With torrential rain in the forecast I decided to leave my bike helmet at home and take the subway today (I also had a lot of stuff to lug with me). Of course it’s a beautiful sunny day outside, although very, very humid so I don’t regret it.
A few months back I bought some Groupons to McDonalds here in the City. I’d been planning to use them at the McDonalds at 47th between 5th and Madison, but lo and behold ,they refused to take them. The next nearest one was all the way across town at Broadway and 46th.
I decided to walk it, forgetting how realllly long that Avenues are to walk. Madison to 5th, 5th to 6th, 6th to Broadway seems like it should be pretty quick, but add traffic and pedestrians and you’re talking about a 20 minute walk at least, which I did going there.
So I ordered my Quester Pounder Extra Value Meal (why is it I’m always taking these side trips for fast food?) and walked up to the Citi Bike station at 49th and Broadway. Being midday there were plenty of bikes, so I picked one up for the ride back to the east side. I decided to do a straight show across 50th and dock at 51st and Lexington.
There were still about half a dozen open docks (again, it’s nice to be doing this midday) so I docked the first one. I saw the green light flash, and pulled on the bike to make sure it was secure, and it was.
I went back to the office and enjoyed my spoils:
Problem is, when I pulled up Citi Bike’s website, it said that my ride was still open.
Now I made sure that when I docked my bike the light was green, but evidently the dock didn’t register. There’s no way that I was walking all the way back to Lexington to check. Happily, later the web site corrected itself and just said “Trip Completed” instead of showing my destination, which I’m guessing means the bike was docked but a problem in the software prevented it from registering. Bottom line, no $1200 bill is always a good thing.
Dock snafu notwithstanding, once again the midday ride to run some errands is proving to be the best application for Citi Bike.
Cost per ride: $95/26.5=$3.58/ride
Stress level: 2 of 10
Aggravation level: 3 of 10