This morning I cycled to get bagels for breakfast. This felt like a definitive Brooklyn bicycling trip. One for the ages. It could have happened in 1963. So I thought about what else would qualify as a uniquely Brooklyn bicycling trip.

A bicycling trip to the Coney Island.

*Atlantic City bicyclist substituting for Coney Islander.

I think the most Brooklyn bicycling trip you can take is to cycle to some New York City attraction that no longer exists. It occupied a place and is now gone. Like the Stone. You leave Brooklyn over the Manhattan Bridge and down Chrystie Street. You could lock up your bike up to a street sign on Avenue C and spend your hard earned money on an hour set from the improvisational group Pickled Beets. And they rock. When you get there though it’s just an empty gated store front. So you turn around. No pickled beets tonight.

Or the Key Food.

And right now I am thinking of all those times I packed my backpack with a 1 gallon ziplock bag of coins and cycled to the Key Food on 5th avenue in Park Slope. It was the only coin counting machine that was consistently not out of order in a 10 mile radius from my address. Nowadays I have no coins. My coin tin is empty. It makes me a little sad. The Key Food is closed. It will be replaced with something less interesting. I will still bike there though.