I saw that, too. It was probably a joke. Either that or the person who posted it is a joke of a person.

My Citibike "key" often doesn't work. You know the drill: slide it into the slot, and nothing happens; or it blinks once, then the red light flashes; or some such malarkey. So then I go to the next bike... and the next. The reason, sometimes, is that the bike in the dock isn't properly docked; so if I just go through the motions of undocking the bike, I'll probably free the bike. Don't get me wrong, I have a valid key and always return whatever bike I take when I get to my destination. But I'm not the only one that's figured this out. This may explain some of the bikes just left around.

I wonder just how much theft there is, or how much attrition there is for the bikes, through damage, vandalism, etc.? I saw a picture \of what was clearly a Citibike spray painted black, parked on a street somewhere. Back in the earlier days of the program, I saw guys going down a line of bikes pulling on each one, and riding off when they found one not properly locked. I wonder what they did with the bike at the other end? Who knows, maybe they parked it at another station. At the risk of profiling, I still see kids on Citibikes who don't look like the sort with a credit card and the money to spend. But who am I to judge?

I haven't read a single story of Citibike theft, which is not to say it doesn't happen.

I love the reaction that Paris's mayor gave. He was told that many bikes were being stolen and shipped to Poland or some such places. He asked how much it was costing the city. Upon hearing the answer, he said, "Good, let's increase the budget by that much." Gotta love French style socialism.

@rhm, what is the procedure for redocking an improperly docked bike? The docking stations are pretty frustrating. I know some of the problem is a failure to communicate with the mother ship. It occurs over the cellular network. Oy.

I recently read that if a slot doesn't accept a bike you are returning, you should peak into the tiny little slot where the bike goes and move out the obstruction. I can't see in there, and I don't see an obstruction.

Proper Citi-Bike approved procedure? No idea!

My procedure? Ride the bike to where I'm going, find an empty dock, and hope for the best.

I wish they would hard wire all the docking stations to the internet and turn them into free wifi-stations so CitiBike customers could figure out where the bikes are.

Right, I should have asked what your procedure is, not what the procedure is. But my question is how you re-dock a bike that you can't get out because it was badly docked.

Hardwired to the internet, absolutely. It might even work better if they used 300 bps dialup.

I don't need free wifi, but it would be nice if the iphone app weren't so derned slow. Looking up where to pick up and drop off can take away a lot of the speed advantage of citibike.

Yeah, that is a problem. This has only happened to me once; my key "unlocked" the bike, the light went green, and I could not get the bike out. Wasted a minute trying; then tried another bike. My key no longer worked, presumably because the system thought I had just taken a bike. I walked to destination. Didn't bother to call in the error; and by the next morning my key was working again.

I have a question about Citibike's annual membership:

Seems like $149.00 gets you unlimited 45 minute rides, but can you stack them? Or is there a cool down period? What I mean is if you are coming up on your 45 minute limit, can you dock the bike, then grab another one and use that free for another 45 minutes, and so on? I would assume the answer is no, so that brings up the next question: If you can't stack your 45-minue free rides in this fashion, what is the cool down period? Is it one free 45 minute ride in a 24 hour period or every few hours?

IF a Citi Bike dock is empty, but refuses to allow you to dock a returning Citi Bike there, you can reset the dock by inserting your Citi Bike key, and it will reset (in a few seconds) , you will then be able to dock the bike you are returning.

IT is a TWO Minute waiting period, between the end of one 45 minute ride and the start of the next, DON"T try to take a bike until the TWO minutes is up, or you will be locked out, and you will have to walk to another Citi Bike station ...

Thanks for the answer.

That's still an incredibly reasonable policy, though. As long as you don't lose track of time and make sure to wait that obligatory 2 minutes, it sounds like you can basically ride unlimited time, and worse case scenario, if you to lose track of time, its only a couple of dollars her and there if you habitually go over the 45 minutes.

I own two nice bikes, so I have never seriously considered this as a viable membership, but if I ever end up in the city without my car or one of my bikes, this is a great backup for getting around without having to hail cabs, buses or hop on subways.

I never knew! Thank you.

My wife finally got her Citibike key in the mail yesterday. It appears to be used and reassigned. The bar code is quite marred. We will see if it works. She had to go online and register the number printed on the key, but one of the digits was rubbed out! She tried replacing the missing digit with 0, no good, then she tried 1, and that worked, and it brought up her personal information, so 1 was the right guess. Not impressive, rather rinky-dink. But if it works, all will be forgiven.

From a purely environmental perspective I fully agree with the decision to reuse a key if it is perfectly functional, but I can image also imagine someone who is less environmentally conscious feeling offended after they spent money expecting to get a "new" product. The fact that one of they digits was missing is really tacky though; at the bare minimum they could have at least written out the full number somewhere in the welcome package to avoid the guesswork your wife had to go through. When you cancel your membership do you have to send back your key? I'm definitely not going to renew mine; I only got it because it was offered to me at a reduced rate when I was signing up and I was curious about how well those clunkers rode.

[MENTION=392045]yankeefan[/MENTION], my wife is the most environmentally conscious person, and the reused key is fine with her. It's just that the bar code may or may not work, and of course, the missing digit was super lame. It took our two minds to figure it out. She noticed the fact that a digit was missing, and it was my idea to try all possible values, rather than give up. I'm not sure she'll have time to try Citibike today, but I'll report whether the key works.

And here's something odd. She has the thing everyone calls a key, which goes on a key ring. I have a credit-card sized card, which I have to keep in my wallet. How do they decide which to send? I don't remember stating a preference.

They definitely didn't give you an option to chose, AFAIK. I suppose it was determined by whatever they had in stock at the time you signed up? I also have a the key/dongle, and I signed up last September. The key is what usually appears on most promotional material, so I can only guess that the credit card was given at a time when a lot of people were signing up and they ran out of keys but still wanted to avoid having people wait.

It's just a curiosity. I don't care much, one way or the other. I always have my keys and my wallet with me.

By the way, I think I just decided that I like the seat to be a half-inch too high for me. This way, I get to put a little bit of weight on the front part of the seat. I was adjusting the seatpost to the 5-1/2 mark, and now I'm using 6.

There's no waiting period. I have on occasion switched bikes. I dock the first one, grab the next one, and go. No wait.

I don't remember there being a wait either. As long as you return the first you are good to go for a second.

1 ) From Citi Bikes' Facebook page:

"Citi Bike will be unavailable this weekend beginning at 10 pm tonight to allow for maintenance to make the system reliable. All Annual Memberships will be extended by three days and we will offer refunds to anyone who purchased a casual pass today (3/27). Thank you in advance for your patience as we bring you a better Citi Bike."


2 ) The Citi Bike Key is has an RFID chip in it, the bar code must be for something else. I got this info as an answer to an email: "
I have a question about my Citi Bike Key: Does the Key have an RFID chip inside (embedded), or does the Citi Bike Dock read the Bar Code , on the key? People have been saying it's the Bar Code, but I don't see any red Laser Light, nor does the Key insert far enough for the Bar Code to be inside?

Citi Bike RFID!

3 ) Then they did-away with the two minute waiting period. They used to have it.

So after the weekend shutdown for maintenance of the system it looks like they upgraded/changed the software. When I login to my account now they have some higher level summary stats that are pretty neat. I'm just over 400 rides, 120 hours of usage which they estimate translates to @ 975 miles. They estimate mileage based on time x @ 7.5 mph as an average speed. Along with that they estimate I "saved" 40 gallons of gas and 790lbs of CO2 emissions. If I wasn't on the bike I'd be on the subway so those "savings" aren't necessary applicable to my situation.

I do like the new online software and the apps. It gives better information, and the updates from the docking stations look to be more accurate and up to the minute.

These are my stats:

Number of trips
32

Total usage time
19 hours 45 minutes 23 seconds

Distance traveled (estimated)
158.1 miles

Gas saved (estimated)
6.6 gallons

Co2 reduced (estimated)
128.4 lbs

[h=1]How your statistics are calculated[/h]The number of trips listed is the total number of completed trips logged in your account. Total usage time is the total combined duration of all trips logged in your account.
Distance traveled is an estimate based on your total usage time with an assumed average speed of 7.456 miles per hour:

• Distance Traveled = [Total usage time] * 7.456

Gas saved is an estimate using your distance traveled multiplied by 0.04149 gallons per mile (24.1 mpg).

• Gas saved = [Distance traveled] * 0.04149

C02 reduced is estimated using your distance traveled multiplied by 0.81218297 lbs per mile.

• C02 reduced = [Distance traveled] * 0.81218297

source: http://www.epa.gov/otaq/consumer/420f08024.pdf

Thanks for the Heads-Up on that one. The website has been much improved! BTW, my Van, gets 12 mpg, so you could double that figure of gas saved...(actually, I never drive into Manattan, even though it can be done in less than 45 minutes, and the tolls suck, and I always take the LIRR).