Darryl, our tour guide for Central Park Cycling, is truly amazing.
First, it was supposed to be a small group tour and ended up just being the two of us. Darryl owns the company that supplies the tour guides, so he came in the place of an employee. He used an electric scooter, which made it much easier for him to check up on us on our bikes while looking backwards. This was good because there are a lot of people and carriages and other bikes, which makes cycling in Central Park a bit of an obstacle course. He stopped at 8 spots and talked in depth about the history of the park in relation to NYC, in great detail about the visible buildings and their famous occupants and associated history, and much more.
Halfway through, I told Darryl that I was truly amazed at his depth and breadth of knowledge about almost everything. From movie stars to geology to Park flora and fauna, also the cityscape, architecture, sculptures, park engineering, and park commerce. I do not think there was a question that he did not have an in-depth answer to. With our happy permission, he went 45 minutes overtime on the tour. Even then he said we had only covered 10 percent of the park. It is clear that he loves Central Park and has devoted his life and career around it.
The tour was arranged through Cycle Park NYC, near by the Park, which supplies the bikes (and helmets on request). The pickup and dropoff was easy and pleasant, the bikes were a good way to get around the Park quickly.
Highly recommend!