As urban living standards improve, residents’ demand for exercise and fitness increases, but the city has inadequate space for high-intensity training. The riverfront space, as a natural and continuous space, provides a site for medium- to high-intensity cycling exercise and supports the health service of urban green space. Taking the east Huangpu riverside cycling greenway in Shanghai as the study case, the paper analyzes the characteristics of high-intensity cycling activities in the riverfront space from two aspects: the users’ features and the surrounding layout facilities. The results show that the riverfront space plays a unique role in providing health services. On the one hand, the riverside cycling greenway offers a continuous and safe place for high-intensity exercise, making up for the lack of medium- and high-intensity exercise facilities in the urban green space system. On the other hand, the riverside cycling greenway is more capable of meeting the differentiated sports needs of youth and children than other urban parks. Based on the behavioral survey, this paper also suggests optimizing the riverfront cycling space. For example, the riverfront cycling path should be arranged with cultural and sports facilities. There should be more parking spots and openings for shared bicycles in areas where cultural and sports facilities are concentrated or where public transportation connects.