Into a bit of bicycle sex? Then you need New York City! The hidden gem of my visit to NYC last week was the city's “bicycling” culture. Who needs the Guggenheim when there are half a million beautiful bikes to ogle?

“Bicycling” isn't as popular in New York as it is in London, and in terms of volume it comes nowhere near Oxfordshire. But what the city lacks in quantity it more than makes up for in quality. In the UK, you see the occasional head-turner, but in uber-fashionable Manhattan nearly every machine is perfectly covetable.

I couldn't get 50 yards down any street without stopping to fawn. My wife gave up complaining after the first three or four hours, and even I gave up taking photos of them after I had filled two memory sticks. Every third bike in Manhattan is a beauty — be it a polished vintage racer, or a sexy Bianchi carbon-fibre fixed-gear track bike, or one of thousands of punked-up single-speed creations.

New York cycling is all about gearless minimalism, which works in a city of few hills and short distances. What's it like actually cycling in New York? I started in Central Park. Cycling is a pleasant way to see that part of the city, but (dare I admit it?) walking would be even better. “Bicyclists” have to stay on the wide bike highway (for it is much more than a lane) which loops in figures of eight from the bottom to the top. But on bikes, you can't scoot off down quieter paths to check out the jazz trumpeters, or roller-disco dancers, and the myriad other spontaneous entertainments that the park offers.

The touts at Columbus Circle hire bikes for $15 for the first hour and $5 thereafter. There are some disgusting jalopies for hire and it took them a while to find me a bike that was acceptable. Knowing it'd take an hour to ride around the park, I hired bikes for two hours to give extra time for some off-piste riding. My wife waited at the top of Central Park while I rode north into Harlem.

The cycling was easy and fun. The lanes are wide and the vehicles tend to overtake properly rather than squeeze past. And there are hundreds of cycle tracks and quiet backstreets you can use.

My only complaints were the traffic lights and the speed of the cars. The cars are enormous — a Range Rover is modest next to the behemoths that most Americans drive. While they may give you a decent wide berth, the gurgling 4-litre V8s accelerate aggressively from the lights.

The lights — don't get me started! Every single block in Manhattan has a traffic light. On a bike, you might make four or five before you hit the next red.

New York cyclists are vocal and proud. One described the city as the world's longest urban single track. No-one had much to complain about beyond the sheer volume of traffic. The main problem used to be theft, and this has been solved by ubiquitous mini-Kryptonite “Fahgettaboudit®” locks with chains that can't be prised open by car-jacks.

Sex and the City? Yeah, check the bike racks on every street corner.