Pop Quiz Hotshot: What are fired bankers doing these days? Answer: Riding their bikes

SHOOT: What do all bankers have in common (other than working in the finance sector)? A preponderance of people invested in finance are cyclists and triathletes. Two of my cycling buddies (the strongest two) are, and you'd be surprised how meticulous, perfectionism becomes appropriate for cycling as well. The gearing, the calories, the speed, the heart rate, the power output, gradients - all of it. While energy concerns may make bicycles a more attractive bet than ever, at the high end, there's no one to buy the top of the line machines. That's good news for me since they were way out of my price bracket.

clipped from cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com Among the city’s riders, few approach cycling with more intensity than the ones holding down day jobs in the financial sector. These biking bankers, stalwarts of the Central Park amateur racing scene and of local triathlons, squeeze in long rides on 9W and state-of-the-art training sessions out of a dedication to the sport that borders on obsession. At high-end bike shops like Cadence on Hudson Street, where bikes can cost as much as $20,000, the change was swift. “You can pinpoint the traumatic events with our drop in sales: Bear Stearns, etc,” Matt Heitmann, co-founder of the Philadelphia-based company, wrote in an e-mail message. “On those days, or the days directly after, our sales plunged. Then a huge percentage of our customers just evaporated.” “The people on Wall Street,” Mr. Wolfe added, “they’re riding more right now for two reasons: Either they lost their job, or they’re frustrated at work.”