This morning at about 9 AM I saw a woman from DOT, decked out in a festive blue and white helmet and a bike share t-shirt, checking the bike docks located outside the Bed Stuy YMCA.

Very happy the launch is on a vacation day. Otherwise I might have had to skip work!

I believe that’s for day or week pass users. You sign up at the kiosk but then every subsequent time you pick up a bike you can just swipe the card you used to register for your pass at the dock. Not sure when that feature will be active.

Pointless personal grumble: I have a brutal deadline and will be inside working every single &#@!* second of this day. I won’t be able to take my first ride as a founding member until tomorrow. Oh devil-headed Fate, how I curse thee!

It’s here!

sips coffee

checks Mayan calender

I’m still alive!!

now that NYC Bikeshare is a reality, let’s find a new name for the blue monsters. ‘ Mike’s Bikes’ is akin to Boris bikes in London.

A bit wordly but I like ‘The Wrath of Khan Wheels’

Is it just me or the station map now shows exactly zero stations?

So according to these drivers, bike riding is illegal in nearly all of Queens because there is jack bike lanes here. I think we should all invest in T-shirts that have “Share the Road” on the back.

same here

Surprisingly in all the years I’ve been riding around Queens I’ve only been told to get off the road a few times. Mostly it was stuff like “go ride in a park”. Apparently Queens drivers are a lot better educated than Manhattan or Brooklyn drivers. And the level of crankiness against bikes seems to be lower as well.

Took my first couple of trips this morning/afternoon. Some thoughts:

* Adjust the seat before unlocking. Make sure it’s tight or it’ll slip.

* The bikes are fairly heavy. I found it’s easier to get rolling in second speed then cruise, in third.

* The bikes are fairly comfortable, at least for short distances. The upright riding position makes it easy to see and be seen.

* People are climbing all over the bikes at Kipps Bay.

@2a15ea2c09af9bca9fa0232039062265:disqus @88e0c64c631ee370f7e101a5822433b6:disqus Daily or weekly members enter a numeric code using the buttons to the right of the slit. A Citi Bike employee told me this morning that the long slit is used for card access by bike-share staff.

My feedback:

– Started off at Henry & Atlantic in Brooklyn Heights. *Immediately* got into a conversation with curious onlookers, who became my audience / cheerleaders while I unlocked my first bike (without a hitch).

– I couldn’t adjust the seat on my first bike. At all. That was awkward, but otherwise I immediately felt this was a fantastic, response, easily rideable bike. It rode perfectly smoothly. It was very responsive. I had no issue building up a decent speed. It’s just a pleasure to ride.

– There are clear bugs. Bug #1: at a kiosk, I selected “Find nearby stations” only to get a “we don’t have this information” error.

– Bug #2: some of the stations are *not* online yet. I could not return my bike at Clinton & Aitken, Montague & Clinton, or State & Jay. The stations are completely non-responsive. You can tell by going up to the kiosk and seeing a blank screen. You also can’t check out bikes from these stations.

– Bug #3: on dropping my bike off at Joralemon@Borough Hall, the light turned yellow, then stayed yellow indefinitely (but it *was* locked). I called customer support, waited 5+ minutes, then got the a-okay to carry on.

– Everyone is *clearly* excited by this. I must have gotten into 12 conversations, half of them serious, with curious locals, annual membership locals, and curious tourists. Tons of people without annual passes wanted to check out bikes. Even the police by the detention center were checking it out; I let one lift my bike to test its sturdiness and he was impressed. I cannot overstate enough how much interest I’ve been finding by *everyone*. It’s amazing and a fantastic omen for what’s to come.

And what a beautiful day to start.

Rode UN to Battery Park and return via the East Side bikeway. Got into conversations with about 10 people along the route about how the bike handled, how convenient it was, etc. Lots of folks curious in the program – I think seeing people riding the bikes (and there are plenty of people out there riding Citibikes already) will get the fence-sitters to join in.

I also experienced bug #3. When the yellow light stayed on and I never got the green, I tried checking out the bike again. It let me, and then I checked it back into the same spot and got the quick yellow-green. It’s a little strange that the long trip (with the unsuccessful check-in) doesn’t show up in the Trips section of the Citi Bike site, but the short check-out-and-back-in does.

Some stations have not been installed yet – not just that the stations are not active or do not have bikes yet – but the docks have not been put out. I noticed three missing stations but there are probably more. Missing:
1) 7th Avenue and 31st Street
2) 5th Avenue and 40th Street
3) Broadway between 60th and 61st Street

Penn Station serves 500,000 people a day!! It needs all three stations around it that are on the map! The non-installed station at 31st Street and 7th Avenue is supposed to have 59 docks. The other two stations by Penn Station have 51 and 67 docks. But considering there are 500,000 potential users, those additional 59 docks at the 3rd station are needed!!

Bryant Park has no other docking stations around it so it needs the missing station at 40th Street and 5th Avenue!

Does anyone know when more stations will be installed? These stations were supposed to be part of this initial phase of phase I. I hope they did not get cancelled due to NIMBYism.

My emails were responded to within minutes by officials who are actively paying attention and in positions to alert the right people.

They are listening. Closely. Everyone, please share any issues you find. It’ll make a difference.

Email customerservice@citibikenyc.com and let them know about your experience with this system error. Greg posts that they are paying attention and responding.

Its Alta, failure is expected. The launch was delayed a year because they won the bid promising successful third party software and then switched to in-house…which they have zero experience with.

I was a station ambassador for a few hours today. A lot of non-annual members wanted to use the bikes (but were disappointed). That bodes well for the future.

I had a couple of converstaions with peopleon the corner of 6th and 13th. One was for it and will probably be signing up. An older lady thought it took away too many parking spaces. “But it adds so much capacity to the streets,” I said, “rather than wasting it with private cars that are just sitting there.” An older man was just against because….because he was against it. Then there was a middle aged man who said he lived in the infamous building where it took an hour for the paramedics to get the elderly man out, and to have witnesed the incident. This isn’t verbatum but this is sort of the gist of our converstaion:

ME: How did it take an hour?

MIDDLE AGED MAN: It didn’t take an hour.

ME: It was reported in the POST that it took an hour.

OLDER LADY: You believe the POST?

ME: No, but that’s what was reported. And the FDNY confirmed that that WASN’T true.

MIDDLE AGED MAN: Well, of course THEY would. It’s a barricade. How are people supposed to get to Access A Ride?

ME: Um, the same way people always have who haven’t been lucky enough to have a no parking zone in front of their building. Ambulances the same.

MIDDLE AGED MAN: Well what are we going to do when there are mountains of garbage stacked up like Everest behind these things? You can’t get through these bikes.

ME: There are more docks than bikes. There’s probably going to be one or two open when they come to collect the trash. You can get through those quite easily.

MIDDLE AGED MAN: What if there aren’t any open?

ME: Just heave it over, it’s not that far.

MIDDLE AGED MAN: Oh, yeah, try doing that all day. That’ll be good for your back.

ME: Well, they are New York City’s Strongest. And if it’s a real problem, have them negotiate better benefits or something in their next contract. But, you know, I rode the DC BikeShare a couple of months ago and there was no problem. No mounds of trash. They have it figured out; why can’t we?

The middle aged man then talked a long time about Bloomberg being a dictator and them siting these things wherever the hell they wanted with no input from the community, and to hell with everybody.

ME: But you haven’t answered my question – this has been done in other places succesfully; why shouldn’t we think it’s going to be a success here? I bet it’s going to be.

MIDDLE AGED MAN: It might be. But whether it’s a success or not isn’t the only thing that matters.

At that we both realized that we had nothing more to say to each other.

That’s true, Queens drivers are the better of the 5 boros in my opinion. Not the best, just better. Other than the arterial thoroughfares (ie Queens Blvd) I’ve never had trouble in side streets since most streets are residential. And less stressful too. I think it’s because Queens streets tend to be wider and there is less of a jockeying for space as compared to more narrow neighborhoods elsewhere.

Sadik Cycles?