Touring Manhattan and especially Central Park on “bike-back” is a unique experience that offers many advantages over other means of tourist transportation. You can tour outside of the park by bike too, along the beautiful Hudson River or along the Waterfront Greenway where you can take in the Manhattan skyline at a leisurely pace, for instance. But bike rentals and pedicab rentals for touring Central Park are a particularly an efficient and an enjoyable way to take in the sights.
Attractions That Await You in Central Park
Central Park offers 843 acres of natural habitat, manicured greenery, and tourist-appropriate entertainment, surrounded by towering skyscrapers and urban sprawl on every side. With over 40 million visitors per year, it is the most-visited municipal park in the United States.
There are a plethora of things to see and do in Central Park, so much so that a guided tour or a well thought out plan are necessary to “take in all in.” We can’t possibly list here everything the park has to offer, but here are some of the main highlights:
- Central Park Zoo: Tropical, temperate, and polar exhibits cover the globe as to variety of species. Park and lock your bike and don’t miss out on this, one of the most notable attractions in the whole park.
- Belvedere Castle: Built in the 1800’s to mimic “real” castles, Belvedere Castle’s tower and walls resemble something out of a fairy tale, only on a smaller scale. Stop off here for a panoramic view of the park and see the Central Park Weather Station.
- Wollman Rink & Victorian Gardens: This bit of real estate is a large ice skating rink in the winter but a small amusement park (with Italian-built rides for young children) in the warmer months of the year.
- Cleopatra’s Needle: This is a genuine ancient Egyptian obelisk with real hieroglyphics on it, relocated from Heliopolis to New York City.
- 29 Notable Sculptures: Statues of General Sherman, Balto the sled dog, renown Alice (of Wonderland), famed poets and writers in the Literary Walk area and more line the bike paths and dot the park.
- Movie and TV Scenes: If you take a guided bike tour, you can learn much of the park’s history, including the very spots where scenes from Ghostbusters, Home Alone 2, and other cinema favorites were shot.
- Manhattan Bedrock: A definite must is a stop and climb to the top of Rat Rock. And you can view other exposed runs of bedrock, of different types, in the park.
And besides all of the above, the park has an abundance of plant and animal species, several lakes and ponds, museums such as Metropolitan Museum of Art and American Museum of Natural History, and much more.
Advantages of “Biking It”
Touring Central Park by bike will allow you to move fast enough to cover the entirety of the park in a single day’s outing but slow enough to gaze and enjoy what you see. It also makes it easy to stop off at points of interest and quickly get rolling again.
If you get a helmet, basket, lock, and map with your rented bike, you will be fully equipped, safe, and able to find your way on your own. If you opt for a guided bike tour with a group, there will be a schedule and designated stops (versus creating your own itinerary) but you will gain extra insight into the park and its history.
Bike rental is on-site and relatively cheap. Biking paths are everywhere and give you access to all the park’s attractions. There really is no better way to tour the park, though a pedicab tour is comparable (up to 3 persons per cab by park rules).
