Contrary to popular belief, the whiniest of all cyclists is not the mountain biker:
[A disconcerting image of an irate mountain biker generated for an earlier post using Artificial Intelligence, which for some reason saw it fit to give him an extra row of teeth]
Oh sure, the idea of having to pedal up a hill or use more than one digit to apply a brake or feel any sensation whatsoever through their dual suspension systems may reduce them to tears, and yes, they may go on and on about how any bicycle designed prior to 2019 is completely unrideable, but they’ve got nothing on the e-Citi Bike riders of New York City, who are without a doubt the whiniest people on the planet Earth.
I suppose this isn’t surprising coming from denizens of a city whose chief export is whining (to wit: this blog), but still, they’ve been going on and on about how tough they’ve got it since at least 2024. First they wanted a cap on fees, because cheap shared bicycles with motors on them are a basic human right or something:
Then they were upset when Citi Bike slowed the motorized bikes down to make them less dangerous:
And now we’re supposed to believe the same people who were upset because the bikes won’t go fast enough are now riding too fast on those very same bikes, and they can’t themselves, because of the fees:
So which is it? Are the bikes too fast, or are they too slow? Pick one and stick with it, for chrissakes! Anyway, here’s why they’re indignant:
Lyft just raised Citi Bike fees for the fifth year in a row. Annual members can ride non-electric Citi Bikes for free, but e-bikes cost an extra 27 cents per minute for members and 41 cents per minute for everyone else — up from 25 cents per minute cents and 28 cents per minute, respectively (increases of 8 and 47 percent) compared to 2025.
I’m old enough to remember when it was obstructed bike lanes that were “forcing people into traffic.” Now it’s the fear of having to pay 41 cents because your bike has a motor:
“I feel that pressure,” a Citi Bike member named Burak told Streetsblog last week at a dock near Prospect Park. “I want to lock it and unlock it very quickly.”
Reddit commenters who shared their gripes about the recent fare hike agree that the per-minute pricing and regular fee hikes impact their behavior.
“The fare hikes honestly encourage me to bike more aggressively and cut through traffic to reduce my ride time/cost…,” one commenter wrote.
Okay, sure, after awhile 41 cents a minute can add up, and I suppose this is a frightening proposition to a younger generation that did not grow up using phone sex lines. (If you lived through the Landline Era and were responsible for a phone bill you naturally developed a pretty accurate internal clock.) Still, even at the new rate, if you’re a non-Citi Bike member and you use one of their electric motorbikes for an hour, the extra charge comes to about $25 bucks. That should be enough time to ride it from one tip of Manhattan to the other, more or less, and it seems like a pretty decent deal to me–though if you don’t like it and you have a lot of ground to cover, perhaps you should consider a cheaper e-assisted alternative, such as this one:
Yes, for the low, low price of $3* you can spend all day on the subway and go anywhere in the city you want!
*[This is where you tell us all about how you used to ride the subway for a nickel, gramps.]
You can even transfer to the bus for free. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of a “bus,” it’s basically a slower subway. Kind of like a regular Citi Bike versus an electric one:
[Yes, buses also have motors, but don’t overthink it.]
I know all this seems unfair, but it’s important to remember that some things in this world are more expensive than other things. Take our “hypothetical Citi Bike member,” for example:
Consider a hypothetical Citi Bike member who lives in Brooklyn and wants to use an e-bike to make two 15-minute trips a day to and from Manhattan.
On top of the annual $239 fee, that member will pay $40.50 per week. If they work 50 weeks out of the year, that’s $2,264 — just for commuting. That price is far more expensive than the equivalent commutes via public transit; a daily commuter would pay just $1,500 to go to and from work every day of the week for 50 weeks per year.
Yes, he or she does indeed pay more to use an e-bike than to use public transit. Fortunately he or she also has a cheaper alternative, which is to USE PUBLIC TRANSIT. Because if your Brooklyn-to-Manhattan e-bike commute is only 15 minutes long, you live in the most “transit-rich” place in all of North America.
Ready for this, “hypothetical Citi Bike member? I’m about to blow your mind. Making your own sandwich for lunch costs about the same as a subway trip:
While ordering the sushi roll lunch special at the Japanese place by your office costs quite a bit more:
Unfair? Not really. Ordering the sushi roll lunch is like commuting on the e-bike. And fortunately, believe it or not, whether it’s eating or commuting, you do have a choice! You can make yourself a sandwich in the morning and you can take it to work with you on the subway. (Just try not to eat it on the subway, especially if it’s tuna fish. We really don’t need to smell that.) Or you can make yourself that sandwich and take the e-bike, since you’re saving a good $15 a day by not ordering lunch. Or, you could even say “fuck it,” ride an e-bike to work, and eat that sushi, because why not? You earned it, baby, and you live in the Greatest City In The World!™ Put it on your Instagram so all your friends back in Losertown can suck on it. Really, the only thing you should not do is decide to ride like a maniac and risk your life unnecessarily just to shave a few minutes off your commute, unless this is how you want to be remembered by future generations:
Oh, by the way, if you mistakenly believe the fact that I don’t give a shit how much e-Citi Bikes cost makes me anti-bike share or something, perhaps you missed this part of the story:
Annual members can ride non-electric Citi Bikes for free
Let me repeat that:
Annual members can ride non-electric Citi Bikes for free
One more time:
Annual members can ride non-electric Citi Bikes for free
So basically “hypothetical Citi Bike member” could extend his or her 15-minute to–what, maybe 20 minutes?–by riding a regular Citi Bike instead, and avoid both the subway fare and the e-bike surcharge. Think of it! You’d have so much extra money in your pocket that you could order two fancy lunches every day, eat one, and use the other one to pelt homeless people with sushi rolls.
Sure, you might get a little sweatier on the way to work, but you wouldn’t smell as bad as that tuna sandwich.