STEEL TIER, $25
Gets you access to ride in the Virtual Tour and a downloadable finisher certificate for participating in the virtual ride.
Train for the TD Five Boro Bike Tour — on your own time — with a one-of-a-kind virtual ride that takes you through car-free NYC streets, past famous landmarks, and over historic bridges, right from home!
Bike New York recently partnered with virtual ride provider FulGaz to offer a virtual, 4K version of our iconic TD Five Boro Bike Tour.
This past August, cyclists of all skill levels came from around the world to roll through every borough of New York City totally free of cars. Now, we’re offering a second chance to experience America’s best and largest bike ride — virtually — with our partner FulGaz.
Get New York Strong, and support free bicycle education, with this uniquely urban in-home ride.
Gets you access to ride in the Virtual Tour and a downloadable finisher certificate for participating in the virtual ride.
Gets you access to ride in the Virtual Tour and a downloadable finisher certificate for participating in the virtual ride. Plus, score a shiny new medal!
Please note: Swag cannot be shipped to international riders at this time. If you are an international rider, and you’d like to register for the Carbon Tier, your contribution will be processed as a donation to Bike New York and you will not receive a medal.
Gets you access to ride in the Virtual Tour and a downloadable finisher certificate for participating in the virtual ride. Plus, score a shiny new medal, branded water bottle, and branded neck gaiter!
Please note: Swag cannot be shipped to international riders at this time. If you are an international rider, and you’d like to register for the Titanium Tier, your contribution will be processed as a donation to Bike New York and you will not receive a medal, water bottle, or neck gaiter.
BONUS: Following the extension of the Virtual TD Five Boro Bike Tour, the fastest female U.S. rider on top of our leaderboard after March 31 will receive a free Stages SB20 Smart Bike Indoor Trainer, worth over $3,000.
Terms and conditions can be found in the registration link and the Virtual Tour FAQs.
The Virtual Tour takes you through all five boroughs, starting in downtown Manhattan and heading up glitzy 6th Avenue before passing Central Park and Harlem. You’ll make your way through the Bronx before heading down the FDR and across the Queensboro Bridge to Long Island City. Make your way through Queens and Brooklyn before jumping on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and over the Verrazano Bridge to Staten Island.
Enjoy 20-minutes of uninterrupted bicycling through Central Park’s vibrant and lush flora on the Virtual Central Park Loop! You’ll begin your journey at Tavern on the Green, cruise under iconic arches, and pedal around Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, all from the comfort of your own home.
Download FulGaz and set up a free account
FulGaz is offering new subscribers a 30-day free trial, no credit card required.
Downloading the trial gives you full access to FulGaz with no restrictions on content, or how often or how far you ride. If you’re returning to FulGaz for another go, send FulGaz a support ticket and they’ll hook you up with another trial on the house.
Connect your devices
When you load up FulGaz and hit Get Started, you’ll be greeted with a pairing screen. Here your smart bike/trainer/speed sensor will be picked up and listed. Select the devices you’d like to connect and click Let’s Ride.
Pro tip: If you can’t see your devices when trying to connect, they are most likely paired with another app (RGT, Rouvy, Zwift). You will need to deselect your trainer from that app’s pairing screen, quit that app, and restart FulGaz.
Set your preferences, weight, and slope scaling
Click the settings icon to take a moment to set your display preference (metric or imperial). For the most realistic experience, enter your weight and bike weight. There are many other settings here; it’s best to get a feel for riding FulGaz first before adjusting these. Start at around 60% uphill to get the feel. You can adjust this in ride also.
Pro tip: If you find the hills too hard, you can adjust the Slope Scaling, this is essentially the “trainer difficulty”. Adjusting this won’t make you faster, but it will make hills easier!
Download the Virtual Tour video and ride
FulGaz suggests downloading the Virtual Tour video ahead of time. For any event, you must download the video. Before the event, test your set-up with something from the Easy collection. These rides will give you a good “feel” for how FulGaz looks and interacts with your trainer or smart bike.
Get event-ready
Before you start the Virtual TD Five Boro Bike Tour, make sure you turn up at the start line ready.
Here’s a quick checklist
To participate in this event from the comfort of your own home you will need some cycling equipment.
Pro Set-Up
Basic Set-up
Connection equipment
FulGaz works on Apple TV, macOS, an iPhone or iPad, and Windows and Android devices. To get started, you will need to download the app onto your respective device. For an excellent viewing (and riding) experience, we highly recommend using an Apple TV connected to your lounge room TV or monitor.
Please note: Rides in “event mode” will force you to download the ride before starting. This ensures an uninterrupted riding experience, so make sure you download the ride well ahead of time to avoid delays.
The Virtual Tour is now available until Thursday, March 31, 2022.
A virtual Central Park Loop will also be available to ride until March 31!
Yes, the Virtual Tour will not replace the 2022 Tour. We will host the TD Five Boro Bike Tour on Sunday, May 1, 2022. For more information on the 2022 Tour, please click here.
Nope! Riders can enjoy the Virtual Tour at whatever speed they please.
Registered riders will receive a promo code for their 30-day free FulGaz trial via their registration confirmation email.
Please note: If you wish to ride the Virtual Tour after your 30-day trial period, you will need to subscribe to a FulGaz membership.
Unfortunately, at this time we cannot ship swag to international riders.
International riders can purchase a Carbon or Titanium registration if they wish. However, because we cannot ship swag internationally, their contribution will be processed as a donation to Bike New York. If you accidentally purchased a Carbon or Titanium registration and do not want your contribution processed as a donation to Bike New York, please email info@bike.nyc.
VIRTUAL TD FIVE BORO BIKE TOUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS
Swag and Prizes
If you registered for Steel, Carbon, or Titanium, you may be eligible to receive certain swag (as described below), and the fastest female registered rider may be eligible to receive a Stages SB20 Smart Bike Indoor Trainer provided by Stages Cycling (the “Grand Prize”).
Only residents of the United States are eligible to receive swag and the Grand Prize. The Grand Prize will be provided only to individuals who are 18 years of age, as of January 8, 2022, or older. Please note that you are not eligible to receive swag or the Grand Prize where prohibited or restricted by law. Employees of Bike New York and its partners, sponsors, consultants, and agents, and their employees, officers, directors, and representatives and their immediate family members (spouse, parent, child, sibling, and their respective spouses, regardless of where they live) or persons living in the same households of such persons, whether or not related are also not eligible.
Please note that Bike New York may determine that it needs to cancel, terminate, or suspend your eligibility to receive any swag or the Grand Prize at any time. We will let you know of any such determination as soon as reasonably practicable.
You acknowledge that you are responsible for all taxes and fees that you may owe on swag and the Grand Prize. Bike New York will issue a Form 1099-MISC for the Grand Prize winner.
To receive swag or the Grand Prize, Bike New York will verify your identity (including name and address). You agree to cooperate with Bike New York in all aspects for the verification. You agree that personal data, especially your name and address, may be processed, shared, and otherwise used for the purposes and within the context of the Virtual Ride, including to verify your identity, postal address, and telephone number or to otherwise verify your eligibility to receive swag or the Grand Prize. You have the right to access, review, correct, or delete any personal data held by Bike New York by writing to info@bike.nyc.
If you have questions about the delivery of your swag, please contact Always Advancing at virtual5boro@alwaysadvancing.net.
If you have any questions about the delivery of the Grand Prize, please contact info@bike.nyc.
If you don’t see the Virtual Tour on FulGaz, please restart the app or tap UPDATE RIDE LIST in Settings to refresh the ride collection – the Virtual Tour should appear after that.
Our mission: We unlock the life-changing effects of cycling through education initiatives offered to the public at no cost. Here’s just a handful of the programs you’ll sustain when you ride in one of our Virtual Rides.
Bike New York provides a completely free, year-round curriculum of classes for children and adults at every stage of their cycling journeys, from first rides and fundamentals to commuting and touring. We pioneered the largest free bike education program of its kind and have inspired similar programs around the country. In 2020 alone, Bike New York’s programming reached over 30,000 people.
We’re dedicated to making cycling more inclusive and accessible, and that’s why we hold free classes in all five boroughs at our Community Bike Education Centers. Students are provided with bikes, helmets, and the insights and knowledge of experienced instructors, creating an encouraging environment for building core riding skills—and having a blast while learning!
When COVID-19 brought the world to a standstill, Bike New York was forced to temporarily suspend its in-person programming. Though cycling events came to a halt, the need for bike resources swelled as a huge influx of people turned to cycling for transportation and recreation. We knew we couldn’t slow down.
To address the sudden surge in demand for accessible bike education, we pivoted from teaching in the streets to bringing our lessons to the virtual classroom. Since launching our digital education program and Virtual Bike Education Resource Hub in April, we’ve helped hundreds, if not thousands, of students build their bike skills, confidence, and knowhow—and with aspiring cyclists from across the country tuning in to our weekly classes, we’re making a difference far beyond the five boroughs.
Recycle-A-Bicycle is our personal spin on a local bike shop. We’ve called Brooklyn home for well over a decade, so it’s no stretch to say we know the neighborhood.
In addition to providing New Yorkers with gear and hosting area service programs, RAB accepts donations of old, used, and broken bikes, which we completely restore, refurbish, and sell. What can’t be repaired is salvaged for parts. This means we’re not just giving thousands of well-loved bikes a second chance: In 2019, RAB reused or repurposed nearly 12 tons of material. That’s the same as saving 77.95 metric tons of CO2e!
Bike New York works with local communities and NYC DOT to host Bike Bonanzas, no-cost family activity days made to outfit children and their parents with all the tools they need to pedal proudly. We bring our ever-popular Learn to Ride Class for Kids, DOT’s Vision Zero helmet giveaways and fittings, and bike swaps (for kids to trade their old bikes in and upgrade to the next size) to parks and public spaces across the city. Consider it an all-ages block party with bikes.
In July 2019, Bike New York celebrated the opening of Brooklyn’s Shirley Chisholm State Park by launching a free bike share pilot program designed to make exploring nature as easy as checking out a library book. The Bike Library hosts a fleet of 84 bikes (refurbished by graduates of Recycle-A-Bicycle’s Earn-A-Bike program) available for park visitors to “check out” for rides around the grounds in the summer and fall.
In the Library’s first three months, park-goers took 8,585 rides along 10 miles of car-free pathways by scenic Jamaica Bay. The cyclists we served came primarily from the surrounding neighborhoods, with 74% of bike share users hailing from Brooklyn. 34% of rides were taken by people under 18 years of age and, excitingly, riders reflected an even gender split. The Library reopened and expanded for the 2020 season, offering New Yorkers a meaningful way to enjoy the outdoors while social distancing and other pandemic restrictions were in place.
We know that one of the best ways to encourage healthy lifestyle choices and regular physical activity in children and young adults is to give them the freedom to explore on two wheels. We partner with Woodhull Hospital, Lincoln Hospital, and New York Cycle Club to produce our Kids’ Ride Club, a friendly, fun group ride program for youth cyclists in low-income neighborhoods. And to challenge kids to see what cycling life is like beyond city limits, we held our inaugural bike touring trip for teenage bike enthusiasts in 2019, a tristate adventure that pushed them out of their comfort zone to prove just what amazing things they could accomplish together.
Last year, Bike New York partnered with One Community, a nonprofit dedicated to professional training and employment placement, to pilot an intensive, hands-on bike mechanic training program that helps formerly incarcerated New Yorkers continue down the path of rebuilding their lives through the power of stable employment. The program focuses on the particulars of repair and maintenance for Citi Bikes and prepares participants for a well-paying union job on Citi Bike’s mechanic team. Recycle-A-Bicycle provided 60 hours of instruction, as well as tools, materials, and support, to a cohort of students. Learn more about this program here.
In 2019, Bike New York began a concentrated effort to actively engage in and spearhead local-level advocacy initiatives. Within its first year, projects included:
And in the summer of 2020, Bike New York launched its new Street Action Now! program to instruct a cohort of students in how to analyze unsafe street conditions, perform a street audit, and work with community boards to provoke real change on their blocks.
Together we ride.