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NYCRider's avatar
NYCRider
Resourceful Rider
2 months ago
Solved

Can I intentionally angel?

I'm considering intentionally making as many points as possible being an angel for a set amount of hours each day. But the language in the terms is not clear to me:

  • You further agree that you will not take a sequence of "chained" rides (where each ride begins at the station where the previous ride ended), whether within a single account or across accounts, that increase the points earned compared to a single ride of the same net effect on the system

in short, are there rules I can abide by while still making points for a few hours per day? 

I would like to see some "do's" and "do nots" to make the vague language above more concrete

citibike

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  • ck92's avatar
    ck92
    Moderator
    2 months ago

    Hi there! 

     

    Thanks for your question! The program design is focused on riders helping riders by moving bikes where they are most needed. Not all Angels have the same motivations for participating---some ride for rewards, some for exercise, and some just love the game aspect. Cheating the system in any way to accrue an abundance of points without making a positive impact on the system is not allowed. 

     

    For more information regarding the ins and outs of the program feel free to check out these resources here! 

     

    Bike Angels FAQ- https://community.bikeangels.com/kb/basics/bike-angels-beginner-faq/2626#community-2626-

     

    Reading the Map- https://community.bikeangels.com/kb/basics/reading-the-map/2998 

    • Remco's avatar
      Remco
      Bike Angels Team
      2 months ago

      To elaborate on this a bit, something I occasionally do and that is basically always helpful: if you go bike angeling along a hill (e.g. Park Slope) you will generally see that you can almost always earn points by moving bikes up the hill, and there is basically no way you can go wrong as long as you bike uphill since people tend to always want a bike up the hill, but not everyone wants to bike up.

      If on the other two stations are close to each other, and you just made a trip from station a to station b and now you see that the station that you dropped off at with drop off points now has pickup points or is neutral, you'd enter the danger zone. 

  • Pizzafan457's avatar
    Pizzafan457
    Resourceful Rider
    2 months ago

    Hi OP,

    Short answer is yes. The bike angels program was created to help redistribute bikes from stations with a surplus of bikes to stations that have a lack of bikes. 

    The language you referenced bans a specific situation where teams of citi bikers would shuttle bikes from one station to another and then back. There is a NYT article that goes into detail. This “loophole” was likely leveraged by less than 100 users. 

    In short, if you follow the spirit of the Citi bike program like 99.9% of Citi Bike Angels you won’t have any issues.

    Have fun and happy biking!

    Best,

    pizzafan457