Ride NYC
the way locals do.
Most tourists never explore NYC by bike. They don't know the safe routes, the right neighborhoods, or where to stop. Two Wheel Tours answers all three: curated rides on protected lanes, built by people who actually live here.
The Concept
Not a map. A ride a local already planned for you.
Getting on a Citi Bike alone in NYC feels intimidating if you don't know the city. Which streets are safe to ride? Where do you go? What's actually worth stopping for? Two Wheel Tours answers all of it before you clip in.
Every route runs on NYC's protected bike lane network, physically separated from traffic. Every stop is chosen by someone who knows the neighborhood: a food writer, a local historian, a third-generation resident. If it's on every tourist list, it didn't make the cut.
Audio narration plays in your earbuds while you ride and when you arrive at each stop. The phone stays in your pocket the rest of the time. Eyes up, wind in your face, city all around you.
Safe route, every time
Every tour is planned entirely on NYC's protected lane network. You'll never end up in traffic wondering what to do next.
Curated by locals, not algorithms
Each tour is built by a real New Yorker: a food critic, a historian, someone who grew up there. Not a content team. Not a scrape of Yelp reviews.
Audio tells the story
Narration plays while you ride and when you arrive at each stop. Phone stays in your pocket. Eyes up the whole time.
No logistics, just ride
Every stop is a Citi Bike dock. Roll in, explore, roll out. No locks, no route-planning, no stress. The app handles everything else.
The Differentiator
The content moat is editorial curation.
Any competitor can put bike stops on a map. What they cannot replicate is the editorial judgment behind which stops, and why they matter.
"If a visitor could have found this list on Google Maps, we haven't added value."
The Great Eight
Eight of NYC's greatest landmarks connected by the safest route we know. The city's highlights, one unforgettable loop. The ideal first ride for anyone new to Two Wheel Tours.
Brooklyn Bridge to DUMBO
A 90-minute intro loop from Lower Manhattan, across the bridge, through DUMBO, and back. Short, scenic, and fully protected-lane from start to finish. Built for first-time NYC cyclists.
The High Line Loop
Hudson Yards to the Meatpacking District. A quick, flat ride through one of the city's most photographed corridors. Great for getting comfortable with the app before committing to a longer tour.
The Chopped Cheese Trail
The bodega dish Harlem and the Bronx invented. Specific bodegas with a documented origin story, built with people who actually grew up eating them. Most tourists have never heard of it. That's the point.
The Original Slice
Pizza validated by serious food press criteria. The places that shaped what NYC pizza actually is, not the ones with 10,000 Yelp reviews. Brick oven history, family lineage, and 50+ years on the same block.
Old School Bagels Before They're Gone
The surviving first-and-second-generation Jewish bakeries. The last hand-rolled spots. Built against food press research and neighborhood oral history before gentrification finishes the job.
Flushing Dim Sum Circuit
Flushing is the most diverse square mile in the country. A tour curated by writers who cover Chinese food specifically, not just "popular Chinese restaurants in Queens" based on Google reviews.
The Egg Cream Map
A dying New York institution. The original candy stores and soda fountains that still make them, plus the blocks where they used to be everywhere. Nostalgic, almost gone, and genuinely specific to this city.
Hip-Hop's Birthplaces
South Bronx. 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, Cedar Park, the rec rooms and community centers where it actually started. Verified from hip-hop historians and archival documentation, not Wikipedia.
Harlem's Jazz Era
Not jazz bars open now. The locations of the original Cotton Club, the Apollo's early years, the rent parties, the recording studios. The physical map of where an entire music era happened.
The Brill Building Circuit
Tin Pan Alley, the Brill Building, the rooms where Carole King, Neil Sedaka, and Phil Spector wrote the pop music of the 1950s and 60s. Verified from music history. A midtown tour with real depth.
Punk's Last Address
CBGB's original location. The venues that absorbed the scene after it closed. The Lower East Side blocks that still carry the DNA. Built against documented music press and verified venue history.
New York in the 70s on Film
Taxi Driver, Dog Day Afternoon, The French Connection, Saturday Night Fever. The actual locations, then versus now. Verified from production records. The city that used to terrify people, and why it made such great film.
Seinfeld's Real New York
The Upper West Side the show actually used, with verified shooting locations and the real stories behind why those spots were chosen. Not just Monk's Diner.
Sex & the City
The real locations behind six seasons of Manhattan mythology. Carrie's stoop, the actual Magnolia, the boutiques and restaurants that shaped how a generation imagined New York. Verified, not fan-wiki guesswork.
What makes a Two Wheel Tours route different
Every tour has a named source
The NYC Local badge means the tour was built with a real New Yorker, a specialist writer, or a credible editorial brand. Not a content farm, not scraped from review sites. A person who can be named.
Protected lane coverage is a design constraint
Every route is designed around NYC's protected bike lane network, not just mapped on top of it. The percentage shown on each tour card is the share of the route on fully separated infrastructure. No exceptions made for convenience.
If it's on Google Maps, it didn't make the cut
The editorial test for every stop: would a well-traveled local already know to include this, or does it take specific knowledge? A stop that shows up on every tourist list is a stop we reject. The content moat is exactly that: moated.
Why Now
Four things make 2026 the right moment to build.
The infrastructure, the tools, and the behavior are all in place. This window wasn't open five years ago.
Citi Bike is now a real network
30,000 bikes, 2,000+ stations, expanding into all five boroughs. The dock-to-dock model only works at this coverage level. You couldn't build this tour on the 2018 Citi Bike network.
AI collapses the content cost
Writing, voicing, and updating tour audio at scale was a manual content bottleneck. AI collapses that cost to near-zero. One editor can manage a catalogue of 50 tours.
Audio content is normalized
Podcasts, audiobooks, and voice-led experiences have trained a generation to absorb information through earbuds. The user behavior is established. We're applying it to physical space.
Post-COVID urban tourism is surging
NYC visitor numbers are back above pre-COVID levels and growing. Travelers want experiences, not just sights. The demand for doing it like a local has never been higher.
Pick Your Ride
Choose a route,
not a tour group.
Every tour is a real bike ride through a real neighborhood, built by someone who knows it. Browse, pick one, and go.
Now Riding
Your route.
Every turn protected.
While you ride, the app shows you exactly where you are on the tour: every stop, how far you've come, and what's next. When it's time to move, one tap opens Google or Apple Maps with your route pre-loaded.
You Made It
Dock the bike.
Hear the story.
You rode here. Now find out why this place actually matters, from someone who knew before it was on any list.
The Market
NYC is the right first city.
NYC is the only US city with Citi Bike at the scale and coverage density that makes the dock-to-dock model viable. The protected lane network is extensive and expanding. The tourist base is deep enough to generate real revenue from a small conversion rate.
The NYC pilot proves the model. Once the playbook is documented, expansion to other cities with comparable bike-share networks is a replication problem, not a reinvention one.
Business Model
Simple pricing. Near-zero infrastructure cost.
Two SKUs at launch. Three free tours included to lower acquisition friction. Infrastructure runs under $1,100 per year.
Pricing
Infrastructure Cost Breakdown (MVP, annually)
| Service | Cost/yr |
|---|---|
| Supabase + Cloudflare hosting | $240 |
| Google Maps API | $600 |
| Apple Developer Program | $99 |
| RevenueCat (free tier) + misc | $85 |
| Total | ~$1,024 |
At $19.99 City Pass, break-even is 52 purchases. The unit economics work from day one of paying users.
Roadmap
Four phases. NYC proves the model.
The NYC pilot is the validation layer. Everything after it is replication and scale.
NYC Pilot
- 10 curated tours at launch
- iOS app, Citi Bike-native
- Protected-lane routing layer
- Advisor review of all scripts
- Real user data, real revenue
Catalogue Expansion
- NYC catalogue to 25+ tours
- Android launch
- Subscription tier
- Production workflow documented
- Tourism board partnerships
Second City
- Chicago or DC next
- Curation process repeatable
- Local editorial partners
- App Store featuring push
Platform
- 5+ US cities
- Guided creator tools
- B2B licensing (hotels, tourism operators)
- International expansion
Documents
Full deck and PRD available.
The pitch deck covers the full concept visually. The PRD goes deep on every product, design, and technical decision for the NYC pilot.