The best I can figure out is the Joy Rider from Divi does not transfer to All Access, and I need to get 250 points on the Citbike to get the Joyriders benefits in New York.
Joyrider in Divvy, 60 minutes , All Access in NYC, 45 minutes
New York was great. Better than great. We’re thinking about moving there, already checking out StreetEasy and dreaming about it.
What we really liked was how people make eye contact when you're biking, and the way cyclists and drivers seem to communicate in Manhattan.
The Avenues protected bike lanes are useful, you can easily ride from lower Manhattan all the way up to 110th Street pretty fast. It just feels easy to get around.
I noticed a lot of streets also have protected bike lanes, which is really nice. I didn’t get yelled at too much for going the wrong way in the bike lanes either, and riding over the bridges was exhilarating. We could go back and forth on those bridges all day.
The manual bikes were in decent shape, though some were a bit beat up. The e-bikes seemed to be in better condition, and the docks are nice overall, except for that A-B dock situation – trying to fit a bike in-between was a hassle. And of course, finding an empty dock can be a problem since a lot of the stations are full.
Compared to Chicago, the Points for Bike Angels in New York weren’t as generous, but on the plus side, the docking stations are much closer together, and there are more of them overall.
The elephant in the room is the cost. You really need a lot of Lyft credits because we spent hundreds of dollars on CitiBikes, just using them for a few hours a day. It adds up quickly, so Lyft credits are essential.
Even if we lived in New York, I think it would be hard to earn as many Bike Angels points as in Chicago. I didn’t do as much BA as I planned, but it still seems almost impossible to match Chicago's numbers in the same amount of time.
And then there's Lyft. We took a one-mile ride in Manhattan, and it cost $69 for less than 15 minutes. (pic)
