Bagels outside NYC

Vaguely related to Cog's recent post on American yogurt, what's the deal with the sub-par bagels outside the New York City area? We just got bagels from what is supposedly the best bagel place in Boulder, and they weren't even close in taste to our bagel place of choice in Westchester. Why are the bagels so much better in the NYC area? If there were some ingredient local to NYC that didn't travel well, I could understand, but that doesn't seem to be the case.