#bikeshare — Public Fediverse posts

Lime’s new ‘LimeBike’ model is shaped like the Glider, but with adjustable seat and pedals – UPDATED: It’s really good

Lime has launched 500 new “LimeBikes” in Seattle, a new model with smaller wheels and a lower center of gravity compared to the company’s existing “Gen 4 E-Bike,” resulting in a bike that looks a lot like the company’s sit-down scooter they call the LimeGlider.

The new LimeBike, with a name harkening back to the company’s pre-scooter days, should be more stable when carrying weight in the basket. The bike hopefully will also be less likely to fall over and block sidewalks due to its lower center of mass. Like the Gen 4 E-bike, the LimeBike motor will activate via pedal-assist and throttle, whichever the user chooses. The form factor may also draw wider appeal since it may be less intimidating to some users than a bike with full-size wheels. The LimeGliders have seen lots of use since they launched, for example, and may be attracting users over the Gen 4 E-Bikes that look more like traditional bikes. The Glider has been able to bridge the gap between a bike and a stand-up scooter, and it will be very interesting to see if the new LimeBike can appeal to scooter users in a way the existing bikes do not.

UPDATE 5/11: I finally tracked one down, and oh boy it is very good (no, this post is NOT sponsored). My biggest fear was that it would be a scooter with worthless pedals attached so that it would count as a bicycle like the Veo “bikes” from a few years ago, and I am very happy to report that this is not at all the case. The new LimeBike is the best bike share bike I’ve ever tried, and it’s not even close. I took it on the same extreme test loop I have taken nearly every other micromobility device: Up Spring Street from 2nd to 4th Avenues downtown for a worst case climbing test, then down Madison from 4th to 2nd for a worst case braking test. If a bike can handle this loop, then it can handle anything. Not only did the new LimeBike perform flawlessly, I was able to pedal up these ridiculously steep hills at 12 mph without significant effort. It also easily passed the hardest test of all: Getting started on a steep uphill (many devices have failed this one). Perhaps due to the smaller wheels the bike seemed to have a lot more torque than any other micromobility device I’ve ever tried, which helps with climbing and getting started from a stop. The bike’s pedal assist feels more responsive and natural than the Gen 4 E-Bike it is replacing, so I didn’t feel compelled to even touch the throttle. But beyond power, it was just so comfortable.

The new seat post adjustment latch seems unnecessarily large at first glance, but it’s so intuitive and easy to use to get the saddle at the right height. For a bike where you’ll probably want to adjust this every time you ride, this design is brilliant (assuming it holds up well with time and wear). The lower stepover height makes the thing even more approachable. The lower cargo area is also great, though it is not a cycletruck-style design as I had initially thought it was. I thought the basket was attached to the frame, but it does move with the fork when turning. However, it didn’t feel like the handlebars wanted to flop to the side when there was stuff in it. Thanks to the pedals, the LimeBike is much more zippy than its similar-looking cousin, the LimeGlider sit-down scooter, and on flat ground I was comfortably able to pedal beyond 15 mph, the point that the electric motor stops providing assistance. The bike felt good to ride even without the motor whirring, which is not something I can say about any other shared e-bike I’ve tried. Honestly, I think if they sold this thing in stores people would buy it. You could happily and comfortably ride it for hours around town (buy a LimePass minute bundle or subscribe to LimePrime rather than paying by the minute if you’re going to do this). I had high hopes for this design, and it blew my expectations away.

They are a bit difficult to track down. As of now, only 500 of Lime’s 4,000 bikes in Seattle will be the new model. In the Lime app, the LimeBike does have a slightly different icon from the Gen 4 E-Bike and the Glider if you are determined to track one down yourself (if you’re doing so today, downtown might be your best bet as I saw several down there this morning).

Back to the original story:

At least on paper, the LimeBike addresses my biggest issues with the LimeGlider. Perhaps because I am so used to biking, I do not like the lack of an adjustable-height seat on the Glider and the fact that it feels kind of awkward to stand while riding it. It feel much more comfortable and in-control when I am seated higher, though this is likely a matter of personal preference. The Glider can also struggle a bit going up the steepest hills. The new LimeBike has pedals, so you should be able to help it up hills, and it has an adjustable-height seat. I have not yet had a chance to test ride the new LimeBike, but I will attempt to hunt one down and will update when I do.

As someone who rides bikes every day, I really like the Gen 4 E-Bike. The company is only replacing 500 of their 4,000 Seattle e-bikes with the new model at this time, so the company will keep the Gen 4 bikes in operation for a while longer. However, the new bike fits better into their operations, so if it is a success they will likely phase out the old bikes eventually. The Gen 4 bike was based heavily on the JUMP bike design that the company inherited when it acquired its competitor in the early days of the pandemic in 2020. It’s a solid tank of a bike with good brakes and zippy acceleration. But ridership is consistently higher on the scooters than the bikes, so I am open to the idea that what I am personally seeking is not in step with the average person.

The bike industry seems to be leaning toward bikes with 20-inch wheels, which have a lot of practical advantages over larger wheel sizes even if they take bumps a tiny bit harder. They can more easily fit shorter riders, for example. It is also easier to mount cargo to the frame rather than the fork. It is also easier to get high torque/low gearing, a high-demand bike spec in hilly Seattle. Our family cargo bike is a Tern GSD, which has two 20-inch wheels and is fantastic at hauling anything and anyone I put on it. This isn’t to say 20-inch wheels are always better, but mini velos are having a moment. Rodriguez makes a pretty cool one here in Seattle called the Pony Keg. They also have one called the 6-Pack covered in couplings so it can fit inside a 20″ x 20″ suitcase. (No, they do not sponsor me, I just think these are really cool).

Lime’s Seattle ridership continues to climb to levels few would have predicted even five years ago. Their bikes and scooters carried 57,000 people on the day of the Seahawks parade in February, which is on par with the number of cars that drive across the Aurora Bridge. Data that Lime reports to SDOT shows that the company carried 943,200 trips in April, a 43% increase over April 2025, which itself was a 115% increase over April 2024. To date (through May 7), Seattle is at 3,218,800 trips in 2026, and Bike Month just began. The summer months are when Lime ridership usually balloons. These are astounding numbers, showing that Lime is a serious part of our city’s year-round transportation system now.

With competitor Bird no longer operating in Seattle as of this month, Lime seems to have officially won Seattle’s 9-year shared micromobility cage match. It may be time to revisit our city’s relationship with Lime since our existing permit system is written to encourage competition, yet it’s not clear who else is in a position to compete with Lime at this time. It is a great thing for micromobility that Lime seems to have figured out how to make this work, but it’s also not usually good for users when one company has a monopoly. Seattle may want to figure out how it can ensure Lime’s success also benefits Seattle residents into the future.

#SEAbikes #Seattle

J'aime le design des stations @[email protected] !😍 Love the design of Mulo stations !😍 🚲 📷 @[email protected] @ @[email protected] #velocargo #cargobike #velomtl #bikemtl #velopartage #bikeshare #montreal

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:vw6w3ygkisxixyo36dqglxrh/post/3mkkl6lq7lc2x

I like that they repurposed this to be a regular bicycle parking rack, but really wish it was still a bike share dock. Bike share is transformative for people's perceptions about how useful bicycles can be.

#BikeShare #BicycleParkingAudit #BicycleParkingRack #BicycleParking #Bicycling #Rochester #Minnesota

📢 Empres #BiciPalma? És el teu moment per dir a l'Ajuntament com va el servei!

➡️ https://forms.gle/zL5zF2ooBQmK5keGA

#Mobilitat #Sostenible #Bici #Bicicleta #Palma #CarrilBici #Bicicletes #BiciPública #BikeShare

"'We previously had a contract with BCycles when it was owned by Trek, but last year it was actually acquired by Bicycle Transit Systems, and with that we did have amendments to the contract that we had with BCycles,' said Martinez.

"She's hoping that with some of these changes will come upgrades.”
https://kion546.com/news/santa-cruz-county/2025/09/12/santa-cruzs-bcycle-program-not-working-for-all-riders/ #KION #SantaCruz #MontereyBay #BikeShare

"'We previously had a contract with BCycles when it was owned by Trek, but last year it was actually acquired by Bicycle Transit Systems, and with that we did have amendments to the contract that we had with BCycles,' said Martinez.

"She's hoping that with some of these changes will come upgrades.”
https://kion546.com/news/santa-cruz-county/2025/09/12/santa-cruzs-bcycle-program-not-working-for-all-riders/ #KION #SantaCruz #MontereyBay #BikeShare

"'We previously had a contract with BCycles when it was owned by Trek, but last year it was actually acquired by Bicycle Transit Systems, and with that we did have amendments to the contract that we had with BCycles,' said Martinez.

"She's hoping that with some of these changes will come upgrades.”
https://kion546.com/news/santa-cruz-county/2025/09/12/santa-cruzs-bcycle-program-not-working-for-all-riders/ #KION #SantaCruz #MontereyBay #BikeShare

"'We previously had a contract with BCycles when it was owned by Trek, but last year it was actually acquired by Bicycle Transit Systems, and with that we did have amendments to the contract that we had with BCycles,' said Martinez.

"She's hoping that with some of these changes will come upgrades.”
https://kion546.com/news/santa-cruz-county/2025/09/12/santa-cruzs-bcycle-program-not-working-for-all-riders/ #KION #SantaCruz #MontereyBay #BikeShare

"'We previously had a contract with BCycles when it was owned by Trek, but last year it was actually acquired by Bicycle Transit Systems, and with that we did have amendments to the contract that we had with BCycles,' said Martinez.

"She's hoping that with some of these changes will come upgrades.”
https://kion546.com/news/santa-cruz-county/2025/09/12/santa-cruzs-bcycle-program-not-working-for-all-riders/ #KION #SantaCruz #MontereyBay #BikeShare

The City of Victoria is seeking input on a new #EBikeShare system that will add to travel options for both residents and visitors.

Members of the public can let the city know where they would like to see #EBikeParking zones situated by adding virtual pins to a digital map by Sept. 24.

When the #BikeShare system launches — the plan is for a 2026 start — e-bikes and helmets will be available in the designated parking zones for rent through a smartphone app.

E-bike trips will start and end only in the zones.

The public can consider placement in locations near existing bike lanes and key destinations, as well as in easy-to-access spots around intersections.

The city has 44 kilometres of bike routes in place and more on the way.

“Bike share aligns with the city’s goals around mobility, sustainability and equity,” the city said in a statement. “It provides more affordable and clean #transportation options for people while also supporting a strong #tourism industry in Victoria.”

As of 2022, about one in three trips in the city has been made by walking, cycling or rolling, the city said, which is one of the highest rates in #Canada.

For more details or to suggest a parking zone, visit http://engage.victoria.ca/bikeshare.

#VictoriaBC #YYJ #Infrastructure #GreenTransportation #EBikes #CommunityEBikes #EBikeRentals #PublicInput #PublicFeedback #VancouverIsland #VanIsle #HaveYourSay

#CaBi #Bikeshare ridership increases continue to be insane

https://ggwash.org/view/100217/bikeshare-beat-through-june-2025-cabi-annual-ridership-is-up-28.8

2nd in the nation only behind NYC

#CaBi #Bikeshare ridership increases continue to be insane

https://ggwash.org/view/100217/bikeshare-beat-through-june-2025-cabi-annual-ridership-is-up-28.8

2nd in the nation only behind NYC

#CaBi #Bikeshare ridership increases continue to be insane

https://ggwash.org/view/100217/bikeshare-beat-through-june-2025-cabi-annual-ridership-is-up-28.8

2nd in the nation only behind NYC

#CaBi #Bikeshare ridership increases continue to be insane

https://ggwash.org/view/100217/bikeshare-beat-through-june-2025-cabi-annual-ridership-is-up-28.8

2nd in the nation only behind NYC

#CaBi #Bikeshare ridership increases continue to be insane

https://ggwash.org/view/100217/bikeshare-beat-through-june-2025-cabi-annual-ridership-is-up-28.8

2nd in the nation only behind NYC

June 26 2014
#chicago #divvy #bike #bikeshare #photography #blackandwhite

One bike is in the shop. Backup bike is currently without a chain. Checked out a bicycle from the Rushford Public Library. Adjusted and tightened loose seat after I got home.

Went for a pleasant jaunt around town.

Pleasant after I adjusted to using coaster brakes. A little terrifying when my hand gripping did nothing, nothing I tell you!

I now ❤️ handgrip brakes so much more.

#BikeTooter #Bicycling #BikeShare #Rushford #RushfordMN #RushfordPublicLibrary #PublicLibrary #z_lib #Minnesota

A Capital Bikeshare Bike Angels strategy guide for beginners

It took me a few years of having a Capital Bikeshare membership to realize that I could zero out the cost of an annual membership by using CaBi to replace enough Metro trips. I needed much longer to realize that I could outright make money off the D.C. area’s growing bikeshare system.

That’s thanks to CaBi’s Bike Angels program, which offers a menu of rewards to riders for picking up bikes from docks with too few open slots and dropping them off at docks with too few bikes. The two kinds of rewards worth pursuing: e-bike credits to offset the 10 cents/min. cost of having an electric motor whir you along, and a choice of e-gift cards that require higher point totals.

In less than a year after I started seriously taking advantage of the program that I had joined in 2018 and then ignored, I’ve now racked up more than $200 in rewards value–far exceeding the $95 annual cost of my membership.

The first flavor of rewards is the easiest to claim: Just 10 points will get you $1 in e-bike credit, but you might as well hold off until you reach 80 and can convert that to $10 in credit that covers more than an hour and a half of free e-bike transportation.

The e-gift card rewards start at 100 points for a $10 e-gift card, but racking up 1,000 earns a $150 card. The redemption options on the one I earned in March, listed in a link in an e-mail sent 17 days after I redeemed those points: Amazon, Airbnb, Disney, DoorDash, REI, or Walmart.

That link also offered a choice of nonprofits to reward instead, some new to me: Asian Americans Advancing Justice, the Dystonia Medical Research Foundation, Everytown for Gun Safety, the First Nations Development Institution, Habitat for Humanity, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, or the Trevor Project.

With either rewards option, the maximum value you can get out of a Bike Angel membership is 15 cents per point. The worst you can do is redeem 20 points to extend your membership by a week, under $1.83 in value.

(These redemption ceilings date to sometime early this year, when the program stopped offering a $200 e-gift card for 1,000 points and a $50 card for $300 points–which last year I got paid out to my PayPal account. Like an airline or hotel loyalty program, Bike Angels can inflict devaluations with no notice.)

Now that you know what you can get out of Bike Angels after joining this program in the app, here’s how you can go about putting a little effort into it:

1. Always check the CaBi mobile app not just before going somewhere via bikeshare, but if you were also going to walk. Check again just before you undock a bike, because point values change often.
2. Never take just one points-earning ride in a 24-hour period if you can help it, because that positive ride will double your points for the next 24 hours. After three more positive rides in 24 hours, you unlock triple earning.
3. The most valuable rides start at a station that needs pickups, shown in the app with a black icon for the points value, and end at one that needs dropoffs, shown in white. You’re not crazy to go out of your way to squeeze in a ride for this reason alone, especially if you’ve already activated a points multiplier.
4. Don’t be a jerk: If the closest dock to you only has one or two bikes left and you don’t have a non-points reason to take a ride from there, keep walking.
5. Sometimes it’s not worth trying to game the system. You want to bikeshare into downtown D.C. in the morning like everybody else? Not only may you not get any points out of the ride, you can easily reset your streak by having to return a bike at a dock that needs pick-ups.
6. If you don’t have an annual membership, ignore most of this advice because the $1 fee to start a ride and the subsequent 5 cents/min. charge for a regular bike will wipe out whatever value you could hope to earn in points. If a ride that you were going to take anyway offers points, consider that a tiny bonus.

Bike Angels also offers lifetime-achievement status like what you can achieve in an airline’s frequent-flyer program. Racking up 250 points earns “Joy Rider” status, plus a pin you can stick on your messenger bag and an extension of the 45-minute free-ride period you get with a membership to 60 minutes. The 500-point Casual Cruiser level gets you another pin and a large water bottle with the Bike Angel logo; they sent me two of those bottles by mistake. By reaching 1,500 points, I now have a fancy CaBi key fob and a third pin on the way, and I look forward to getting some CaBi-branded bike gloves and yet another pin at the 2,500-point mark sometime later this year.

At that point, I should probably ease off on this low-paying side hustle. But like Chris Person, the New York video-game journalist whose strategy guide to NYC’s CitiBike inspired this post, I guess I’m a sucker for a well-designed gamification scheme.

#BikeAngels #bikeshare #biking #CaBi #CapitalBikeshare #cycling #frequentTraveler #gamification #rewardsProgram

A Capital Bikeshare Bike Angels strategy guide for beginners

It took me a few years of having a Capital Bikeshare membership to realize that I could zero out the cost of an annual membership by using CaBi to replace enough Metro trips. I needed much longer to realize that I could outright make money off the D.C. area’s growing bikeshare system.

That’s thanks to CaBi’s Bike Angels program, which offers a menu of rewards to riders for picking up bikes from docks with too few open slots and dropping them off at docks with too few bikes. The two kinds of rewards worth pursuing: e-bike credits to offset the 10 cents/min. cost of having an electric motor whir you along, and a choice of e-gift cards that require higher point totals.

In less than a year after I started seriously taking advantage of the program that I had joined in 2018 and then ignored, I’ve now racked up more than $200 in rewards value–far exceeding the $95 annual cost of my membership.

The first flavor of rewards is the easiest to claim: Just 10 points will get you $1 in e-bike credit, but you might as well hold off until you reach 80 and can convert that to $10 in credit that covers more than an hour and a half of free e-bike transportation.

The e-gift card rewards start at 100 points for a $10 e-gift card, but racking up 1,000 earns a $150 card. The redemption options on the one I earned in March, listed in a link in an e-mail sent 17 days after I redeemed those points: Amazon, Airbnb, Disney, DoorDash, REI, or Walmart.

That link also offered a choice of nonprofits to reward instead, some new to me: Asian Americans Advancing Justice, the Dystonia Medical Research Foundation, Everytown for Gun Safety, the First Nations Development Institution, Habitat for Humanity, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, or the Trevor Project.

With either rewards option, the maximum value you can get out of a Bike Angel membership is 15 cents per point. The worst you can do is redeem 20 points to extend your membership by a week, under $1.83 in value.

(These redemption ceilings date to sometime early this year, when the program stopped offering a $200 e-gift card for 1,000 points and a $50 card for $300 points–which last year I got paid out to my PayPal account. Like an airline or hotel loyalty program, Bike Angels can inflict devaluations with no notice.)

Now that you know what you can get out of Bike Angels after joining this program in the app, here’s how you can go about putting a little effort into it:

1. Always check the CaBi mobile app not just before going somewhere via bikeshare, but if you were also going to walk. Check again just before you undock a bike, because point values change often.
2. Never take just one points-earning ride in a 24-hour period if you can help it, because that positive ride will double your points for the next 24 hours. After three more positive rides in 24 hours, you unlock triple earning.
3. The most valuable rides start at a station that needs pickups, shown in the app with a black icon for the points value, and end at one that needs dropoffs, shown in white. You’re not crazy to go out of your way to squeeze in a ride for this reason alone, especially if you’ve already activated a points multiplier.
4. Don’t be a jerk: If the closest dock to you only has one or two bikes left and you don’t have a non-points reason to take a ride from there, keep walking.
5. Sometimes it’s not worth trying to game the system. You want to bikeshare into downtown D.C. in the morning like everybody else? Not only may you not get any points out of the ride, you can easily reset your streak by having to return a bike at a dock that needs pick-ups.
6. If you don’t have an annual membership, ignore most of this advice because the $1 fee to start a ride and the subsequent 5 cents/min. charge for a regular bike will wipe out whatever value you could hope to earn in points. If a ride that you were going to take anyway offers points, consider that a tiny bonus.

Bike Angels also offers lifetime-achievement status like what you can achieve in an airline’s frequent-flyer program. Racking up 250 points earns “Joy Rider” status, plus a pin you can stick on your messenger bag and an extension of the 45-minute free-ride period you get with a membership to 60 minutes. The 500-point Casual Cruiser level gets you another pin and a large water bottle with the Bike Angel logo; they sent me two of those bottles by mistake. By reaching 1,500 points, I now have a fancy CaBi key fob and a third pin on the way, and I look forward to getting some CaBi-branded bike gloves and yet another pin at the 2,500-point mark sometime later this year.

At that point, I should probably ease off on this low-paying side hustle. But like Chris Person, the New York video-game journalist whose strategy guide to NYC’s CitiBike inspired this post, I guess I’m a sucker for a well-designed gamification scheme.

#BikeAngels #bikeshare #biking #CaBi #CapitalBikeshare #cycling #frequentTraveler #gamification #rewardsProgram

A Capital Bikeshare Bike Angels strategy guide for beginners

It took me a few years of having a Capital Bikeshare membership to realize that I could zero out the cost of an annual membership by using CaBi to replace enough Metro trips. I needed much longer to realize that I could outright make money off the D.C. area’s growing bikeshare system.

That’s thanks to CaBi’s Bike Angels program, which offers a menu of rewards to riders for picking up bikes from docks with too few open slots and dropping them off at docks with too few bikes. The two kinds of rewards worth pursuing: e-bike credits to offset the 10 cents/min. cost of having an electric motor whir you along, and a choice of e-gift cards that require higher point totals.

In less than a year after I started seriously taking advantage of the program that I had joined in 2018 and then ignored, I’ve now racked up more than $200 in rewards value–far exceeding the $95 annual cost of my membership.

The first flavor of rewards is the easiest to claim: Just 10 points will get you $1 in e-bike credit, but you might as well hold off until you reach 80 and can convert that to $10 in credit that covers more than an hour and a half of free e-bike transportation.

The e-gift card rewards start at 100 points for a $10 e-gift card, but racking up 1,000 earns a $150 card. The redemption options on the one I earned in March, listed in a link in an e-mail sent 17 days after I redeemed those points: Amazon, Airbnb, Disney, DoorDash, REI, or Walmart.

That link also offered a choice of nonprofits to reward instead, some new to me: Asian Americans Advancing Justice, the Dystonia Medical Research Foundation, Everytown for Gun Safety, the First Nations Development Institution, Habitat for Humanity, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, or the Trevor Project.

With either rewards option, the maximum value you can get out of a Bike Angel membership is 15 cents per point. The worst you can do is redeem 20 points to extend your membership by a week, under $1.83 in value.

(These redemption ceilings date to sometime early this year, when the program stopped offering a $200 e-gift card for 1,000 points and a $50 card for $300 points–which last year I got paid out to my PayPal account. Like an airline or hotel loyalty program, Bike Angels can inflict devaluations with no notice.)

Now that you know what you can get out of Bike Angels after joining this program in the app, here’s how you can go about putting a little effort into it:

1. Always check the CaBi mobile app not just before going somewhere via bikeshare, but if you were also going to walk. Check again just before you undock a bike, because point values change often.
2. Never take just one points-earning ride in a 24-hour period if you can help it, because that positive ride will double your points for the next 24 hours. After three more positive rides in 24 hours, you unlock triple earning.
3. The most valuable rides start at a station that needs pickups, shown in the app with a black icon for the points value, and end at one that needs dropoffs, shown in white. You’re not crazy to go out of your way to squeeze in a ride for this reason alone, especially if you’ve already activated a points multiplier.
4. Don’t be a jerk: If the closest dock to you only has one or two bikes left and you don’t have a non-points reason to take a ride from there, keep walking.
5. Sometimes it’s not worth trying to game the system. You want to bikeshare into downtown D.C. in the morning like everybody else? Not only may you not get any points out of the ride, you can easily reset your streak by having to return a bike at a dock that needs pick-ups.
6. If you don’t have an annual membership, ignore most of this advice because the $1 fee to start a ride and the subsequent 5 cents/min. charge for a regular bike will wipe out whatever value you could hope to earn in points. If a ride that you were going to take anyway offers points, consider that a tiny bonus.

Bike Angels also offers lifetime-achievement status like what you can achieve in an airline’s frequent-flyer program. Racking up 250 points earns “Joy Rider” status, plus a pin you can stick on your messenger bag and an extension of the 45-minute free-ride period you get with a membership to 60 minutes. The 500-point Casual Cruiser level gets you another pin and a large water bottle with the Bike Angel logo; they sent me two of those bottles by mistake. By reaching 1,500 points, I now have a fancy CaBi key fob and a third pin on the way, and I look forward to getting some CaBi-branded bike gloves and yet another pin at the 2,500-point mark sometime later this year.

At that point, I should probably ease off on this low-paying side hustle. But like Chris Person, the New York video-game journalist whose strategy guide to NYC’s CitiBike inspired this post, I guess I’m a sucker for a well-designed gamification scheme.

#BikeAngels #bikeshare #biking #CaBi #CapitalBikeshare #cycling #frequentTraveler #gamification #rewardsProgram

A Capital Bikeshare Bike Angels strategy guide for beginners

It took me a few years of having a Capital Bikeshare membership to realize that I could zero out the cost of an annual membership by using CaBi to replace enough Metro trips. I needed much longer to realize that I could outright make money off the D.C. area’s growing bikeshare system.

That’s thanks to CaBi’s Bike Angels program, which offers a menu of rewards to riders for picking up bikes from docks with too few open slots and dropping them off at docks with too few bikes. The two kinds of rewards worth pursuing: e-bike credits to offset the 10 cents/min. cost of having an electric motor whir you along, and a choice of e-gift cards that require higher point totals.

In less than a year after I started seriously taking advantage of the program that I had joined in 2018 and then ignored, I’ve now racked up more than $200 in rewards value–far exceeding the $95 annual cost of my membership.

The first flavor of rewards is the easiest to claim: Just 10 points will get you $1 in e-bike credit, but you might as well hold off until you reach 80 and can convert that to $10 in credit that covers more than an hour and a half of free e-bike transportation.

The e-gift card rewards start at 100 points for a $10 e-gift card, but racking up 1,000 earns a $150 card. The redemption options on the one I earned in March, listed in a link in an e-mail sent 17 days after I redeemed those points: Amazon, Airbnb, Disney, DoorDash, REI, or Walmart.

That link also offered a choice of nonprofits to reward instead, some new to me: Asian Americans Advancing Justice, the Dystonia Medical Research Foundation, Everytown for Gun Safety, the First Nations Development Institution, Habitat for Humanity, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, or the Trevor Project.

With either rewards option, the maximum value you can get out of a Bike Angel membership is 15 cents per point. The worst you can do is redeem 20 points to extend your membership by a week, under $1.83 in value.

(These redemption ceilings date to sometime early this year, when the program stopped offering a $200 e-gift card for 1,000 points and a $50 card for $300 points–which last year I got paid out to my PayPal account. Like an airline or hotel loyalty program, Bike Angels can inflict devaluations with no notice.)

Now that you know what you can get out of Bike Angels after joining this program in the app, here’s how you can go about putting a little effort into it:

1. Always check the CaBi mobile app not just before going somewhere via bikeshare, but if you were also going to walk. Check again just before you undock a bike, because point values change often.
2. Never take just one points-earning ride in a 24-hour period if you can help it, because that positive ride will double your points for the next 24 hours. After three more positive rides in 24 hours, you unlock triple earning.
3. The most valuable rides start at a station that needs pickups, shown in the app with a black icon for the points value, and end at one that needs dropoffs, shown in white. You’re not crazy to go out of your way to squeeze in a ride for this reason alone, especially if you’ve already activated a points multiplier.
4. Don’t be a jerk: If the closest dock to you only has one or two bikes left and you don’t have a non-points reason to take a ride from there, keep walking.
5. Sometimes it’s not worth trying to game the system. You want to bikeshare into downtown D.C. in the morning like everybody else? Not only may you not get any points out of the ride, you can easily reset your streak by having to return a bike at a dock that needs pick-ups.
6. If you don’t have an annual membership, ignore most of this advice because the $1 fee to start a ride and the subsequent 5 cents/min. charge for a regular bike will wipe out whatever value you could hope to earn in points. If a ride that you were going to take anyway offers points, consider that a tiny bonus.

Bike Angels also offers lifetime-achievement status like what you can achieve in an airline’s frequent-flyer program. Racking up 250 points earns “Joy Rider” status, plus a pin you can stick on your messenger bag and an extension of the 45-minute free-ride period you get with a membership to 60 minutes. The 500-point Casual Cruiser level gets you another pin and a large water bottle with the Bike Angel logo; they sent me two of those bottles by mistake. By reaching 1,500 points, I now have a fancy CaBi key fob and a third pin on the way, and I look forward to getting some CaBi-branded bike gloves and yet another pin at the 2,500-point mark sometime later this year.

At that point, I should probably ease off on this low-paying side hustle. But like Chris Person, the New York video-game journalist whose strategy guide to NYC’s CitiBike inspired this post, I guess I’m a sucker for a well-designed gamification scheme.

#BikeAngels #bikeshare #biking #CaBi #CapitalBikeshare #cycling #frequentTraveler #gamification #rewardsProgram

New #OpenAccess research in JTLU: “How #bikesharing changed destination distance for its users: A case study of Chicago Metropolitan Area” by Shubhayan Ukil, University of Michigan, and Aditi Misra, University of Colorado, Denver.

https://jtlu.org/index.php/jtlu/article/view/2597

The paper examines the impact of #Divvy shared bike services in the #Chicago metro region on trip distance of its users across all trips from 2008 and 2018, finding an 0.84km reduction in average trip distance among Divvy users when #bikeshare was available.

Recommendations include planning for shared bike services that are integrated with #transit in urban areas and promoting mixed land use so that users can choose proximate destinations in dense urban areas.

#firstmile #landuse #biketooter #fedibikes

An insider's view of the Pashley Cycles HQ and a hint at the direction the modernised company is taking under new CEO Andy Smallwood. Some incredible work around bike share underway and soon to launch new e-bikes too:
https://www.cyclingelectric.com/in-depth/pashley-reshapes-around-bike-share-e-bikes-cargo-bike-logistics

#ebikes #ukmade #cycling #transport #cargobikes #bikeshare
#ukmanufacturing

Does Lyft’s “Bay Wheels” bike share have a website that shares if there’s an outage? There should be a handful of docks in my neighborhood, but right now it’s just this one empty one. I walked to a nearby dock that had an open bike, but when I tried to unlock it, it told me it wasn’t available. There was no blinking red light. Anybody on here an expert on Lyft bikes?
#SFBA #BayWheels #Lyft #BikeShare

Does Lyft’s “Bay Wheels” bike share have a website that shares if there’s an outage? There should be a handful of docks in my neighborhood, but right now it’s just this one empty one. I walked to a nearby dock that had an open bike, but when I tried to unlock it, it told me it wasn’t available. There was no blinking red light. Anybody on here an expert on Lyft bikes?
#SFBA #BayWheels #Lyft #BikeShare

Does Lyft’s “Bay Wheels” bike share have a website that shares if there’s an outage? There should be a handful of docks in my neighborhood, but right now it’s just this one empty one. I walked to a nearby dock that had an open bike, but when I tried to unlock it, it told me it wasn’t available. There was no blinking red light. Anybody on here an expert on Lyft bikes?
#SFBA #BayWheels #Lyft #BikeShare

Does Lyft’s “Bay Wheels” bike share have a website that shares if there’s an outage? There should be a handful of docks in my neighborhood, but right now it’s just this one empty one. I walked to a nearby dock that had an open bike, but when I tried to unlock it, it told me it wasn’t available. There was no blinking red light. Anybody on here an expert on Lyft bikes?
#SFBA #BayWheels #Lyft #BikeShare

Does Lyft’s “Bay Wheels” bike share have a website that shares if there’s an outage? There should be a handful of docks in my neighborhood, but right now it’s just this one empty one. I walked to a nearby dock that had an open bike, but when I tried to unlock it, it told me it wasn’t available. There was no blinking red light. Anybody on here an expert on Lyft bikes?
#SFBA #BayWheels #Lyft #BikeShare

Ah, there's a spot in #WinterHill
#SomervilleMA

Streetfilms Test-Rides CargoB, Boston’s New Cargo #Bikeshare

https://mass.streetsblog.org/2024/07/11/streetfilms-test-rides-cargob-bostons-new-cargo-bikeshare

ANAHEIM, Calif.

The past two weeks of travel have involved different modes of transportation that separately surfaced the same defect on the screen of my aging phone: no support for the default payment system already enabled on the device.

Think of this as a two-hands problem: When a transit app doesn’t let you select Google Wallet or Apple Pay to pay for a ride, most people will have to fish a credit card out of a wallet or purse and hold it in one hand while thumb-typing the card’s digits into the app with the other. That’s not a great customer experience while sitting at a train station or bus stop, considerably worse when standing in a moving train or bus.

(I work around that by using 1Password to fill in saved credit-card info, but many people don’t use third-party password managers.)

The most recent offenders were Bike Share Toronto, which I used to get between two events at Collision two weeks ago, and Metrolink commuter rail in Los Angeles, which I used to get from L.A. to here Wednesday as part of a trip that’s combined getting some time in Waymo robotaxis with covering the VidCon conference here.

Those apps join a list of others that I’ve installed and seen exhibit the same shortfall: Las Vegas’s rideRTC, Boston’s mTicket, the Bay Area’s SMART, and Deutsche Bahn’s DB Navigator. Many of these apps credit the same app framework, Masabi’s Justride; a support note on that U.K. firm’s site mentions Apple Pay support but not Google Wallet, so maybe iPhone users don’t have this issue.

But these other apps on my phone show that paying for a fare on the go doesn’t have to take extra steps: Capital Bikeshare’s CaBi, Metro’s SmarTrip (which until a few months ago, was not in this category), Austin’s CapMetro, the Bay Area’s Clipper, for example.

I’d rather see transit agencies follow the examples of Chicago, New York and Portland by directly supporting tap-to-pay payments in stations and on buses so frequent travelers don’t have to collect transit apps the way infrastructure nerds like me collect transit smart cards. But that may involve a lot more work by transit agencies–and those unable to make that transition yet need to make it easier for customers to give them their money.

https://robpegoraro.com/2024/06/29/the-one-feature-every-transit-app-needs-apple-pay-and-google-wallet-support/

#BART #BikeShareToronto #bikeshare #CaBi #CapitalMetro #DBNavigator #Metro #Metrolink #NFC #SMART #SmarTrip #transitCards #transitFare #UX #WMATA

ANAHEIM, Calif.

The past two weeks of travel have involved different modes of transportation that separately surfaced the same defect on the screen of my aging phone: no support for the default payment system already enabled on the device.

Think of this as a two-hands problem: When a transit app doesn’t let you select Google Wallet or Apple Pay to pay for a ride, most people will have to fish a credit card out of a wallet or purse and hold it in one hand while thumb-typing the card’s digits into the app with the other. That’s not a great customer experience while sitting at a train station or bus stop, considerably worse when standing in a moving train or bus.

(I work around that by using 1Password to fill in saved credit-card info, but many people don’t use third-party password managers.)

The most recent offenders were Bike Share Toronto, which I used to get between two events at Collision two weeks ago, and Metrolink commuter rail in Los Angeles, which I used to get from L.A. to here Wednesday as part of a trip that’s combined getting some time in Waymo robotaxis with covering the VidCon conference here.

Those apps join a list of others that I’ve installed and seen exhibit the same shortfall: Las Vegas’s rideRTC, Boston’s mTicket, the Bay Area’s SMART, and Deutsche Bahn’s DB Navigator. Many of these apps credit the same app framework, Masabi’s Justride; a support note on that U.K. firm’s site mentions Apple Pay support but not Google Wallet, so maybe iPhone users don’t have this issue.

But these other apps on my phone show that paying for a fare on the go doesn’t have to take extra steps: Capital Bikeshare’s CaBi, Metro’s SmarTrip (which until a few months ago, was not in this category), Austin’s CapMetro, the Bay Area’s Clipper, for example.

I’d rather see transit agencies follow the examples of Chicago, New York and Portland by directly supporting tap-to-pay payments in stations and on buses so frequent travelers don’t have to collect transit apps the way infrastructure nerds like me collect transit smart cards. But that may involve a lot more work by transit agencies–and those unable to make that transition yet need to make it easier for customers to give them their money.

https://robpegoraro.com/2024/06/29/the-one-feature-every-transit-app-needs-apple-pay-and-google-wallet-support/

#BART #BikeShareToronto #bikeshare #CaBi #CapitalMetro #DBNavigator #Metro #Metrolink #NFC #SMART #SmarTrip #transitCards #transitFare #UX #WMATA

ANAHEIM, Calif.

The past two weeks of travel have involved different modes of transportation that separately surfaced the same defect on the screen of my aging phone: no support for the default payment system already enabled on the device.

Think of this as a two-hands problem: When a transit app doesn’t let you select Google Wallet or Apple Pay to pay for a ride, most people will have to fish a credit card out of a wallet or purse and hold it in one hand while thumb-typing the card’s digits into the app with the other. That’s not a great customer experience while sitting at a train station or bus stop, considerably worse when standing in a moving train or bus.

(I work around that by using 1Password to fill in saved credit-card info, but many people don’t use third-party password managers.)

The most recent offenders were Bike Share Toronto, which I used to get between two events at Collision two weeks ago, and Metrolink commuter rail in Los Angeles, which I used to get from L.A. to here Wednesday as part of a trip that’s combined getting some time in Waymo robotaxis with covering the VidCon conference here.

Those apps join a list of others that I’ve installed and seen exhibit the same shortfall: Las Vegas’s rideRTC, Boston’s mTicket, the Bay Area’s SMART, and Deutsche Bahn’s DB Navigator. Many of these apps credit the same app framework, Masabi’s Justride; a support note on that U.K. firm’s site mentions Apple Pay support but not Google Wallet, so maybe iPhone users don’t have this issue.

But these other apps on my phone show that paying for a fare on the go doesn’t have to take extra steps: Capital Bikeshare’s CaBi, Metro’s SmarTrip (which until a few months ago, was not in this category), Austin’s CapMetro, the Bay Area’s Clipper, for example.

I’d rather see transit agencies follow the examples of Chicago, New York and Portland by directly supporting tap-to-pay payments in stations and on buses so frequent travelers don’t have to collect transit apps the way infrastructure nerds like me collect transit smart cards. But that may involve a lot more work by transit agencies–and those unable to make that transition yet need to make it easier for customers to give them their money.

https://robpegoraro.com/2024/06/29/the-one-feature-every-transit-app-needs-apple-pay-and-google-wallet-support/

#BART #BikeShareToronto #bikeshare #CaBi #CapitalMetro #DBNavigator #Metro #Metrolink #NFC #SMART #SmarTrip #transitCards #transitFare #UX #WMATA

My city’s subway has done impressively well at recovering from its pandemic-induced collapse in ridership, but the transportation system that has rebounded better yet around Washington relies on only two wheels per vehicle.

And despite not having an everyday office to commute to and from, I’ve been along for much of this ride at Capital Bikeshare. Our bike-sharing service continues to serve as a convenient and cheaper alternative to Metro for trips into the District and between events in D.C., and a few other changes have further elevated CaBi’s role in my transportation toolkit.

One looked like a downgrade when it was announced in 2021 with inadequate advance notice: The increase in the annual membership fee from $85 to $95 also extended the length of a free ride for members on a regular bike from 30 minutes to 45 minutes. That means I can get from my house to Capitol Hill and points slightly beyond in a single ride without having to worry about having to stop midway to dock one bike and take out another.

Another arrived with less discussion than CaBi’s introduction of new, extra-cost e-bikes: updated “classic” bikes, distinguishable by a longer cargo shelf in front of the handlebars and a red fairing covering the top of the back wheel, that feature a continuously variable transmission instead of the three gears of the older bikes. Those newer rides are easier to take on moderately hillier routes, which means much of D.C. and its neighbors.

A third has come from local governments: The District and Arlington have done impressive work in adding bike lanes that aren’t just painted white lines but cycle tracks split from car traffic by concrete dividers.

Then I bought a bike helmet that I can easily grab for most trips: a Closca folding model, which I picked up on sale at $60 on Amazon after reading the Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute’s approving assessment of it among other foldable helmets. This neatly solved two problems I’d had with using the helmet I’ve long worn for recreational rides on weekends: It’s not gross from caked-on sweat, and because its concentric rings snap folded in a second or two, I can tuck it into my regular laptop bag even with my laptop already there.

Millions of other Washington-area cyclists seem to agree with my assessment of CaBi. Its public stats show that the service–operated by Motivate, a company the ride-hailing firm Lyft bought in 2018–has grown from 337,704 trips in May of 2019 to 515,394 in May of 2024. That remains far below Metro’s daily ridership even as dented by continued remote work, yet it’s still good enough to vault our bikeshare system past Chicago’s to become the second most-used bikeshare network in the U.S.

Finally, almost 23 years after my overdue introduction to CaBi, I’ve taken the bait of its Bike Angels rewards program, which offers kickbacks to cyclists who take bikes out of stations nearing capacity or park bikes at those nearing emptiness. This neatly slots into the intersection between my fondness for gamification schemes and my readiness to overthink any commercial transaction, and so far it’s only required me to alter my bikeshare routine in three ways to cash in. First I check the CaBi app for stations offering an extra incentive for dropoffs or pickups, then I alter my own course accordingly as long as it’s not more than two or three blocks out of the way, and finally I redouble those efforts when the app says I can earn double or triple points.

And once you convert those points in the app for e-bike credit–the sliding redemption scale encourages holding off, because 80 points for $10 beats 10 points for $1–you can burn those rewards on speedier e-bike rides that in turn generate outsized rewards when a Bike Angels bonus activates. For a more detailed look into how these incentives can twist a cyclist’s behavior, see Chris Person’s strategy guide to the equivalent system at New York’s considerably more expensive Citi Bike.

I’m not going to say that all of this amounts to one giant leap towards the Copenhagenification of D.C. But all of these small steps combined have made this place a better place for getting around without so many cars.

6/15/2024: I rewrote the last paragraph after a better conclusion popped into my head not long after I woke up Saturday and added a little more explanation of Bike Angels.

https://robpegoraro.com/2024/06/14/bikeshare-keeps-rolling-along/

#BikeAngels #bikeCommuting #bikeshare #biking #CaBi #CapitalBikeshare #CloscaHelmet #CloscaHelmetLoop #cycling #foldingBikeHelmet #gamification #Lyft #micromobility #Motivate

My city’s subway has done impressively well at recovering from its pandemic-induced collapse in ridership, but the transportation system that has rebounded better yet around Washington relies on only two wheels per vehicle.

And despite not having an everyday office to commute to and from, I’ve been along for much of this ride at Capital Bikeshare. Our bike-sharing service continues to serve as a convenient and cheaper alternative to Metro for trips into the District and between events in D.C., and a few other changes have further elevated CaBi’s role in my transportation toolkit.

One looked like a downgrade when it was announced in 2021 with inadequate advance notice: The increase in the annual membership fee from $85 to $95 also extended the length of a free ride for members on a regular bike from 30 minutes to 45 minutes. That means I can get from my house to Capitol Hill and points slightly beyond in a single ride without having to worry about having to stop midway to dock one bike and take out another.

Another arrived with less discussion than CaBi’s introduction of new, extra-cost e-bikes: updated “classic” bikes, distinguishable by a longer cargo shelf in front of the handlebars and a red fairing covering the top of the back wheel, that feature a continuously variable transmission instead of the three gears of the older bikes. Those newer rides are easier to take on moderately hillier routes, which means much of D.C. and its neighbors.

A third has come from local governments: The District and Arlington have done impressive work in adding bike lanes that aren’t just painted white lines but cycle tracks split from car traffic by concrete dividers.

Then I bought a bike helmet that I can easily grab for most trips: a Closca folding model, which I picked up on sale at $60 on Amazon after reading the Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute’s approving assessment of it among other foldable helmets. This neatly solved two problems I’d had with using the helmet I’ve long worn for recreational rides on weekends: It’s not gross from caked-on sweat, and because its concentric rings snap folded in a second or two, I can tuck it into my regular laptop bag even with my laptop already there.

Millions of other Washington-area cyclists seem to agree with my assessment of CaBi. Its public stats show that the service–operated by Motivate, a company the ride-hailing firm Lyft bought in 2018–has grown from 337,704 trips in May of 2019 to 515,394 in May of 2024. That remains far below Metro’s daily ridership even as dented by continued remote work, yet it’s still good enough to vault our bikeshare system past Chicago’s to become the second most-used bikeshare network in the U.S.

Finally, almost 23 years after my overdue introduction to CaBi, I’ve taken the bait of its Bike Angels rewards program, which offers kickbacks to cyclists who take bikes out of stations nearing capacity or park bikes at those nearing emptiness. This neatly slots into the intersection between my fondness for gamification schemes and my readiness to overthink any commercial transaction, and so far it’s only required me to alter my bikeshare routine in three ways to cash in. First I check the CaBi app for stations offering an extra incentive for dropoffs or pickups, then I alter my own course accordingly as long as it’s not more than two or three blocks out of the way, and finally I redouble those efforts when the app says I can earn double or triple points.

And once you convert those points in the app for e-bike credit–the sliding redemption scale encourages holding off, because 80 points for $10 beats 10 points for $1–you can burn those rewards on speedier e-bike rides that in turn generate outsized rewards when a Bike Angels bonus activates. For a more detailed look into how these incentives can twist a cyclist’s behavior, see Chris Person’s strategy guide to the equivalent system at New York’s considerably more expensive Citi Bike.

I’m not going to say that all of this amounts to one giant leap towards the Copenhagenification of D.C. But all of these small steps combined have made this place a better place for getting around without so many cars.

6/15/2024: I rewrote the last paragraph after a better conclusion popped into my head not long after I woke up Saturday and added a little more explanation of Bike Angels.

https://robpegoraro.com/2024/06/14/bikeshare-keeps-rolling-along/

#BikeAngels #bikeCommuting #bikeshare #biking #CaBi #CapitalBikeshare #CloscaHelmet #CloscaHelmetLoop #cycling #foldingBikeHelmet #gamification #Lyft #micromobility #Motivate