A Tale Of Two Beaches--And Rides

Compare and contrast Rockaway and Flagler Beaches.

Comparison #1:  I rode to both of them within the past few days.  Rockaway is a bit further from my apartment than Flagler is from my parents’ house.  But while neither are particularly long rides, I feel a sense of satisfaction, if not accomplishment, from either.

Contrast #1:  This one is obvious:  Flagler is in Florida, Rockaway is in New York—the borough and county of Queens, to be exact.  Flagler, on the other hand, shares its name with that of the county.

Comparison #2:  You have to cross a bridge to get into either one.  The SR 100 Bridge arches over the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, while the Veterans Memorial Bridge spans Jamaica Bay.  After crossing either bridge, you find yourself on an isthmus that separates the body of water spanned by the bridge from the Atlantic Ocean.

Contrast#2:  Almost everyone who crosses the bridge to the Rockaways lives in Queens or one of the other boroughs of New York City.  You are as likely to encounter someone from just about any state in the US—or Quebec or Ontario—as a Floridian on the bridge as well as Route A1A, the road on the other side of the bridge.

Comparison #3:  You’re likely to encounter cyclists while crossing either bridge or riding along the roads that parallel the beaches.  Said cyclists could be riding anything from an old beach cruiser rescued from someone’s basement to the latest and most exclusive road and mountain bikes.

Contrast #3:  People riding high-quality bikes to or in Rockaway Beach are almost invariably residents of Queens—though not of Rockaway Beach or any other part of the Rockaway Peninsula—or Brooklyn or Manhattan.  If someone’s riding a really good bike to or in Flagler Beach, he or she is most likely from someplace else,  or lives in the area part-time.  Also, a high-end bike in Flagler is usually a Specialized, Cannondale or Trek and has a carbon-fiber or aluminum frame, while one in Rockaway could be one of those or could just as easily be a classic steel road or mountain bike.

Comparison #4:  You’re likely to pedal into or with the wind while riding to or from either place.  If you’re  lucky, you ride into the wind while going and with it while coming back.

Contrast #4:  The temperature might drop a degree or two when you cross the bridge into Flagler Beach.  The temperature could drop a bit more while crossing into the Rockaways, especially early in Spring, when the water temperature in Jamaica Bay and the Atlantic is around 5 to 8 degrees Celsius (40 to 45 F).   On the other hand, the temperature of the Atlantic where it meets Flagler Beach is around 15 C (60 F) at this time of year.

Why is there so much more rust on the right side of this handlebar than on the left?

Comparison #5:  Both beaches have their wizened, grizzled characters who live on the streets or beach, or who “couch surf”.  

Contrast #5:  Surprisingly, Rockaway has more such characters.  I say “surprisingly” because they are usually more common in larger beach communities where the weather is warm, or at least mild, all year round.  What that means, of course, is that more of those characters are living such a lifestyle by choice in Flagler (or Daytona Beach) .  In the Rockaways, there are now more of those characters than there were three years ago.  Many of them are living as they are as a result of Superstorm Sandy, where much of the devastation still hasn’t been repaired.  Seeing such people in the Rockaways makes me think of the film Atlantic City, in which the "busted valises", as Ring Lardner used to call them, were abandoned by another kind of tide that ravaged, then turned away from, them.

One final contrast:  Whenever I‘ve ridden to Flagler, it’s been on someone else’s bike.  I’ve never ridden to or through Rockaway Beach on any bike that’s not my own.  That includes today, when I took Tosca, my fixed-gear Mercian, out for the first time since the snowstorms buried and iced us in January.  She’s looking—and feeling—better than ever, if I do say so myself.