Garden City and Hempstead sit on Long Island's flat middle, far from the Croton reservoirs, in what was once a huge natural prairie called the Hempstead Plains. This was the only true prairie in the east, a grassland of tall grasses and wildflowers that stretched for miles, and nearly all of it has been covered by houses, shops and roads, with only small patches protected. It is a strange thing to ride across a landscape you know used to look like Kansas.
Garden City was laid out in the late nineteenth century by the merchant Alexander Turney Stewart, who planned it as a model suburb with wide streets and substantial houses, and parts of that character are still visible in the leafy avenues and the big Gothic cathedral at its heart. The Hempstead Plains also became a cradle of aviation. Early flyers practised here, and in 1927 Charles Lindbergh took off from nearby Roosevelt Field on the first solo flight across the Atlantic, a moment recalled by a museum in the area.
Riding in this part of Long Island is a matter of parkways, built in the early twentieth century under the planner Robert Moses with graceful curves, stone overpasses and landscaped verges, and notorious for their low bridges, which keep out buses and trucks. The Meadowbrook and Wantagh parkways head south to the ocean beaches. Traffic can be heavy at rush hour, and local drivers are impatient, so expect to be hurried.
Everything you could want in the way of fuel and food is here, from bagels and pizza to Italian delis, diners and an enormous range of restaurants, and it is some of the easiest practical ground of the whole ride. The sea breeze moderates the heat in summer, but winter storms can bring heavy snow and ice, closing roads for a day or two.
For a quiet moment, head out early, before the school run, and take the back roads through the older villages, where you can still find old farmhouses, cemeteries from the colonial period, and the odd stretch of wooded greenery. The Long Island Rail Road runs through, so watch for level crossings. The north shore, with its mansions and harbours, and the south shore, with its beaches, are each a short ride from here.