (which is one way), you might see pro-cyclists whooshing through, baseball matches on scrubby diamonds, music lovers lining up for the park’s free summer concerts, and endless dogs. Enter through Grand Army Plaza—where there’s a fantastic farmers market on Saturdays—and ride down the west side of the park, exiting at Bartel-Pritchard Square. Continue along Prospect Park West until you hit Green-Wood Cemetery. Leave your bike outside and meander through the sloping hills covered in stubby graves, statues of veiled angels, and grand mausoleums. You can potter towards Jean-Michel Basquiat’s grave, taking in the view of the Manhattan skyline rising beyond the grassy hills. Once you’re reunited with your bike, cycle north up 7th Ave through leafy Park Slope, taking in its fat brownstones and maybe even an enormous fried chicken and fennel slaw sandwich from local favorite, Winner.

Domino Park, Brooklyn to the Noguchi Museum, Queens

This route hugs portions of the Brooklyn and Queens waterfront. Start at Domino Park, then cycle along Williamsburg’s busy Kent Ave, where in the summer, there’s usually a high concentration of topless male joggers. You’re in Greenpoint when Kent Ave becomes Franklin St, which is dotted with excellent cafés and restaurants (it’s worth stopping at Taqueria Ramirez for a suadero taco). Turn right, admiring the neighborhood’s pretty, pastel-colored wooden houses, and then left onto the dusty Pulaski Bridge and into Queens. Hop over to Vernon Blvd, and it’s a straight line from there to the Noguchi Museum: past the New York Architectural Terra Cotta Works Building, an abandoned peach-colored gem tucked under the Queensboro Bridge, and Queensbridge and Rainey Parks. The museum, which houses the collection of the architect and designer Isamu Noguchi, is on the corner of 33rd St. After wandering through the galleries, with their snaking marble sculptures and somber gray stones, settle in the meditative calm of the sculpture garden.

Along the Hudson River Greenway to the Met Cloisters

The Hudson River Greenway stretches up the west side of Manhattan and is one of the loveliest cycle routes in the city. It’s a long way up to the Met Cloisters, so, while you can set off anywhere along the Greenway, Christopher Street Pier is a good starting point; it’s about an hour up to the Cloisters from there. Start by dodging roller skaters in the West Village, continuing past Little Island and the shimmering angles of Hudson Yards. You’ll hit the tranquil greenery of Riverside Park around the 60s, and higher up, buildings melt away entirely and all that’s visible beyond the grassy banks of the river is the George Washington Bridge. Immediately after the bridge, turn right and uphill, following signs over the footbridge to W 181st St, through Washington Heights to Fort Tryon Park. The pink stone courtyards, scented herb gardens and fountains of the Cloisters—which contains the Met’s medieval collections—are a restful place to catch your breath after the cycle.

Through Brooklyn to the beach

This uneven cycle cuts south through Brooklyn, across the Gateway National Recreation Area and over the Marine Parkway Bridge to the Rockaways. Start anywhere on Bedford Ave (it’s a couple of blocks over from Prospect Park, where I like to start), cycle all the way down, before nipping left around Avenue N, through suburban Midwood, with its timber-fronted houses, until you reach the southern stretch of Flatbush Ave. This busy road eventually arches into the bridge, which deposits you in Jacob Riis Park and its bright stretch of beach. It’s a route that lets you glimpse the many, changing faces of Brooklyn: one Sunday, church bells rang out in Little Caribbean; the faded art deco grandeur of the boarded-up last Sears in the city glowed in the sun; students handed out flyers on the Brooklyn College campus; and cyclists in swimwear made their steady way over the bridge to the sea. And those who looked back saw the Manhattan skyline, hazy and purple in the far, far distance.

From Prospect Park to Coney Island

If you’re after a simpler beach route, the five-mile long, tree-lined Ocean Parkway bike path (America’s first ever, dating back to 1894) runs a straight course from the bottom of Prospect Park to Coney Island. If you’re planning to take a Citibike down there, don’t–astoundingly, there are no docks once you arrive. The rather lumpy bike path ends at the beach; lock up your bike on the boardwalk or wheel it along to candy-colored attractions of Luna Park for a ride on the Wonder Wheel or the Cyclone, the fairground’s beloved wooden roller coaster. There’s always a crowd at the original Nathan’s Famous, but the hotdogs are well worth the wait. Alternatively, walk over to Neptune Ave to Totonno’s, an old-school pizza joint with walls crammed with pictures and some of the best slices in the city. Finally, grab a gelato from Coney’s Cones and sit on the beach, watching the ferries go by and locals dedicate themselves to some serious sunbathing.

The perfect Central Park loop

Cycling through busy Central Park can be something of a stop-and-start affair, but the changing moods and delightful follies of Olmstead’s most famous creation are best enjoyed at a slower pace. The cycle path runs a strict one-way loop counter-clockwise around the park: start at the bottom west corner by the zoo (and perhaps check in on the sea lions in their octagonal pond), then follow the path north past the lake, behind the angular glass back of the Met, and up to the reservoir. Keep on past baseball diamonds, the Lasker public pool (due to reopen after an extensive renovation this summer), turning east through the quieter wooded north and then down along the west side, as the spindly towers south of the park dip in and out of sight between trees and the lake glimmers again on your left. You can cut across over Bethesda Terrace, where the cycle lane runs in both directions, or exit the park at 72nd St for some sustenance on the Upper West Side. Work your way up north through its sleepy streets lined with chunky townhouses and green-awninged apartment blocks to Zabar’s for a warm slice of babka, or up Amsterdam to 86th St for a pile of scrambled eggs and Nova in the mural-lined dining room at Barney Greengrass.

This article has been updated with new information since its original publish date.