Question for NYC Roadies (Central Park / Training)
 

Hi there,

I just moved to NYC and I am completely out of my element here. Where the !@#$%^$# do you guys ride/train? I have been here for 2 days and so far I have gone over the GW bridge into NJ, and ridden the Greenway from the Cloisters to Houston St...but neither was really good for training. I couldn't even get my heartrate up because i always had to stop/brake for something. Is this just par for the course for NYC?

I live WAY uptown. Can someone tell me the best way to get from the west side (Cloisters/Ft. Tryon Park) to Central Park? If I take the Greenway, where do I get off? Is it even possible to train in Central Park? Any unwritten rules of riding in Central Park/NYC I should know about?

I race 'cross and mtb and I'm serious about training/racing, so If any of you ppl out there can recommend a good club, I'd be interested in that too.

Should I just get an indoor trainer and get my workouts in indoors? Please tell me its possible to train in nyc.

Thanks in advance...

Wear a full team discovery kit. Watch R600DuraAce from this board spot you and drop you like a stone. :)

Heh, central park's your best bet, otherwise, go over the GWB, go into the palisades park (great climb up to alpine), then get on 9W and keep going. Turn back and return to the GWB along 9W, its a great ride, much better than central park for training.

download the NYC cycling maps here... they will help you get around town.
http://www.transalt.org/info/maps.html#nyccycling

search this forum for Bear Mountain & Nyack, you will get some good maps, info.

NYCC is the largest club and has a large ride library you can view ... http://www.nycc.org/

and lots of good rides here ... http://www.roberts-1.com/bikehudson/

welcome! :)

Plenty of places to train. If you really live way uptown, head to GWB to NJ. Take a right to Hudson Terrace. Pull all the way straight to the end. Take a left and take right to 9w. On weekends, you see a lot of cyclists riding and training on 9w. Not sure about now since the racing season is over. To Central Park, take Broadway and head to 72nd Street. Or take the Riverside drive and to 72nd street. Take a left turn and pull straight until you reach the park. Want to join a new team? Try here: http://www.nyvelocity.com/content.php?id=454 There is a new development team from Mike Sherry a cat2 from Team Merrill Lynch and Craig Upton a cat1 from Team VisitBritain. I think he is racing for Team Navigator now. I am going to check it out this Sunday. There is the CRCA http://www.nyvelocity.com/content.php?id=454 and Kissena http://www.kissena.info/ Unfortunately, there are no cross racing near NYC or NYS. My teamates have to drive close to 3 hours to get to the nearest cross race. Me? I am just doing base miles now by commuting.

Riding CP is much better at night 8-10pm. Just watch out for the drunks wandering out of Tavern on the Green and the odd raccoon.

thanks for the good info. this is just what i'm looking for. i live at 204th, so getting to the GWB is pretty easy. actually there are some cross races in NJ, and earlier this season there were two big UCI cross events on long island, so i'm not so down on the cross scene. i typically race throughout the northeast, from providence to maine and VT, so im OK with driving....but getting in and out of the city is a bit of a pain, esp since now i am stuck renting a car. anyway, tomorrow im headed to gloucester, mass for a couple of big races. should be interesting coming off a week of weird nyc "training." oh well. cant win 'em all.

You should have done the Tour de Bronx with us last Sunday.

You sure? I think the MS Bike Tour is more fitting, at least you have more riding and heading to ride in NJ as well. I did the Tour de Bronx once 4 years ago. There are generally too many people. Too many kids riding their BMX and weaving right and left. The pace is never really fast. More like a sight seeing ride.

I live near you so I can tell you that the advice has been excellent so far. Here's another route to CP: take Fort Washinton Ave. to 165th (at the hospital). Make a right and then a left to get on Riverside Drive. Take that all the way down to 120th St, make a left until you run into Morningside Park, curiously enough at Morningside Drive. Make a right there down to 110th St, on which you make a left to get to CP.

Learn the car-free hours of Central Park, and avoid it on weekends of fine weather (*crowded*). Weekends are for riding on the other side of the Hudson.

... or very early mornings. Even in perfect weather, you can beat the park crowds if you're done by 9.30 or 10. but watch out for "fun runs" and the like which can be hard to predict and totally clog the park drive, esp. in the summer.

I highly recommend the roberts-1 website (posted above) for great rides in the hudson valley - I esp. like the Pawling loop, which you can access on Metro North. Lots of great riding in NJ and PA, too, if you rent a car or take the train. When I moved here in '97, it took me a couple of years of floundering around to finally get in a biking groove in NYC, but you will.

thanks for the tips.

i hope you are right...because right now i'm not so optomistic. this move is right in the middle of my cross racing season and its killing me to not be able to train (easily) and to have to rent a car to get out to the races. incidentally, any good recommendations on (cheap) car rentals??

www.zipcar.com

a life saver for NYers

I have a friend who uses zipcar and swears by it/them.

XCCX,

I moved last year from Texas - the land of wide open spaces - to New York City. After a period of adjustment, I quickly became very used to the cycling here. It's really very good - much better than Texas. I race road only, and own one road bike and one cross bike (my travel/touring/bad weather bike). I do three laps in central park during the week, early in the morning. I ride with a casual group of guys (usually < 10 people) starting at 6:30 AM and we do some hill sprints, tempo/intervals, and some fast cruising. With a couple of other guys to keep up with, and no cars early in the morning, central park is pretty darn nice. To and from my place, the three laps is around 20 miles. This is about as much as I have time for before work. On weekends I ride to New Jersey across the GW up 9W to Piermont and/or Nyack and back. You can also go right up broadway through the Bronx into Yonkers and Weschester - pretty nice hilly rides up towrds Ossining and Putnam Valley. No matter what you do you'll need to ride stop and go until you get out of Manhattan (at least), but just work this into your ride as the warm-up and cool down. Also check into the NYCC and CRCA clubs for large riding groups/training/racing. There's lots of great riding up here, you just have be brave enough to handle the hassles of getting out of the city!! Good luck - and bundle up for the winter!

If you wanna to leave the city, Prospect park in Brooklyn offers a nice 4 mile loop. I train there and CP and find more peletons to hop into in Prospect Park, if that's your sort of thing. There is a small hill and also a fair downhill, but more importantly it is less crowded than central park. Also there is a team that trains there a lot, I forget their website, but they race there as well. You should be able to find it on active.com or by searching google. Also, Harrimon state park north of the city is GREAT! I do bi(du)athlons there in the warmer months. You migth be able to carpool with someone too... some killer hills in Harrimon, and a long stretch to get up to 50-60 mph easily.
Check NYRRC.org to see when the races (running) are, you might want to avoid central park then, thousands of runners (myself included) glog up the park and often forget (myself excluded) to watch the bike lane.

new york blows for stop and go riding. i actually hate it sometimes. you can't do serious training on the surface streets here - it just ain't going to happen.

slvoid said it best - go over into jersey and ride in the palisades park. nice and hilly leading up to a .90 mile climb at the end. then you can just stay on 9W for as long as you want. the next best (i think) are the two main parks - central park and prospect park. you can ride without stopping there and you'll always see other riders.

remember - george hincappie came from new york. he must of found places to train. :)

ok, sorry if i need some hand-holding here...but i have a question...

i rode over the GWB the other day, and when i got to the other side, i had no idea where to go. i was basically at the base of the bridge on the NJ side and there was some construction and steep cliffs and i could see some green up to my left, but i had no idea how to et up there.

how, excactly, do i get to palisades park (is that the one?) and then to 9W??

thanks again....and thanks all for your encouragement. i'm feeling very, very, VERY bummed about my present lifestyle/living situation...but trying really hard to make it work.

I think living here is awesome. I wouldn't get too bummed :) See how you feel after you get the hang of it.

download this off my webserver. It is a 12 page pdf map/cue sheet. It is 4.5 megs.
http://www.bhch.net/users/brandon/bi...-Palisades.pdf

I made it for a friend who was driving up but this is the same route everyone rides.

Now you better never ever sat NYers are a$$holes again ;)

EDIT: The route terminates at the Runciple Spoon in Nyack. It is a cafe that fills up with cyclist on the weekend.

EDIT #2: When you turn left into Palisades Park just south of GWB, the pavement is crappy for the first 1/2 mile. Don't worry it smooths out and gets very nice.

I think your other edit was better. Even though those were sure some pretty trees ;)

hehe, you're quick. The trees are here ...
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=148658
xccx ^ that is what it looks like up there right now.

If you're starting in upper Manhattan, definitely head over the bridge to NJ.

Another group to check out is NYCC.ORG They have rides every weekend, a lot of them go to NJ and can be picked up at the bridge, or at the start in Central Park.

I would tell you to use Riverside Dr. to get there, but I had a bad accident there in the spring, at 158th, and am not so sure it is safe anymore, although I've used it for years.

Prospect Park is worth one trip, but I wouldn't go out of my way for it although I'm there all the time when I'm riding since I live less than a mile from it.

If you really need to get away from it all and you have some time, I'd suggest making your way down to Penn Station and taking NJ Transit's Midtown Direct line out to one of the stops between Chatham, NJ and Gladstone. Then consult the maps available at www.njbikemap.com. From Chatham or Madison you can construct some good rides around the Great Swamp (a wildlife reserve) and from around Gladstone there are some great rides through Somerset and Hunterdon Counties. I like to start near Mendham and do a loop out to Califon - Mountainville and back to Mendham via Lamington; there are some decent hills out this way and the scenery is quite nice.