How to Ride a Bike in NYC
How long has it been for you? For me, decades….
In Manhattan, riding a bike is a death wish or at the very least proof that you actually should live in Brooklyn. Since my Lyft app kept offering me free CitiBike trials, it seemed reasonable to attempt to overcome my childhood bike trauma by riding a bike in glamorous middle age.
Seemed simple. A lark. I figured I’d follow the usual steps:
- Choose your path wisely. Leave Manhattan for an adjacent island. Not Rikers; Governor’s Island. For me, a twenty minute-walk and then a ferry ride (every half hour) and then I’d be in a spot with no cars and lots and lots of nature. And paved paths. (When you are deciding to ride a bike there must be pavement. Can’t have skinned knees without pavement.)
- You might think the Gov Island bike rental place is the way to go: it’s only $25 for a whole day of riding, but who are you kidding, I didn’t want a whole day. I just wanted a quick ride! So instead, I found the hidden CitiBike stand near the awesome Taco place (definitely get the tuna tacos).
- Climb the weird cement block separating street level from the bikes if you’re bendy. Get a bike. Ride. Feel the wind lift your hair and tousle it. Laugh and think “it’s just like riding a bike.” Return the bike. Go back to Manhattan on the ferry, having spent under five bucks for true joy. Feel healed.
- The following weekend, obsessed, tell your life partner that you want to take them bike riding. Tell them to trust you. Smile a lot. Make them so uncomfortable so that they have to say yes. Hold their hand like you haven’t been together over ten years. Laugh at the funny way they look at you, like maybe you need help. Drag them to the ferry terminal and get them a ticket (free with NYCID!). Cross the water. Have a tuna taco at the stand. Tell them to pull out their Lyft app.
- Spend an hour waiting for them to decide if they really want a Lyft app. (They will ultimately download the Lyft app, but first they will check their Uber app and their unused CitiBike app.) They will wonder if getting yet another stupid app is worthwhile. Tell them yes. Wait for the app to download and install. The wifi is not fast on Governor’s Island, but at least it exists.
- Now that you both have the app, head over to the Soisson’s Landing CitiBike docks. Impress your life partner with your bendy climbing of the large cement block. Spend a few minutes scanning QR codes on bikes until you find one that unlocks. Note that your bike has a rainbow on the fender. Wait for your partner to unlock a bike. Nothing will work. Before tempers truly get lost, some cute couple will return their bikes. Take one. Stay cheerful and don’t think about the fact that time is money.
- Get on the bikes and ride to the other end of the island. That was fun, wasn’t it? Return the bikes at the dock up there — it might take ten more minutes to get the dock to actually hold onto your bikes — and after that argument about how annoying it is that the docks aren’t working and why did you come out here in the first place, what were you thinking, let’s just walk the rest of the day — make sure to snap a photo of your cute rainbow bike in the dock and text the photo to your daughter. This is very important. Notice how the bike’s number is clear because you just got a new phone. Center your partner in the background, trying to find a working dock.
8. Walk a mile. On the ferry back, swipe away the absurd message that says your bike is still out. Assure your life partner that Lyft people are nice and will understand. (Write them a hurried text via their customer service link begging them to understand.)
9. The text in the middle of the night informing you that your bike is still not returned should result in a longer, more thoughtful email in which you explain that you think the bike dock was broken. Send the timestamped screenshot with the bike photo and inform Jose from Lyft that you only walked away when the bike “caught” in the dock.
10. Read and re-read the reply from Jose at Lyft who asks if the lights came on. What lights? You have no idea. Tell him so. Tell him the bike wheel caught. Get a text saying that you have been charged $160 for a 25 hour bike ride and Lyft hopes you enjoyed it.
11. Jose says that he understands that the dock might be at fault. When he suggests you return to the dock to lock the bike in, remind him the bike rack is many miles from your house. On a different island. And it is now Monday, which is not the time to be taking ferries. And it was locked when you left it.
12. Jose will calmly explain that you owe Lyft $1200 if you can’t find the bike. He extends you the courtesy of 24 hours to find the bike in NYC and return it to the dock where you claim to have left it.
12. Call Lyft. Jose will answer and inform you that he can do nothing over the phone. He says you must talk to the team that is sending you emails. “It is better to finish how you begin,” says Jose. Mention that the signature on the email is also Jose. PhoneJose will maintain he is not EmailJose.
13. Despite everything, get on a Tuesday morning ferry and go to Governor’s Island. You will be alone there. It will be weird.
You will have to rent another bike to get to Picnic Point because it is a mile away and you have a big event that night. Ride the bike with the slipping gears to Picnic Point. See the rainbow bike? It’s right there. Where you told everyone it was, two days ago.
Shoot a video of you struggling to remove the locked bike from the dock. Post it to Twitter. Don’t worry, Lyft won’t reply. Neither will CitiBikeNYC, even though the video is pretty great:
“Dear @lyft I just spent two hours and $20 to go to @Gov_Island midweek because you were going to charge me $1200 plus $160 for a lost @CitiBikeNYC bike that I sent you a photo of, docked on Saturday when all this began. Here’s what I found: https://t.co/TahDcDVE4N”
14. Since the bike with the broken dock is still just as stuck as ever, get back on the bike with the slipping gears and ride two feet and discover a huge hornet clinging to the front basket. If you flick it off, it is likely to fly up in your face, so just keep riding the rest of the way to Soisson’s Landing with the huge hornet staring at you.
15. Park the bike and let a Parks Dept guy know about the transported insect. He will be very excited and get some cool sprays and hose-looking equipment from his little scooter thing. Run fast back to the ferry. This whole endeavor has only taken you four hours and cost under $200 not counting the lost hours at work! Saving you $1200! Keep waiting for the email or text from Lyft telling you the $160 and the extra ride have been refunded and giving you some kind of credit since actually yes, their bike dock was broken and it wasn’t at all your fault that the dock briefly registered the bike’s return then shut itself off.
No really. Keep waiting. It’s been 24 hours so far…
But on the good side, you’ve successfully replaced your childhood bike trauma with a new bike memory that could turn into spheksophobia! Isn’t that exciting?
(The childhood bike story? As a nine year old, I craved a hot-pink three-speed with a white basket. Unfortunately, I got it for my thirteenth birthday…instead of the black ten-speed I wanted. Because of economics, I rode it until I turned sixteen. It got me where I needed to go.)
