New York - NYC

Can anyone recommended somewhere where I can hire a decent road bike for 5 days in New York? I'm currently contemplating hiring a moots from Sid's on 19th Street.

My good friend is moving to New York in a few weeks.

He's a keen cyclist.

I was hoping to compile a list of places to go, clubs to join, routes to ride, places to drink beer, LBS etc....

Eat here: Halal Guys (get the chicken platter, extra hot sauce)
Also eat here: Prosperity Dumplings (don't be a tourist – just order the fried chive & pork dumplings)
Eat here as well: http://xianfoods.com/ (get N1 unless you feel adventurous)
Ride here: Hudson River Bike Path (although it's not very exciting)
Drink here: Raines Law (although not beer)
Drink here too: Angel's Share (also not beer. get the Stormy Weather)
Drink and eat here: Corner Bistro (burgers and beer)

Can't think of anything else off the top of my head.

Man v Food New York, NY part 1 - YouTube

and come say high 2 me

bump!

Got my visa so im off for 2 years to NYC.

Im interested to know if prospect park has the same prospects (tee hee) as regents park for riding quickly in circles?

If you mean/want velo action it's Kissena but CP is great.

Can anyone recommended somewhere where I can hire a decent road bike for 5 days in New York? I'm currently contemplating hiring a moots from Sid's on 19th Street.
If your going that high quality Sid's is a good choice or check Bicycle Habitat.

I know a few dudes he could hook up with. Whees he moving to?

Be careful on the traffic cops, they tend to be a bit more vigilant on bikes.

check out http://www.baohausnyc.com/, pretty good street food.

I know a few dudes he could hook up with. Whees he moving to?

On this note - i know two sets of folks that ride all the time there - if he's looking for a more social / casual club, then NNR are great guys. Email Nemo and hook up with them.

Also 5th Floor has an outpost in NYC. I'm sure they'd introduce him to folks to ride with. Prospect Park is great for loops with some small hill climbs and good descents.

Good food and drink is literally everywhere. However I would seriously reccomend that he gets a slice (or better, whole pie) at Di Fara, eats a bagel from Murrays and gets Ramen at Ippudo.

also 100000000x Backed on the Xi'An Famous Foods reccomendation. Go to flushing though, to do it. And while you're there get a bowl of Pho from Pho Bang accross the street.

thanks everyone, i'll pass on all your recommendations

where to live is still to be decided, but brooklyn is the preferred location

www.padmapper.com is excellent for apartment searching - the whole letting agent situation there is pretty different, and typically you need to have a broker, who will find apartments for you. They then take a fee, along with all the usual deposits etc etc. Bit of a joke!

There is also another listings weekly email which is pretty brooklyn focused and is all run by artists/designers but I can remember for shit what it's called. If I do, I'll stick it up here.

Not sure how the London letting scene is nowadays, but NYC is a very tough nut to crack. I've just moved here after two years in LA, and finding a place was a proper pain in the arse. The below advice contains a bunch of stuff I wish I'd known two months ago.

It's all about your credit history here, and if you're fresh off the boat you won't have any. However, zero credit is much better than 'bad credit'!
You will also need to prove your income - as a guideline, your gross annual income should be 40-50 times the amount of monthly rent you want to pay. Any less and the landlord will think you won't be able to keep up with the rent.

Depending on your situation (age, employment, etc) it might be advisable to start searching amongst NY friends if you have any, and be open to the idea of initially sharing an apartment with somebody you know (or a friend of a friend) whilst you build up a credit rating.

The Broker thing is typical Estate-Agent bullshit. You DO NOT need your own Broker, as the majority of properties advertised on the web are repped by a Broker of their own anyway.
If you show up with your own Broker in tow (as we did), the Broker repping the property will immediately realise that they're going to have to split their fee 50/50 with your Broker if your lease application is accepted - they call this a 'co-brokering' situation. This, along with a lack of credit history will put you WAY down the desirability list.
Broker fees are typically 10-15% of the annual rent of the apartment you're looking at. An effing big chunk of money. Can be avoided if you move into a spare room at a mate's place, or find a 'No Fee' listing on sites like the aforementioned Padmapper or StreetEasy.
Also worth asking around the coffee shops in neighbourhoods you want to live in about where to find no-fee apartments for rent.

Open-house viewings are probably the most unpleasant thing - 40 or so people trying to view the same apartment at the same time. Usually on a Saturday. I fucking hated those.

To give you a little perspective on what it was like for us just two months ago;

• Wife works for a major American company, on a good wage.
  
• No US credit history as we spent the two years previous living debt-free in LA, owned our (cheap) car outright, no credit cards, etc.
  
• Lived in same apartment for 2 years in LA, had glowing written recommendation from old landlady.
  
• Wife's company assigned a Broker to us. Unfortunately he wasn't even vaguely familiar with the areas we wanted to look at, and we ended up feeding him listings most nights of the week.
  
• In 11 days we viewed 29 apartments, and on just two occasions we met the owners. The rest of the time, it was just us and Brokers.
  
• Applied for 4 apartments and were rejected from 3. We never found out why we were rejected from any of them, and our Broker couldn't tell us either. The application that was accepted was from a viewing where we met the owner (and more importantly, they met us).
  
  

If you go down the road of finding your own apartment and paying a Broker Fee, be certain that you're getting into a place you really want.
A few days of NY apartment-hunting should be enough to convince you that you sure-as-shit don't want to be looking for a new apartment again in a year's time.

HTH

If you mean/want velo action it's Kissena but CP is great.

If your going that high quality Sid's is a good choice or check Bicycle Habitat.

Sid's only have one moots for hire and it's the wrong size. They also don't alter the fee if you hire a bike a for a number of days. Can you recommend somewhere that would hire out something a bit cheaper which would be fine for a trip out to Bear Mountain.

Talk to NYC Velo. If they can't help you themselves, they might know someone who will. Solid dudes.

What do you wanna eat?

Go to DiFara in Midwood. Ramen at Ippudo on Astor Place. Mission Chinese food in the LES. Pok Pok NY in Carrol Gardens. Eat a Shake Shack. Dosa Cart at Washington Sq. Park. Go to Xi'an Famous Foods in Flushing / East Village. Pho Bang in Flushing. Robertas in Bushwick...

Had some great meals , thanks !

BaoHaus is also pretty damn good fyi

On route to boahaus now , haven't had a chance to ride out here though , good bike rental seems to be scarce

Could try Spinlister:
https://www.spinlister.com/new-york?q=new+york&utf8=✓

NYC Velo rent carbon cinelli rad bikes for $65 a day which is the best road bike rental rate there is.

Chari rent singlespeeds but they are expensive and ruder than blb

Although I didnt know about ^^ Spinlister. looks great. gonna rent one I think. fed up on the brompton

I wasn't offered a cinelli by NYC Velo, I think they offer Felts now. But still £65 a day 20% off for > 3 days seems to be the best deal I can find.

They have cinellis in the LES store and felts in the other one

I split my time between NYC and London, but after this year I'm going to be living there year round, does anyone know a good NYC equivalent of LFGSS with a solid classifieds section? I have a friend who works in a shop in Bed-Stuy (Bike-Slug, a good place for repairs/service btw), but he's sort of a steel frame cult kind of guy and I'm looking for something aluminum.

Any New York Dudes wanna ride to Bear Mountain and back one day next week?