You’ve probably noticed a trend that when I post about my morning commutes it’s usually tentatively positive, when I post about evening commutes it’s almost universally bad, and when I post about midday trips I end up having the time of my life.

Just a tip to Citi Bike and Alta. This is a little thing they teach you in business school called supply and demand. Specifically, in the morning there are a lot of folks who want to commute to work, but demand is a little lower during the summer because only chumps like me like walking into work covered in sweat. In midday most people are in the office so demand is pretty low. But in the evening, everyone wants a bike because they don’t care if they get home all sweaty, because they can just take a shower. So if I wanted to keep my customers happy and paying $95 again next year (or more), I’d make sure there are plenty of bikes near places like Park, Madison, and 5th for everyone, not just for the slackers who take off from work at 5:00 PM sharp.

In any case, this is going to be a happy post, since it’s about a morning and a midday trip.

The morning could have been a lot worse. I get to the bike station outside Penn and I see bikes getting taken as soon as the rebalancers who are there can load them. There’s a crowd of people waiting and it’s like watching a pack of dogs jockeying for position to see who’ll get the treat first. A dude stands next to me and gives a warning growl as he sees me approaching him: “a lot of us are waiting here for bikes”. I decide to take Caesar Millan’s advice and exude a calm, assertive energy. “Don’t worry, there are plenty of bikes to go around”.

Granted, that turned out not to be true, I ended up getting the last one before the rebalancer rode away.

I decided to try something new and made a straight shot down to 30th, and crossed over to Madison that way. So far this was the most pleasant cross-town experience I’ve had yet; the bike lane on 30th is pretty clearly marked, so aside from the occasional opening door it’s not a bad ride.

I hung a louie to get onto Madison, and that’s where the fun began. There’s construction and parts of the road where you’re squeezing between cars, trucks, and buses.

But once I make it past 40th or so it’s a remarkably smooth ride, aside from breathing in bus fumes and one parked car who decided to shift into reverse as I was riding past him.

When I get to my bike station, there’s even a big truck setting a pick and roll for me, so I can dock my bike in peace.

So overall, a pleasant ride this morning.

The cheapskates among you will appreciate this next series of rides. So, as part of Kmart’s“Shop Your Way” rewards program, they have a deal where if you sign up for their rewards program, link a credit card, and spend up to $10 on that credit card on a Burger King meal, that amount is credited back to you in points. If it sounds convoluted, it’s because it is…but as a cheapskate I will go out of my way to save money (ergo, the per-ride calculations of the Citi Bike).

The nearest Burger King is on 37th and 5th, 13 blocks away or at least a 20 minute walk. So I figure I’d try my hand at being a bicycle delivery man delivering lunch to…myself.

I decided to walk over the 52nd and 5th to pick up a bike. Not surprising at this time of the day, the docks were full so I had my pick.

Surprisingly, I put my key in the first dock and nothing happened, no lights, no whirr, no click, nada. Then I tried another one. And other one. I went all the way to the end of the rack after trying about 8 bikes, and all of them remained locked, as if they were all out of power (dock recharging is one of many complaints of this program).

I walked back and kept trying until I finally found a bike that was free. Now the burning question in my head was…was this my bike or someone else’s bike who tried the dock, had nothing happen, and walked off. And worse, were all the bikes that I tried going to unlock and be free to whomever wanted to take them?

In any case, I wasn’t going to worry about it too much. I hopped on and had a rather pleasant and uneventful ride down 5th to 37th and found a station with open docks.

It only took two tries before I got my bike docks. By the way, coincidentally (or not) I got an email newsletter today from Citi Bike acknowledging that there’s a widespread problem with the docs. They tried to spin it in a positive way (“Citi Bike docks are pretty hardy, but they’ve now seen over 10 million trips, which is more trips in a shorter time period than any other bike share system in the U.S.”), and they included a video that instructs people how to gently dock their bikes.

I’m not sure if this is exactly the best advice–I haven’t found that the amount of force makes too much of a difference when docking a bike, although I guess they filmed this PSA to avoid people from slamming into the docks and breaking them (so much for the docks being “pretty hardy”). Personally I’ve found that the best technique for docking a Citi Bike is to gently push it in until you feel it “rise” a little, and then you’ll see the yellow light flash on. Hold it there in place until you see the light disappear.

I got my Whopper and fries and put it in the front basket. It seemed fairly secure.

Finally I rode back to 47th and Park by way of Madison where there were plenty of docks. Once again, a pleasant way to spend an afternoon. Although I don’t know if riding a mile out of the way for a Whopper is really worth it, free or not. Next time I choose to take a mid-afternoon ride for food I’ll go for a better food option, like Shake Shack or ramen or something.

So in a Dickensian “best of times, worst of times”, I’d say this afternoon’s ride was just fine. It was nice having the option to bike instead of walk, and the path I took was quicker than a bus or subway. We’ll see about tonight. It’s 4:45 PM as I write this and I already see bikes disappearing from the map as I speak.

Cost per ride: 95/13.5=$7.04
Aggravation level: 8 of 10
Stress level: 2 of 10

I figured this day would come eventually, I just didn’t think it’d be on day six.

So I leave work at 6:30, a pretty normal time to leave work, right? I check the app and see this.

That’s right–there are zero, zilch, nada bikes anywhere close to my office near 49th and Madison. I’ve learned by now that when the App shows there is one bike left (where you see the tiny blue tip at the bottom of the bubble), there’s a 100% chance that the one bike in the dock is broken.

Now just an aside to anyone from Citi Bike or Alta that might be reading this. If you’ve sold Citi Bike as a service for people who want to commute from their workplace, WOULDN’T IT MAKE SENSE TO HAVE MORE THAN 20 BIKES AVAILABLE IN AN AREA WHERE HALF A MILLION PEOPLE WORK???!!

But where was I? Oh yes, so just for fun I see how far I can walk to Penn before finding an open Citi Bike. I figure if I stumble upon a bike halfway at the very least I can safe half of my walking time.

So I walk across to 44th and 5th. There’s actually a bike there and its red light isn’t on! Could this be my lucky day?

You guessed it. Like an idiot I stand there trying over and over again to put my key in. Just a yellow light and then nothing. Over and over and over.

I walk over to 6th and up to 45th to the next bike station. At least here there wasn’t a lone bike to tease me.

I cross over to Broadway and head down to 41st through the crowds and crowds of tourists I was so hoping to avoid. Now mind you, I’ve already walked more than halfway to Penn but I plow on. I get to the bike station and see three bikes!

But as you guessed, a closer look and they’re all broken.

Finally at Broadway and 35th I see a few bikes. Most have red lights on but a few do not.

Now mind you, I’m pretty much at Penn Station. It would take me less time to walk down 34th to 7th than it would for me to bike, find a parking station, and dock a bike (especially knowing how awful the docks are). But put of principle I undock a bike and ride to the next bike station on 8th.

As you might guess, the first dock didn’t work, and neither did the second. All I got was that damned yellow light and then nothing.

As tired as I am of posting these repetitive pictures of yellow lights, I’m even more tired of having to deal with these idiotic docks.

But finally, I got there…again, having missed the 7:01 train by five minutes again. But thank you Citi Bike. I had a nice walk from 49th and Madison to Broadway and 35th, and really, really enjoyed the three-minute bike ride.

Per ride cost: I don’t count this as a ride, just an exercise in futility
Aggravation level: 10 of 10
Stress level: 8 of 10

I don’t know what engineering firm was behind designing these Citi Bike docks, but whoever it is should be tarred, feathered, subjected to public shame, and otherwise made to feel as miserable as humanly possible. Or alternatively and with equal effect, they could be forced to use the objects of their creation on a daily basis.

The weather this morning is set to be 93 degrees again, but in the morning it’s a relatively balmy 77 degrees with a nice breeze. Great weather for biking.

I get off the train and happily see a bunch of bikes outside Penn. But unhappily, I see half of them have been “repaired” in a very high-tech way.

I go down the lines of bikes, and see red lights, red lights, red lights. Finally I get to the end of the line where there are happily a bunch of bikes, and Citi Bikers scrambling to claim them. Like a swarm of honeybees I see them going from bike to bike, sticking their blue keys in the slots, cursing, and going to the next bike. Every now and then you hear a “click” and a Citi Biker triumphantly hops on a bike and rides away.

As for me, I tried one bike. The yellow light goes on and stays on. One minute. Two minutes. Five minutes. There’s no reset button, there’s no button to call for help, so I just have to wait…and wait…and wait.

Exasperated, I try the next bike over. The yellow light goes on and stays on. I try the next bike again. Same thing.

By this time I’m in the middle of “purchasing” about four different bikes. I sort of hover over the bikes making sure the light doesn’t turn green and then someone snatches it, doesn’t return it, and then I’m on the hook for $1200 a bike.

About ten minutes later, I finally see the lights start going “green”, “green”, “green”. I undock my bike. Then I quickly undock the other bikes and re-dock them just to make sure I don’t get charged for them.

I figure I’ve tried crossing town on 50th (bad), 40th (bad), 36th (bad), 38th (bad), 44th (not great). Today it was time to try 34th. Add another “bad” to the list. You’d think 34th wouldn’t be too bad given how wide it is, but the problem is that it’s two-way with a bus lane. And even federal employees will park in the bus lane, making the bus go into the car lane, making the car go into the biker.

I got off 34th as quickly as possible onto Broadway. Again, had a block of wonderful biking, and then the designated bike lane turned into a “shared lane”.

I decided to hang a right onto 38th up on fifth (yes, going against traffic slowly for two blocks), and then right on 40th, which actually wasn’t horrible on this side of sixth once you get through all the construction.

In fact it was so nice I overshot Madison and went right on to Park.

I finally circled around, biked the rest of the way up on Madison, and found bike parking on Park, where surprisingly there were a few docks left. But yet again, it took two times before it would dock properly.

Once I got to my desk, I logged onto the Citi Bike site, expecting to see a ton of bikes charged to my name. I only saw one, though, for a 22 second ride. Either Citi Bike’s Web site is set to ignore all but one ride, or I ended up getting someone else’s Citi Bike.

Per-ride cost: 95/10.5=$9.05 a ride
Aggravation level: 9 of 10
Stress level: 5 of 10

Well, it never fails. Just when I’m all set to declare my experiences with Citi Bike a success, I get a big old dose of reality.

The time is 6:30 PM, and my goal is to catch the 7:01 PM train. If I walk at a brisk pace, I can just make it in 30 minutes. So I figure the Citi Bike should take me about 15 minutes max.

I walk to the bike station at 52nd and 5th. Lo and behold, there’s one bike there and it doesn’t have a red light. Not the best situation, but I’ll take it.

I swipe my key. The light turns yellow. Then nothing. I try it again. And again. And again. And again. Finally, after a string of yellow lights I bizarrely see both red and yellow lights are on at the same time, as if the dock is saying to me “take the hint”.

Not wanting to walk any more in the 93 degree heat, I pull and pull but the dock is not letting go. Seething, I walk another avenue to the next station at 51st and 6th. When I get there I see this.

Okay Citi Bike…it’s great that you’ve removed one bike dock and failed to replenish two more at the height of evening rush hour.

I walk further west to Broadway and see this.

Is that a bike??! I run to the bike before anyone else can get there, and of course see this:

So I start walking down Broadway. Mind you, by this time I could have walked halfway to Penn. I see a petite young woman looking at me with a pitiful look in her eyes, like a thirsty little animal in the desert looking for a sip of water. She asks me “picking up a bike?” I nod yes to the rather obvious question, and then realize later that this was probably her way of saying “the next one is MINE”. Not wanting to get into an altercation, I continue to plow to the next bike station.

Lo and behold, on 48th I finally see a dock with multiple bikes.

I can’t believe it at first. I begin to wonder if this isn’t just a mirage in the 93 degree desert heat and I’m really back at the last bike station having been clocked by the young woman. But yes, these are real bikes. I eagerly swipe my key into the first one I see.

Whirr…whirr…whirr…

That’s right. Another broken dock. As has become my custom now, I repeat this on 2-3 other bikes and get the same thing. Finally, I miraculously I see the green light.

I start in the bike lane on Broadway which is a wonderful thing until…

…yes the bike lane ends and you have three choices. Turn right and get trampled by a sea of tourists, go straight into the construction zone, or turn right. I choose the third option.

I make my way to ninth and have a pleasant ride all the way down. The only real hazards here are the bikers who want to plow over you in the bike lane and the occasional boneheaded biker who’s too lazy to bike on block down to go uptown on Eighth.

I get to Penn Station, where shockingly there are plenty of empty docks. I dock my bike in the first dock I see.

Whirr…whirr…whirr.

Okay, I try the second and it docks!

Of course by this time I look down at my phone just in time to see “7:00” turn to “7:01”. I glance up at the Citibank ad. I think when Citibank signed up to get their logo and ads all over these bikes, they were probably counting on it being run a little better. As far as being tempted to join Citibank after these experiences, I have a word of advice for Citibank. Citibank, honey, if your ATMs work as well as these bike docks with your name all over them, I’ll be going to ANY bank except for yours for my business.

Cost per ride 95/9.5=$10 (I’ll only count half a ride given the distance I walked)
Aggravation level: 9 of 10
Stress level: 5 of 10

So, I wake up and the temperature is supposed to get up to 93 degrees today, so I was dreading the bike ride to work. As of right now it’s 76 degrees with a relative humidity of 67% so it was actually a pretty nice bike ride. Once again, the bike balancers are doing a great job of keeping the bikes near Penn Station relatively full.

I’ve concluded something about Citi Biking to work. Going uptown and downtown isn’t that bad. On the bike path on 8th (until Port Authority) bikers own the bike lane, so a little ring-a-ding-ding of your bell and hapless pedestrians scamper out of your way.

Crosstown, that’s another story. Today, I tried going cross town on 36th. And believe it or not, I hit a traffic jam. That’s right, a traffic jam on a bike.

The problem is, you have cars parked on both sides and two lanes of cars squeezing into the one remaining lane, which leaves about six inches–I kid you not, six inches, of space to squeeze through if you want to get ahead of the cars. I thought of dismounting and walking the bike on the sidewalk, but the sidewalks were too crowded for me to do that.

And so I exit onto Broadway, which is supposed to have ample space for bikers, if that’s what the green paint on the ground means. But scattered pedestrians have pretty much claimed all that space for themselves, so I’m left to bike carefully facing oncoming traffic.

I hand a right on 38th, which is a little better than 36th but still really narrow. But a seasoned biker on a road bike is weaving through the cars, so I figure I’d follow him for a while. But again, there are way too many people trying to squeeze way too much into almost no space.

Finally, I get to Madison. As long as I stay on the left-hand side of the road it’s not too bad. The worst thing you have to watch out for here are jaywalking pedestrians and cabbies taking blind left-hand turns, but both are better than getting squeezed.

And so I get to the bike station at 49th and 5th. The good news is that I don’t see bikes filling up the docks. The bad news is, I don’t see docks!

I do a double-take. It’s gone. No bike station, no docks, no signs, just clear sidewalk. There’s not a trace of evidence that a Citi Bike station used to be there at all. It’s like that weird episode of the Twilight Zone where things start disappearing (or, every episode of the Twilight Zone). If I didn’t distinctly remember the building and the orange-and-white barriers, I’d have thought I was going nuts. Ironically, in my last post I implored them to add new docks to this station, and they did the opposite and removed all the docks. Later on, I would see on the app that sure enough, over the Fourth of July weekend they went and removed every one of them.

Later, I would confirm this on their Twitter account:

Station Update: W 49 St & 5 Ave station has been removed for a long term DDC construction project. It will be relocated nearby shortly.

— Citi Bike (@CitibikeNYC) July 3, 2014

From the looks of it, this was one of the most popular stations, but now I need to walk at least 5-6 blocks in any direction to get to a bike dock. So much for Citi Bike saving me walking time.

I tried selecting “Add More Time” and just inserted my key anywhere I thought on the machine it would it. Finally, when I put it in the credit card slot (intuitively enough), I got the message that 15 minutes of ‘grace period’ had been added for me to bike until I found another station.

I walked my way over to 52nd and 5th.

As you can probably guess, every last dock was taken. I guess the good news is, they were all working.

I then rode to 53rd and Madison (ironically, that’s my old subway stop, so instead of walking a block to work I have to schlep the same multiple blocks I did before). It seems to be taking me an average of 3-4 broken docks until I find one that freaking works.

I’ve decided to start using a program on the iPhone called Kinetic GPS from Mothership Software Limited. I’ve been looking for an app that will let me track my walking, hiking, and biking. It tracks speed, altitude, and distance of your ride, run, or hike, and the feature I’m most excited about: charting a map of your bike path du jour using GPS.

So I’m not thrilled that the bike station at Rockfeller Center is gone–and that all the stations around it are that much more filled.

Now today was a special day…I spent a few hours at work, but then I had tickets to a taping of Centerstage, a local program produced by the Yankees cable station where Michael Kay (the Yankees announcer) interviews a sports or entertainment celebrity. Today the celebrity was Rob Reiner. I got free tickets to it, so I decided to take Citi Bike.

I picked up a bike and biked across town on 53rd to 10th, where the taping was. I guess because I was going against the tide, I had one of the most enjoyable Citi Bike experiences yet. There were still plenty of bikes available where I’d dropped mine off at 52nd and 5th, and when I got to 10th Avenue the bike rack was clear, I’m guessing from commuters who ransacked it earlier in the morning.

I went through the usual dance of trying 2-3 docks until one had a light that turned yellow and green. I then went on line for the TV show taping.

The taping itself was really interesting. Rob Reiner touched on his whole life history, from his growing up as Carl Reiner’s son to his hippie years to his marriage to Penny Marshall, to his stint on All in the Family, to his movies from Spinal Tap to Stand By Me to When Harry Met Sally to The Princess Bride to A Few Good Men, and of course had a plug for his new movie And So It Goes.

When we got out of the studio, the sun was blaring and the temperature was hitting 88-93. So it wasn’t completely surprising when I went back to the Citi Bike dock and found a couple more bikes to choose from.

I biked back to work after this in another relatively pleasant ride, at least for the first two blocks back from Hell’s Kitchen where traffic was actually light and the bike path was clear.

But of course once I got into mid-town, the whole thing with the “shared bike lane” took over, and as usual, cars weren’t in much of a sharing mood.

Other than the ridiculously hot temperatures, I found today’s Citi Bike experiences to be quite pleasant. There aren’t many better options for getting cross-down in such a short amount of time (I got from 5th to 10th in a little under eight minutes, which would have taken about a 25-30 minute walk, no options for the subway, and who knows how much more on the bus).

Per-ride code: 95/9=$10.56

Aggravation level: 6 of 10

Stress level: 4 of 10

So on the fourth day of Citi Biking I experienced something I never thought I would–my first relatively pleasant commute to work.

I should preface by saying:

• The weather is hot and muggy in the mid-80’s in the early morning. Not fun to show up to work dripping in sweat.
• The date is July 3, where apparently 99% of the City is allowed to work from home or take the day off. Guess who’s in the “one percent”? 😛

In other words, I don’t expect this to be the norm. But I’ll take it.

I took the late train and got to Penn at about 9:20. I walked up to the nearest bike dock and happened to see the bike rebalancer guy riding away, so there were a fresh set of bikes for me to use. Seeing this was like seeing a leprechaun riding on the top of the Loch Ness Monster onto a UFO.

But again, remember that this is July 3, so most sane people are starting their Indepdence Day weekends.

I hopped on and started the ride up Eighth. I noticed a lot of bikers crossing town earlier in the high 30’s; I’m guessing they all learned that navigating through Port Authority area with its “shared bike and taxi lane” (which would be somewhat akin to a zoo putting a “shared lion and gazelle lane”) is no fun. But I held my breath and plowed forward anyway.

Learning my lesson about construction on 40th I decided to hang a right at 44th. To my surprise, 44th did have a designated bike lane that cars in motion did a pretty good job of keeping out of. But I can’t say the same for double-parkers. I had to swerve to avoid at least 8 of them, including this delivery truck…

…this police car with another van in front of it…

…and these happy out-of-towners taking their old sweet time packing their trunk.

But luckily traffic was relatively light and the cars in the one free lane were pretty understanding, so it wasn’t horrible. I gotta say there were a couple tight squeezes in there though.

I got to the notorious 49th and 5th bike station, and sure enough even on July 3 it was jam packed. There were four empty docks. I tried this one…

No yellow light. Okay, how about this one…

Nope, okay, let’s try this one.

Nope.  But the fourth try was a charm, as I saw the glorious yellow-then-green LED light go on on the very last dock.

As awesome as the experience I had in Chelsea was yesterday, it’s mind-boggling why Midtown is so poorly managed. They have tons of space, you’d think they could maybe add a few more docks to one of the busiest areas of the City?

In any case, all in all not a bad ride. It took 15 minutes and 51 seconds station-to-station, and I was in the office at around the same time as if I’d taken the subway. Granted, I was pouring buckets of sweat, but a little toweling off with a hand towel, a little desktop fan and good AC is taking care of that…I hope.

Per-trip cost: 95/6=$15.83
Stress Level: 4 of 10
Aggravation Level: 6 of 10

After two straight days of Citi Biking to work, I decided to take the subway to the office in the morning. I have to admit, not dealing with killer buses, cabbies, and food trucks for one day was nice. As much as I can’t stand the masses of people pressing against each other on the E train, there’s something to be said about the whole “not getting killed” thing too.

I wasn’t a Citi Bike-less day, though. I did have a meeting downtown by 20th and Broadway at 5:00, so I figured I’d use the Citi Bike to go to that.

For me, this is one of the perfect applications for the Citi Bike. The subway is not fun to use to get downtown–it’s a 2-3 block walk to the B,D,F,M stop, and I’d need to transfer to get to the N and the R. And forget about getting a cab going downtown at that time of day. There have been times I’ve stood there like a scarecrow with my hand in the air for 40 minutes and cabs would just pass me by (someone explained to me something about a shift change where the cabs are so eager to leave that they wouldn’t pick up their own grandmother).

And so I walked to the Citi Bike station at 49th and 5th. To my surprise, there were lots of bikes available, I’m guessing they restocked them for the evening rush hour.

I decided to ride down 5th and connect to Broadway in the Flatiron district. The ride down Fifth started precariously. The right-most lane is the bus lane, so I found myself darting to avoid buses and pedaling as hard as I could to try to keep in front of the bus barreling behind me.

I soon noticed that most of the seasoned bikers were riding on the left-hand side. Made sense, although it flew in the face of the propaganda on my bike that said “Follow the rules of the road”. But I crossed over to the left side and it was pretty smooth sailing (and downhill) all the way down.

I got a sense of satisfaction passing by at least half a dozen people with their arms stuck out thinking they’d have a shot at getting a cab in the next two hours.

Of course, I had to deal with cars making left hand turns. And of course the pedestrians. Everywhere you go, pedestrians scattered like a big bowl of rainbow jimmies that fell off a baker’s table.

But then something amazing happened. I crossed 23rd Street into Flatiron/Chelsea. Suddenly, there was a beautiful green bike path with NO potholes. Part of the bike path was separated from cars by an island. The bikers on the path were courteous. Plenty of bike stations around. I thought I’d finally been run over by a bus and gone to biking heaven.

And when I got to the bike dock a block from my meeting, I was able to dock the bike successfully. Granted, I had to try on two broken docks first, but at least I was able to dock it without riding five blocks down.

Long story short, I made it from 49th and 5th to Broadway and 22nd in 12 minutes and 36 seconds. It was wonderful–and my first really, really successful Citi Bike experience.

My meeting went well, and then it was time to ride back to Penn Station to catch the train home. It was sunny when I went into the meeting, but the skies were dark and foreboding now. Obviously it was going to rain any minute.

I saw a bunch of people grabbing Citi Bikes, and I trotted over to grab one of the remaining ones. Then, I rode crosstown on 23rd (where there was a dedicated bike lane) and then uptown on 8th (where there was a dedicated bike lane).

Despite the usual annoyances (a limo double-parked in the bike lane on 23rd and if you look carefully at the photo you’ll see a guy who decided to pull his street cart all along the bike path on 8th). They were so few and far between that I didn’t mind as much as usual. And the trip to Penn took only 10 minutes and 1 second, quick enough to beat the rain that came pounding down just a few minutes later.

Bottom line, my experience in Chelsea and Flatiron were head and shoulders better than my experience has been in Midtown. I don’t know if it’s just because I went outside of rush hour, or if they just poured a lot more money into it, or if Citi Bike usage is just lower down there, or if I just lucked out. But I’d say this was my first experience of Citi Bike “the way it should be”.

Tomorrow, back into the belly of the beast called Midtown.

Per-cost-ride: 95/5 = $19
Stress Level: 3 of 10
Aggravation Level: 1 of 10

So I decided to take a slightly earlier train this morning. I walked off the train and within five minutes I got to the bikes on Eighth avenue. To no surprise the first set of bike racks I came across was empty.

But again shockingly there were a couple bikes available the next block down. Like a bird chasing down some breadcrumbs before the other birds can get to it, I hightailed my way to grab one.

As for the ride, I started on Eighth again, but this time I decided to go up only as far as where the bike lanes end at Port Authority. Then I’d cut across 40th and up Madison.

Once again, the buses were the menace, much more so than the taxis, the cars, the pedestrians, and the other bikers. The second day in a row a bus was hugging the curb, and I rode to the left of the bus only to find another bus to the left barreling toward me.

Making things worse, there was a stretch along 40th with a bunch of road work and scaffolding (Citi Bike Annoyance #12).

Of course pedestrians are given their own really wide temporary walkway. And that means the actual road itself is slightly larger than the width of a car, which means bikers need to scramble to try to not become roadkill.

Once I got through that, around midtown a van at a light decided to make a blind turn right into where I was riding. I screamed out “HEY!” but the van kept going. Had he hit me, he would never have known.

But despite all this I actually felt the ride was much more pleasant than yesterday, maybe because I know what to expect now.

I finally made it to 49th and 5th; the ride had only taken me less than 15 minutes, which was great, not too much longer than the subway ride. I could get used to this. Or so I thought.

I rode up to an empty dock, but a woman shook her head at me and said, “broken”. I saw there were two other open docks, and yes, they were broken too. Try as I might to put the bike in the dock, that damned yellow and green light would never go on.(Broken Docks = Citi Bike Annoyance #12)

I went to two other docks and they were broken too. I saw in the middle of the line of bikes a sad looking Citi Biker who looks like he’d been standing there for a while. He was hovering over one of the broken docks, waiting for it to magically start working or for someone to claim a bike.

After waiting about 5 minutes I realized the bike rebalancers weren’t going to be there anytime soon (Citi Bike Annoyance #13). So I went to the kiosk and clicked “nearby stations”.

Now most of these “nearby stations” were at least 5 blocks away, which meant 5 blocks to bike there and 5 blocks to walk back (Citi Bike Annoyance #14).

I pressed “Request Time Credit” to add more time. But I didn’t see where I could put my Citi Bike Key. I figured I was still under by 45 minutes anyway, so I ended up biking to the nearest one, which happened to have several open docks.

As well as its share of broken docks that were fixed in this very high-tech way:

Finally, I put my bike in the dock and heard that “whiz” that meant it was locked. I walked back to my office and got to my desk–50 minutes late again. So much for Citi Bike being a great thing for commuters.

Cost per ride: 95/3 = $31.67
Stress level: 6 of 10
Aggravation: 9 of 10