Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Every Thursday at 6 a.m., David Wagener straddles a $4,000 bicycle and leads a pack of Lance Armstrong's biggest Wall Street fans on a 30-mile (48-kilometer) dash through Manhattan's Central Park.

``It's true on the bike or in the boardroom: We're there to beat each other's brains out,'' says Wagener, 51, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. investment banker who now heads Wagener Capital Management LLC, a New York-based private equity firm. ``It's all about competition and pain.''

Regulars on the ride include two-time Olympic rower Richard Cashin, 52, chairman of a JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s private equity unit with $4 billion in assets, and David ``Tiger'' Williams, 43, founder of Williams Trading LLC, which executes trades for hedge funds. Both are partners in Tailwind Sports LLC, the company that owns Armstrong's professional cycling team.

High-speed cycling is booming among New York bankers inspired by the audacity and self-discipline of Armstrong, who won his seventh straight Tour de France in July. They train as much as 12 hours a week, race on Saturdays and pack bikes on trips. They also poured at least $3 million into cycling-related charities last year, including the Central Park Conservancy, which oversees the 843-acre park and its 6-mile circular drive.

``These are type-A people, and they're channeling their instincts,'' says Williams, a former Yale University hockey captain who lives in Connecticut and sleeps in Manhattan on Wednesdays to pedal in the ``breakfast club'' the next morning. ``If you look at the type of human who is a Wall Streeter, you end up with a prototypical cyclist.''

Fit Finance

The Century Road Club Association, a cycling club set up in Central Park in 1898, has added 196 riders this year, driving its membership to more than 600, club President Adam Handler says. In 2000, it added 35 members.

The club's roster is heavy with e-mail addresses at New York-based firms such as Merrill Lynch & Co., with more brokers than any other U.S. securities company; Goldman Sachs, the most profitable Wall Street firm last year; JPMorgan Chase, the third-biggest U.S. bank; Bear Stearns Cos., the fifth-biggest U.S. securities company; and Citigroup Inc., the U.S.'s biggest financial company.

The surge is drawing athletes who range in age from 25 to 55 and marks a lifestyle shift in New York's financial world, where country-club sports such as golf and tennis have long been the standard competitive outlets.

Bodil Arlander, a senior managing director at Bear Stearns, says she arranged financing for the $154 million buyout of clothing chain New York & Co. in 2002 while out for a spin with Kevin Morrison, a managing director of Wachovia Corp.'s securities unit. Now, they only get together on bikes near Morrison's San Francisco office.

Forget Golf

``We say, `Let's meet and go for a ride and talk business,''' says Arlander, 41, who splits her time between New York and San Francisco and has seven bicycles. ``We aren't doing the deals on the golf course.''

Arlander cycles about 200 miles a week, often completing five laps of Central Park or 45 miles on Route 9W in New Jersey before heading to Bear Stearns's Madison Avenue headquarters by 9 a.m. Next week, she's doing her eighth Hawaii Ironman triathlon, including a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride and a marathon.

``You have to be very disciplined and self-driven to be into cycling,'' says Thomas Kempner Jr., 52, who grew up pedaling in the park as a child and still rides six days a week. The former Goldman Sachs bond trader is now executive managing member of New York investment firm Davidson Kempner Management LLC and a Central Park Conservancy board member.

$12,000 Machine

Kempner's five bikes include a Pinarello Montello, a time- trial machine from Italy that sells for about $12,000 fully loaded. He says he's also seen a swell of well-equipped cyclists on back roads near his summer home on Long Island.

``I used to ride at 3 o'clock in the afternoon and see no one'' in the Hamptons, he says. ``Now there are one to three dozen serious riders at 6 a.m. The sport has just taken off.''

Merrill Lynch began sponsoring a Central Park-based cycling team set up three years ago by broker Richard Reyle, 40, who keeps a bike in his Fifth Avenue office and trains in the evenings. Reyle took up cycling after the 1999 Tour de France, which he watched on TV while going through chemotherapy, as had Armstrong, a cancer survivor.

Merrill's team, with 16 riders and a budget of about $20,000, ``has gotten bigger every year,'' Reyle says. Fellow brokers now ask how to get Merrill cycling jerseys, with rainbow sleeves and the firm's trademark bull on the chest, for clients.

Lance's Technology

The bikes that blur past joggers and in-line skaters in the park are usually equipped with tiny computers that measure physical output in terms of watts, allowing a rider to compare workouts in different weather and wind conditions. The devices cost $800 to $1,500 and echo Armstrong's training technique.

Williams, who once headed U.S. equity trading for Julian Robertson's Tiger Management LLC, the world's biggest hedge fund company before it closed in 2000, started biking in New York 15 years ago. Since founding Stamford, Connecticut-based Williams Trading in 1997, he has become one of U.S. cycling's biggest backers.

In a race in August, Williams accidentally hit a pedestrian who ignored marshals' whistles and walked onto the Central Park course. The man, who police say was homeless and hasn't been identified, died later that day in the hospital. Williams says he suffered two compression fractures in his back and doesn't expect to be riding outdoors again until next year.

Changed Rules

Since the accident, New York's Department of Parks & Recreation has strengthened rules for Century Road Club events, including increasing the number of marshals and requiring a dedicated ambulance at every race, Handler says.

Tailwind, the San Francisco-based sports marketing company in which Williams is a partner, was founded in 1990 by Silicon Valley investment banker Thomas Weisel, chief executive of San Francisco-based Thomas Weisel Partners LLC.

It solicited sponsorships for all of Armstrong's Tour de France bids, and Williams Trading's logo appeared on his team's jersey during the 2,100-mile race in 2004, alongside banners for the U.S. Postal Service and Nike Inc.

Williams, Cashin, Kempner and Weisel also are part of the USA Cycling Development Foundation's Champions Club, a group of 27 people who made initial donations of at least $100,000 to support the U.S. national team and Olympic hopefuls.

Robin Williams

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Chairman Rob Walton, comedian Robin Williams, Campbell Soup Co. heir Bennett Dorrance and Peter Grauer, chairman of Bloomberg LP, also are in the club. Bloomberg LP is the parent company of Bloomberg News.

Cashin, chairman of JPMorgan's One Equity Partners LLC, rowed on the U.S. Olympic teams in 1976 and 1980 and is known for hiring elite athletes. Finding and buying the right company demands the same type of commitment as preparing for a bike or boat race, he says.

``Working when the payoff is a long way away is what these guys do,'' says Cashin, who cycles in the park four times a week and owns two Fondriest bikes, carbon-fiber machines made in Italy that cost about $11,000 each. ``It's a training-oriented mindset.''

In 2003, he hired Tom Auth, 37, also an Olympic rower and a graduate of Harvard Law School. Auth, who now works at ACI Capital Co., a New York-based private investment firm, started cycling three years ago and last month won the Century Road Club's annual championship.

Bear Stearns's Arlander says cycling is so central to her life that her only requirement in buying a Manhattan apartment in 1997 was that it be near Central Park. Her real estate broker found a two-bedroom at 62nd and Broadway that's now her pit stop between training and work.

``Without the sport, I'm not sure how I would handle the stress of Wall Street,'' Arlander says. ``A 100-mile ride is when I decompress.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Lisa Kassenaar in New York at lkassenaar@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 7, 2005 00:02 EDT