It was a bear of a climb.
A local cyclist scaled Bear Mountain last weekend — on a 45-pound Citi Bike.
James Huang, 19, burned 3,882 calories muscling the clunker up the mountain, according to fitness-tracking app Strava. “I was totally spent,” he said. “It just kept on going. You don’t get hills like that in New York [City].”
Huang — who lives with his parents on the Upper East Side while remotely studying industrial engineering at the University of Southern California — said he is training for a triathlon and needed something to ride while he saves for a proper road bike.
“I’ll probably get a pretty nice one,” he said. He looks forward to a bike that will be less than half the weight of a Citi Bike, with better aerodynamics and no power-sapping dynamo, like the one that powers a Citi Bike’s lights.
The Stuyvesant High School graduate was struck by the greenery once he reached the summit.
Huang began his May 2 trek at the First Avenue/78th Street Citi Bike station, riding over the George Washington Bridge, along U.S. Route 9W, and up the mountain
(elevation 1,289 feet). The climb itself took him 35 minutes and 11 seconds.
After descending, he crossed the Bear Mountain Bridge, rode to the Garrison Metro-North station, and caught a train back into the city. Total distance cycled: 62.3 miles.
He said he got more than a few comments on the ride — mostly friendly. A few were “sarcastic,” he said, on the order of, “I didn’t know they had those up here.”
His total rental time was 5 hours 48 minutes, for which he was charged $35.23, he said. (The Citi Bike rental agreement does not include a provision against leaving city limits.)
Huang lives with his parents in NYC while remotely studying industrial engineering at the University of Southern California. Tamara Beckwith/NY Post“I had a few dollars in Lyft credits. It would have been more expensive, but I’m a ‘Bike Angel,'” Huang said, referring to a promotion through which riders earn credits for “rebalancing” bikes, moving them from stations with many bikes to those with few.
The native New Yorker and Stuyvesant High School graduate said he was also struck by all that greenery just outside Gotham.
“I personally haven’t been outside the city in forever, because of COVID,” he said. “I didn’t even know upstate was so close.”
