Citi Bike

the app works well, but not being able to rotate the map SUCKS SO MUCH. Especially for ppl like me who relies on maps a lot. I don’t think it should be so hard to add that, and it makes sense to make the map’s pov swing towards the direction you’re looking is such a basic feature for a mobile map. Citibike is also a sort of map. Why did no one think to add this?

I really wanted to love citibike. I was excited with the idea of conveniently transit around the city while staying active and earning points with the bike angels program. Unfortunately my experience has been consistently disappointing. About half the bikes I’ve undocked had some kind of issue: loose pedals, jammed gears, or general wear that makes them uncomfortable or unsafe to ride. I have been particularly frustrated with Bike Angels, which I was really looking forward to. The bike will show you a certain amount of points for moving a bike from a certain location and another amount of them for filling the station with bikes but by the time you’ve scanned the bike or are ready to dock it the points have changed. It feels like a bait-and-switch, and it happens often enough that it’s hard to call it a glitch. Not to mention the lifetime achievements, I have never been delivered any of the rewards. I’m not writing this review to vent, I’m doing it to warn it all. Get a foldable bike, walk, run but avoid citibike as much as possible.

It’s insane how many of the bikes or stations are constantly broken, and how “unbalanced” they are (Citi Bike’s term for too few or too many bikes at a given station.) I’m constantly reporting this through their app, but nothing ever gets better. The newest problem I’ve noticed is that at the same time NYC forced Citi Bike to reduce the speeds of the electric bikes (which I’m fine with, because you lazy B’s using them don’t know how to drive,) there seems to be a continuous stream of the manual bikes that will not go into first gear, and are locked in second or third gear, making them painfully slow to get anywhere, and useless for exercise. The app itself is pretty bare bones, but it works. When reporting stuff to Citi Bike, one can only report from a specific list of problems, such as “bell,” or “gearing,” and I wish there were an option to add some comments, so one can be more specific and the maintenance people will more clearly know what the issue is. I also wish that when looking for a station in the app, hovering over or holding a specific location would give you the cross streets. Sometimes it’s difficult to find where the docks actually are. Another unusual issue is that very often my Citi Bike key fob won’t release a bike, and I’ll get the dreaded red light. But if I use the Lyft app to scan the bike, and have a $1.00 hold placed on my credit card, the bike will release. I’m an annual subscriber, so this really shouldn’t be happening. Other times I’ve noticed that no matter what I do, a bike won’t be released, or it won’t let me dock. I’ve figured out that the system is deliberately keeping certain docks open or locked. Open, to hold spaces specifically for the more girthy electric bikes, and locked, specifically for a manual bike, because it’s sandwiched between two electric bikes whose handles kind of trap the manual bike in place. I’m pretty sure I could wiggle it out, but Citi Bike won’t even let you try. You’ve got to choose another bike or worst case, another station entirely. Overall the bones of the Citi Bike system are solid, but the maintenance is so very poor that it’s a constant struggle to find a bike, and when you do find one, you’ve got yo hope it’s a good one. Systems shouldn’t run on hope.