weighted

Hello, I am a cat 3 and moving to NYC from Seattle in the coming months. I am a little confused as to how the racing goes on there. Can I race unattached in local NYC races, or do I have to join the CRCA? What is the CRCA anyway? Is that like a USAC regional organization, like the WSBA? Also, anyone have recommendations for me for finding group rides?

Thanks in advance.

slynkie

You can race unattached around here, no problem. Most races are USAC. CRCA is a USAC club (or team, not sure what the proper term is) that a lot of sub-teams organize under. They do have some CRCA-only races, but there are plenty of plain USAC ones basically every weekend. Check out the NYSBRA calendar -
https://www.nysbra.com/

For road races, you'll typically have to travel outside of the city. Inside the city there are lots of crits and circuit races (short circuits, basically the Central Park and Prospect Park loops), and the occasional TT, as well as track races at an outdoor velodrome.

weighted

Great, thanks.

Inertianinja

The thing about NYC is that there aren't a lot of places to race. Most races happen in Central Park, Prospect Park, or Floyd Bennett Field. Beyond that, you're gonna need a car.

There are plenty of non-CRCA races to do, but in NYC the CRCA is really the racing scene. it's a very large club with regular races in central park, large subteams, and group rides.

You can race unattached in the CRCA (you have to wear the CRCA kit) though you'll find that most people are on teams past Cat4. Part of the reason for this is very large development teams like NY Velocity/Siggys that have like 9 guys in any given race as early as Cat 5.

There are also races organized by Kissena (another club centered in Queens). They have regular group rides (one called the "Triangle Ride" which you'd probably be interested in) if you can get out to Long Island (see below).

There are weekly night races at Floyd Bennett Field, which is an abandoned airfield in Brooklyn. Plenty of guys ride there, but if you're at all risk-averse, I don't recommend it. The grounds are bad, there are potholes and weeds, and the organization is very lax. For example, one of my teammates was very badly injured in a crash last year, and it took over an hour for EMS to get to him because the organizers didn't have an ambulance on site, and they couldn't find the airfield.

As a side note on training:
If you live in manhattan, most people train in either central park or up in New Jersey either north on 9W or on River Road. (9W gets more hilly the further north you go). Central Park is too packed with tourists to train in after about 8am. Most people are in the park by 6-630 (i'm in by 6, and I can get 24 miles in by 7 or so).
As someone with a day job that lives on the Upper East Side, I do my morning rides in Central Park and weekends on River Road.
Everywhere else in the city (for example, the west side greenway) is either so full of tourists or cars that you can't expect a workout.

To the east, there is NYC's giant suburb - Long Island. If you go about 20 miles west, you'll find plenty of long roads to ride on...if you go really far east on LI, you'll find really nice riding. The problem is that nobody from NYC rides out there - in order to get to the nice riding on LI, you have through Queens, which is horrible to ride in.

rhm

But the Long Island Rail Road allows bikes at most times.

weighted

Question:

Any nice routes to get to Pelham Bay Park from Brooklyn? Planning on racing Orchard Beach Crit next week.

sharmaji

BK--Queens-- 59th street bridge to manhattan-- bridge at 102nd to Roosevelt island-- triboro bridge ramp to the bronx-- a bunch of junk miles in the Bronx until you get to zerega ave-- north-- then a mixture of greenways (hutch, pelham parkway) until you get to Pelham bay park.

The Bronx doesn't make for easy cycling at all. W/ that said, if you can get to lafayette ave to head East/West, you can open it up there a bit.

Chances are you could just head straight from Queens to the Bronx via the Triboro, but it's always been recommended to me as the worst place to ride a bike in NYC... which is saying something.

weighted

Awesome, thanks for the reply. Life has intervened and I wont be going to Orchard Beach after all. Nevertheless, I appreciate the route suggestion, as I was considering the tri-boro based on the DoT Bike Map I got from Ride Brooklyn. I used it to map a route to Kissena and I ended up on some of the busiest roads in Queens, there really is no substitute for experience.

Thanks again for all the responses. Since I have been here I have done a couple park races and a couple wednesdays at Kissena, and so far so good. This is a good scene with many interesting people.

zacster

The triboro has stairs on it, and is narrow once on the bridge. It isn't the worst place, but it is my least favorite bridge. If it is the most direct route by all means use it.