hotbike

Bike Share Leader Motivate Announces Transformative Agreement with Lyft to Advance the Future of Urban Transportation

"....We are excited to announce that Lyft has reached a transformative agreement to acquire Motivate, the largest bikeshare operator in North America. Together Lyft and Motivate will revolutionize urban transportation and put bikeshare systems across the country on a path toward growth and innovation. ..."
https://www.motivateco.com/bike-shar...eid=ddaa3f7447

wilfried

Citibank paid for paid for a sponsorship contract that runs through something like 2024, IIRC. So, depending how you define the term they did pay for "ongoing sponsorship."

It would be nice if our Citi Bike keys worked on DC or Boston, but alas, that is not the case.

I just saw an article saying the Motivate signed a contract with the city through 2029, so we can hope that Citi Bikes will be around for at least that long.
https://www.crainsnewyork.com/article...ntract-renewed

wilfried

You might want to consider opening an account at one of the credit unions that offers a Citi Bank discount. I have one at the Lower East Side People's Federal Credit Union (I love the name, so retro-old left-Soviet). Can't beat that with a stick.

noglider 

We are with the Actors Federal Credit Union.

wilfried

Hmm... That's not one of the three they list as offering the discount.

tubesocksFred

I am seeing alot of bikes without the handlebar sheath. At first I thought they just didn't bother putting them back after performing maintenance on them. But the few times I had to ride them, the handlebars seems narrower and more swept back. I like the fact that it is narrower, so I can squeeze between vehicles or other bikes taking up too much space on the bike lanes. But it seeming to be more swept back, makes me be in a more upright position. I usually rest my forearm on the flat sheath of the handlebar, which is a stable area, but the plastic seam sometimes causes abrasion or small cuts that constantly gets irritated. The new bars might not have as much surface area to rest the forearm, but its round tube causes less irritation.

I still try to avoid them because they all have NuVinci hub, which mostly are maladjusted, leading to no overdrive.

tubesocksFred

The cit-e-bikes are out? Anyone ride one?

DJH8098

I got to ride a few on my last trip to NYC. They luckily launched the day I got into New York and I found three or four of them during the trip. They all rode very well with no issues on any of the hills that I took it on!

noglider 

I'm afraid to try one. I'm afraid I'll like it too much.

I notice Citi Bike has new baskets. The shape is sensibler than the normal one.

tubesocksFred

The new basket allows me to not worry about how the contents of my backpack are packed so that they fit narrowly enough into the slot of the old basket, but the hooks to latch the bungee cord is angled really weird, with the top one not able to hold the cord, and the bottom on really hard to reach if your bag fills the whole basket. Also, it has the hit or miss NuVinci hub (mostly miss). Since it cable adjustments were exposed on these bikes, I tried adjusting them when I got a seriously undergeared one. I turned each of the knob leading to the 2 cables both clock and counter-clockwise and it either had no effect or made it worse. After losing so much time on my ride, I just decided to continue my journey pedaling like mad but barely making headway.

popatop75

https://www.yahoo.com/news/amazing-d...184518716.html
its a photo of thousands and thousands of bikes in china lined up for trashing... probably the ones were getting in our cities for rentals and if stolen no big deal

robertorolfo

Are you f--in kidding me? That's just what we need, some of these clueless tourists and/or dolts riding around like morons with e-boost. FFS.

Hotbike, where on LI are you located? Was that the Oyster Bay train you were taking back on page 2?

hotbike

Yes, I take the Oyster Bay train.

hotbike

This article appeared in streetsblog nyc

https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2018/09/...and-is-a-joke/

"Two companies are competing in the city’s dockless bike share pilot program in Staten Island, which began about a month ago when bright green Lime and bright red Jump bikes were deployed in the northern part of the forgotten borough.

I gave both companies a chance to work out the kinks before..."

robertorolfo

Nice. Near Alberston here... not that anyone cares.

hotbike

Photos of the New Basket Design


Photos of the New Basket Design

Took a ride yesterday, one bike had the new basket. All 3 bikes had NuVinci, which works great for me.

noglider 

I do like the new baskets.

I'm very sorry to say that the NuVincis have disappointed me, with their tendency to lose the top range of ratios. What causes that? I love the usability. If I have a choice of Sturmey Archer or NuVinci, I now prefer Sturmey Archer. But the Shimano bikes are still the worst.

tubesocksFred

I've been seeing less and less bikes with Sturmey Archer hubs. Usually, when there are 3 or 4 bikes, at least 1 is a S/A bike, now, I frequently have to ride ride a NuVinci. I would feel the shifter to see which one has the most turn range, hoping for the best, but almost all the time, they have no overdrive. A few times, I ride the NuVinci bike, realize there is no overdrive, immediately go back and swap to another NuVinci, but usually its just as bad. I almost always press the wrench button after the ride, but it seems to be futile, especially since you can't comment on the reason it is broken.

I mentioned in various posts in this thread why the NuVinci doesn't have its top gear. Its basically because they did not set the hub in its highest gear before inserting the wheel onto the frame:Once, I had a NuVinci with no a very very low top gear. Given the shifter cables were exposed, I played around with the knurled adjusters to adjust the tension of the shifter cables on the hub, adjusting both set of cables +/- 5 turns seem to have either done nothing or made things worse. I got fed up after losing around 20 min on my ride, so I stopped at a nearby dock and swapped for a bike with a S/A hub.

tubesocksFred

I got to ride the the cit-e-bike a couple of times. The pedal throttle is very light, you can fall off the bike if you push hard on the pedal and the onslaught of sudden acceleration. On the first bike, it seems effortless to pedal up to around 18mph, but after that, the harder I pedal, the less assist I got, until what it seems to be full manual effort, still at 18mph, from there on, its 100% human power. The second bike, it tops out around the same speed at full assist, but I felt like I can go a little faster, still getting some assist, maybe going 20mph into a headwind (which is unimaginable in human power mode). If you look at my speed graph for the ride, its ruler flat in the 18-20mph range the whole ride. They both had Nuvinci hub properly set up so that I don't have to do 150rpm in order to maintain the 18-20mph speed.

noglider 

The brakes on the Shimano-equipped bikes were never very good, and time might have made them worse. The bike I got last night had pretty bad brakes. I forgot to flag the bike for repair. I try to report every little problem, since I figure most others don't bother reporting anything.

MrEdL

What is the trick in finding one without the service light on or blinking. I see them all the time but never got a chance to ride one.

MrEdL

How ironic... Shortly after I posted above, I found an electric Citi Bike in the dock near 6th Ave and Spring St. I rode it to 6 Ave & W 33 St in 10 minutes flat (as per citibikenyc.com trip logs). This is 1.8 miles and all without breaking a sweat. This includes stopping at red lights which I mind a lot less. With the e-bike, getting back up to speed from stop is so effortless. They are great! Love them. Would love to see more of these bikes.

rhm

I rode an electric one last week. It was fun. Got up to full speed very quickly, but if you want to go over 15 mph or something, it's up to your legs. No more assist at that point

Has anyone else noticed a decline in service lately? Bikes harder to find, bikes in worse condition, docking stations full or empty, docking stations out of communication? Maybe it's just my imagination....

flattie

I too am not a fan of the nuvinci bikes. So I've focused on getting a Sturmey Archer bikes. Lately many of the bikes ( of either kind ) seem to have been "repaired" such that there is apparent binding in the system somewhere. These bikes feel like a stationary bike with the resistance wheel turned up. Pedaling is harder than normal. I'm finding this with the bikes that have the newer handle bars. Very disappointing. These bikes aren't easy rolling as it is and the binding (bottom bracket or poorly adjusted brakes) makes them less than pleasant.

The spin the pedals in reverse test will show many bikes in the docking station have been adjusted or repaired so there appears to be an abnormal amount of resistance. What's going on?

arbee

A few more comments about the Cit-eeee-bikes --

Availability:

https://www.i-want-to-ride-an-electric-citi.bike/

highlights where these things lurk. The official website shows where they are with a lightning bolt which I guess isn't a bad choice of icons: finding one of these things with other than a dead battery is only slightly more likely than being struck by lightning.

My experience thus far has been limited. One ride included a segment on the westside pedpath into a significant headwind. You could have fooled me. These things take ten, nay, twenty years off your age. In a good way.

I found another available electric-assist bike today. It had apparently been docked for a while. Starting off, there was no apparent assist. (Worth adding here: neither was there any significant additional drag. Subjectively, the failure mode seems to be friendly.) I pressed the button. There's an array of dim LEDs. I didn't take my eyes off the road to read what they indicate. After a very brief pause, the electric-assist kicked in. And "kick" is accurate. At low speed, the assist is assertive.

Comparing the ride into the headwind and today's ride emphasizes: it's electric-assist. Biking on the westside pedpath, I pedaled steadily, and the assist was similarly steady. Today's ride -- in city traffic -- which is obviously where these things are going to be used -- it was a bit challenging to establish and maintain a constant speed because when you stop pedaling, the assist stops too. It makes the pace choppy, but this is a minor quibble.

Because my typical use is multiple short rides connecting errands, I doubt I'll seek out electric-assist bikes, but I'm enthusiastic about the technology. If the goal is "more butts on bikes", I think this is a bigger game-changer than bike lanes.