Places
Help
Post your question here, your community is here to help!
Bike Angels Cafe
Feedback & Ideas
Recent Content
Who is in the Right, Citibike Employee or Me??
The other day I was on my way to do some errands when I saw a great point opportunity in the Manhattan area. The drop of spot was a major hub that needed bikes for after work riders, so was awarding 12 points. So I went out of my way and dropped my bike off there scoring a good point combo. After docking I saw they were still awarding 12 points for drop off. A quarter mile away, a station was awarding high points to pick up. It was a nice night so I decided to do the combo to get some great points. When I got back to the major CB hub, I docked the bike. All of a sudden an irate Citibike employee working as a concierge came up to me and said if I continued to do BikeAngels there he was going to suspend my BikeAngels membership. I was taken back, since this is the first time in 5ish years doing BA, that a concierge ever approached me like this, they have always been thankful for the help. The employee then went on to say that there were other BikeAngels dropping off bikes making his job hard. I said that I was only going by the points posted and though I was helping. He continued to get nasty, and I told him to take it up with Citibike if the point system is not reflecting a true supply/demand disruption that needs correction. Plus I told him he could have just asked me nicely instead of approaching in a belligerent way, I was not trying to cause him extra work. I then did my errands. Anyway has this ever happened to others? Thanks!
Points distributions
I live and mostly bike in Oakland, CA. many days there are few points to be had anywhere. Contrast to San Francisco where there’s a points available everywhere. This hasn’t always been the case — and I assume there is various attempts to balance the algorithm, and that overall traffic numbers drive that One suggestion which might help a little bit is that stations with 1 or fewer open docks should always get extra points for taking something away. And completely empty stations should always offer extra. A full station are no bikes mean that someone isn’t going to land their bike there or even use a bike i have had many occasions where i’ve opened up a dock only to have it immediately filled. When points were distributed differently, I might go out of my way to help out. But with just 1 point on offer, I don’t. This should be a baseline not algorithmically determined, if you trully want to incentivize people helping out.
Is it worth it to move undocked CaBi e-bikes as a Bike Angel?
There are many e-bikes that are not docked at a station. If I got on one to move it to a station and collect points, would I still be charged the unlock fee and per minute? Trying to understand what the incentive is for bike angels to move undocked bikes to stations.
