Riding NYC’s Dork Bikes
Citi Bike Rules:
Yield to Pedestrians
Stay on the sidewalk
Obey traffic lights
Ride with traffic
“15 minutes in!” I shouted to Steve as we cranked our bikes through the streets of Queens.
We blew through another four-way intersection, veered onto a sidewalk, then back onto the street, flying past the stopped cars and their hazardous side-mirrors. My brakes sucked ass. We had no helmets, obviously.
“The Queensboro Bridge? That can’t be more than four miles from here.” I remember telling Steve earlier. “I could run that far in 30 minutes.”
It should have been even faster on bikes — even if we had to contend with intersections and New York City traffic.
This is part of the classic pattern where I pretend to understand things in New York. It’s an easy trap to fall into when you’ve been there before, when you don’t want to let on that you’re still a rube just like the Hawaiian-shirted rabble snapping pictures from a tour bus roof.
“See those smoke stacks over there?” I asked, “I’m pretty sure those are across from the Queensboro.”
My expert knowledge notwithstanding, the bridge was nowhere in sight. Some of my earlier confidence started to wane. It dawned on me that I might have just made us eat the $4 overtime fee.
We were on the clock, but this was no race. It was the Citi Bike rental policy.
These strange bikes, ubiquitous throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn, could have been product of a romance between a Raleigh and an ATM machine. In a way, they are. The bikes bear the swoop logo of Citi Group, the “title sponsor” of the new bike system, which is owned by Alta Bicycle Share. Other cities that use Alta’s bikes include Washington D.C, Boston, Chicago and Montreal.
The clunky metal contraptions have three gears, an oversize basket as well as blinky lights front and back that flash on and off when the wheels start turning. A large-print list of rules sits below the handlebars. I felt approximately the same amount of street cred pedaling one of these as if I’d decided to cruise around Manhattan in a Fisher Price big wheel.
The Citi Bike experience, starts at the bike stations or “docks” located in Manhattan and Brooklyn where users dip their credit or debit cards into a machine. The machine gives them a numerical code that they can punch in at a bicycle of their choosing and unlock it.
Steve and I went for the $10 24-hour rental policy. $10 may be a bargain as far as bike rentals go, but there’s a catch: we could rent a bike for no more than 30 minutes at a go. If we didn’t dock our bikes at another station in that time, we’d get hit with the $4 overtime fee. We’d pay $9 dollars more if we went an hour over and then $12 for every hour after that.
Steve likened the 30-minute policy to the bomb beneath the bus in the movie “Speed,” which Dennis Hopper rigs to blow if the driver slows down.
“But instead of people dying, we just pay $4,” Steve explained.
Once we docked the bikes, we’d be able to walk away from them with no responsibilities. Two minutes later, the CitiBike system would give us the green light to grab another bike, no extra charge and another race against time.
Those bike docks, so ubiquitous in Brooklyn and Manhattan, appeared to be non-existent in Queens. Thus, it was imperative that Steve and I haul ass to the other side of the East River before the clock ran down.
“You know, this is kind of fun!” I shouted. The light ahead of us turned yellow, and we pedaled balls-out, crossing the intersection just before the traffic to our right lurched forward to kill us. Buses were especially tricky. They would pull over suddenly at a stop, putting a 15-foot wall of metal and glass right across our path. Getting around meant veering out into street traffic, counting on other drivers to slow down or go around without smashing us.
Steve peered down at his smart phone now and then to check our directions.
The bridge came into view, but it wasn’t obvious if we should go under it, or weave around to the other side.
23 minutes on my stopwatch.
An old guy on a street corner told us how to get through the streets to the bike path across the river. The bike lane disappeared abruptly, squeezing us between the traffic and the curb. It turns out that the bridge wasn’t the Queensboro and we weren’t crossing the East River, but a whole other body of water to the east.
27 minutes.
Well, there goes $4.
The Queensboro was only a couple of blocks ahead. We kept pedaling hard, mindful that we still had the one-hour deadline to dodge. We climbed to the top of the crossing and bombed down the other side of the East River toward the Manhattan skyscrapers.
We swung off the bridge and Steve used his phone to bring us in to the docks. I rammed my bike forward until the mechanism clicked in its electric lock, letting Big Brother know that I’d returned my ride.
Total elapsed ride time: 45 minutes.
We’d screwed up, but at least we didn’t have to eat the one-hour fee.
The bike dock wouldn’t let us take another bike out until two minutes went by. Steve checked his phone and found there was another dock a couple blocks away. We started walking.
“Hey, what the hell? Why isn’t this letting me take a bike?”
I walked to several other bikes, until I swiped my card again in frustration. This time the code worked and we set off again for an Indian restaurant Steve knew about in Midtown. We would have plenty of opportunities to dance with traffic getting there along the way.
It didn’t matter so much what side of the road we were on going down Manhattan’s one-way streets. I’m sure the drivers hated us either way. Steve and I ducked and weaved plenty around the cars, but our antics were nothing compared to the spandex-clad speed freaks on their racing bikes.
They darted like minnows through the schools of taxis and busses, seemed not to give a damn, getting their way by daring the drivers to kill them. I saw one of these acrobats come flying top speed off of a bridge later, then cut a perfect 90-degree turn off a down-ramp through a line of metal posts.
Maybe there was something in the spring air that demanded such recklessness. After the brutal winter, where it must have been impossible to go anywhere without trundling over a snow bank or slipping on ice, there came a freedom with racing wild through the streets.
Some delicious take-out Indian Food sated our hunger, but not our appetite for riding in the city. We decided to go north again, back up to Central Park.
The next bike dock was empty save two bikes that wouldn’t come out. Frustrated, we walked up to another dock, which had rides available. Even here, several of the bikes simply wouldn’t come out of the dock. I went to several, before I managed to find a bike that came free
We were flying up Eighth Avenue at top speed when we had a dangerous encounter with David Beckham. Actually it was two David Beckhams, eight feet tall and wearing designer underwear.
The city bus bearing the soccer star’s likenesses swung out in a wide right turn across our path, then stopped to pick up passengers. I pulled left to get out of the way, praying that the cars behind me wouldn’t run me down.
“Dammit Beckham!” I shouted, waving my fist at the bus and any confused riders that might have looked in my direction.
We locked the bikes up near a Whole Foods outside Central Park and grabbed a couple of beers. The people watching included at least three sets of brides and grooms posing beneath the trees for photographs. Some park musicians taking advantage of the acoustics underneath an arch bridge to treat passerby to a Mozart rendition. There were also those who rented bikes from the Central Park venders. We did a quick walk-through here, to see if Steve’s old bike, stolen from him shortly after he arrived in New York, might be amidst the loaners.
We left the park around 3 p.m. planning to meet up with Steve’s girlfriend Reiley down around Greenwich Village.
We shot back down through Manhattan, making sure to switch out our bikes before the 30-minutes ran out. More often then not, I found bikes that wouldn’t come out of their locks or locks that wouldn’t accept bikes. It was hard to go anywhere and feel like we were guaranteed to have another ride, or not worry about an overtime fee.
The Hudson River Greenway along Manhattan’s west side offered the chance to bike without worrying about cars or buses. Gray waves churned up the river beneath the overcast skies. We could look up to the sharp angles of the Freedom Tower or across the river to the Holland Tunnel’s building-sized vents rising out of the water.
Plenty of other bikes and walkers were out on the path, which kept us busy weaving around and hitting the brakes. Every time I slowed down, my brakes let out a high-pitched squeal at top volume, a handy way to let people know that I was coming up behind them and that I was an asshole.
We pulled into Greenwich Village with the clock running down. The nearest bike rack was completely filled with bikes. Crap! How were we going to return them now? The two open slots on the dock were false hope. Both were busted.
Steve got on his phone to see if we could find another dock before we crossed the half-hour time limit. There was another one only a couple blocks away, but we would need to cross a busy road to get there. I was just starting to pedal off, when I heard Steve shout that some bikes had just left. I was able to push the bike into the empty slot just in time.
These bikes were stressing me out. I needed a break.
Greenwich Village is a good place for that, with Mamoun’s Falafel restaurant nearby and some good bars. I got a damn good falafel sandwich for around the same price I’d pay on running over the time limit earlier that day.
We met Reiley in a line outside the place we wanted to get into, and weren’t going to get into. Instead, we grabbed a beer at the bar above the Comedy Club, where Louis C.K. and Chris Rock perform amongst others. Right next door sat Café Wha? where a young musician we now know as Bob Dylan got his start. We finished up our tour at an Ethiopian restaurant. Most of the culinary elements in my travel writing concern potato flakes and burned oatmeal, which makes it feel weird describing the orgy of gastronomic excess that was my stay in New York.
The sun had gone down at this point and I figured we’d just catch a subway ride back to Brooklyn. Reiley was interested to try out the bikes, though and Steve was down to stay in the game. We decided to cut east toward the Williamsburg Bridge and get back to the apartment in two rides.
Three riders meant that there was an even greater overlap waiting for everyone to free up a bike. Reiley paid the $10 for her bike first, then Steve and I unlocked ours. We had drained four minutes on my stopwatch before we’d even started pedaling.
The blinking lights on our rides a cold white illumination upon the streets in front of us, a red Morse code at our backs. We looked a bit like cop-cars on the prowl.
The dock on the Manhattan side of the Williamsburg was almost filled up. Reiley and I got our bikes put away, but the rest of the locks were busted, leaving Steve on the clock. I tried to take out a new ride so he could switch out, but none of them came off the dock when I punched in the code.
Steve got on the phone with Citi Bike’s tech support to try and get out of the fee. By the time he got someone on the line, I found a lock that would let go of its bike. He threw his bike into place a minute before $4 fee came down on him.
“I feel like everything in New York City is designed to stress you out,” I said.
“And take your money,” Steve added.
We finished our ride pedaling on the bike/pedestrian concourse above the traffic on the Williamsburg Bridge. Plenty of cyclists were still out there, blinking in the dark like weird life from an ocean trench. We could look out upon the dark waters of the East River, Manhattan’s illuminated towers shining against the night.
It was a quick plunge down the other side of the bridge to Brooklyn where there was another dock waiting for us with plenty of time to spare. But we were gamblers that night and decided to strike out a little further to a dock closer to the bar we were going to.
The decision almost cost us, when there was only one working slot in that dock. Steve, ever the gentleman, let Reiley take it leaving us to pedal double-time to another spot before we’d have to pay the $4. Once again, we made it, but just under the wire.
We sauntered back toward the bar where we met Reiley. I looked forward to relaxing with a beer and not worrying about time limits for a little while.
Even so, I could look out to the street and see more riders on their bikes, blinking ghostly white and red through the darkened streets.
No doubt one of them was already counting down the minutes on his iPhone:
“Two minutes until deadline. Where’s that docking station? Crap! CRAP!… I’m going to make it.”