When cyclists imagine the perfect bike ride, they likely think of smooth car-free roads, light streaming through majestic leafy trees painting the path ahead with golden speckles as it leads the way toward a snow-capped mountain set against a deep blue, cloudless sky. At least that’s where all the bike companies seem to place their products. You know the place; you could be in Napa, Malibu, the Alps, the Iberian Peninsula; no matter, it’s all the same perfect place, interchangeable and retouched to anodyne perfection.

New York City seems as far away from that place as you can get. It’s a pothole-ridden, overpopulated mess. It’s noisy, smelly, grid-locked, foul-weathered and often soul-crushing...