When You Ride a Citibike

Fully immersed, fully engaged, and fully present in NYC

There’s nothing like the flow state of riding a Citibike in New York City.

Between weaving through traffic, timing yellow lights, and dodging all the various obstacles going both directions in the green bike lanes, it feels like you’re playing Mario Kart in real life. Anticipating pedestrians looking at their phones, potholes, and delivery bikes (that we can’t keep up with anymore at 15 mph) requires constant awareness. It’s as much a mental exercise as it is physical. The risks bring a daily thrill – every Citibike ride is a microadventure.

When you ride a Citibike, you feel a special kind of freedom. When you ride a Citibike, you expose yourself to the vigor and vitality of New York City streets, from the insane sensory overload biking down 7th ave through Times Square, to the warm convivial murmur of an evening biking through the West Village on Bleecker, from the shimmering skyline views crossing over the East River on the Williamsburg Bridge, to the vertigo of One World Trade biking down the Hudson River Greenway.

When you ride a Citibike, you are the main character.

The Citibike can carry your different moods. On a great day, Citibiking feels euphoric, on a bad day, Citibiking feels cathartic. There’s something about moving with the flow in the city that makes you feel like you’re part of something greater than yourself. Biking in the city is so fun because you’re often going faster than the cars, and it feels like you’re dancing with the rhythm of traffic (especially on Delancey at rush hour).

Amidst our obsession with agency, the Citibike is the transportation of choice for the high-agency individual. When you ride the subway, you’re at the mercy of MTA schedules and delays. When you take an Uber, you give up control of your commute to the unpredictable traffic. When you walk, well, walking is nice, but sometimes you don’t have the time. When you ride a Citibike, you’re in control of your own route, your own schedule, and your own time. You can reliably know how long it will take you to get somewhere.

In our always-on daily lives, being truly present is becoming rarer. It has become the default to pull out our phones in transit, to scroll through some feed or mindlessly flip between apps. But the Citibike is an anti-screentime machine. Citibikes offer the gift of presence at any time of day, to spend just five minutes or 45 minutes being fully immersed, fully engaged, and fully present.

You never know what journey might be awaiting when you arrive at a Citibike dock. Some days your only option is a total beater blue acoustic bike that squeaks on each pedal and screeches when you apply the brakes. And then you arrive at your home dock, only to find it full, forced to open the app to reroute to another dock.

Then there are days when you’re treated to a pristine white electric bike with 30+ miles left on it, and as you start to pedal, you hear the satisfying soft whirling sound of the pedal assist kick in. And then you’re gliding down one of the avenues and hit 10 consecutive green lights, like Bullet Bill, all while sitting relaxed in the upright position with Sade’s Kiss of Life playing in your Airpods.

There are some skills you acquire as an avid Citibiker: an eye trained to identify high quality Citibikes and spot empty docks, an ability to ride the bike directly into dock to get the green light, knowing how to lift the back of the seat when there’s a stubborn dock, and developing intuition for how long you have to cross an intersection before the other light turns green.

The Citibike is a remarkable feat of egalitarian engineering. Anyone in New York has access to same heavy, indestructible aluminum vehicle. Sure, any normal bike you buy is likely much faster, lighter, and a more pleasant ride. But there’s a mental and physical relaxation about choosing to take a Citibike. You never worry about locking it. You never worry about it getting stolen. You can ride it one-way to anywhere in the city and walk away. I take solace knowing that wherever I am in the city, I can rely on finding a Citibike to take me home.

I remember the first time I rode one of the original blue ebikes back in 2018. I was biking up Amsterdam on the UWS, and rode up next to a serious looking man in a suit also on an ebike. He had the smile of a child playing with a new toy. “Isn’t it just marvelous?” I smiled back and nodded. “Feels incredible.” And then the light turned green and we both hit the pedal assist and were off.

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Thank you to Lyft and Citibike for consistently bringing me joy, and to NYC DOT for the improved bike lane infrastructure over the years.

My 3 favorite segments:

1. Across the Williamsburg Bridge going into Manhattan, at dusk when the sun is setting and skyline lights are just starting to sparkle. There’s a small lip off the curb when getting off the bridge onto Delancey, and when there’s nobody there, I love hitting it at full speed and catching 0.3 seconds of air time.

2. The short stretch of Mott St. between Houston and Delancey. There’s no bike lane, it’s narrow and I’m often squeezing between cars, but it just feels right.

3. Back when I was living in Midtown after college, I would often find myself biking up an empty 3rd ave late at night. I’d feel like I had 3rd ave entirely to myself, with a clear 20 block view uptown looking between office buildings and high rises.

I was partially inspired to write this post after watching this video from SATISFY, which is a great love letter to running in NYC.

“a day spent on a citibike is a day well spent“