I’ve known about the Bike Angel program for a little while now but never looked into it. In a nutshell you can get rewarded for helping redistribute the classic bikes across the city, they do a good job gamifying it too.
Last week curiosity got the best of me and I took a look at the program and its rewards. I saw you can extend the base ride from 45 to 60 minutes if you worked the program a little bit and hit the first “achievement”. You can also cash out points to extend your subscription (if you worked the program enough you can extend it indefinitely) or for Lyft credit (car/scooter/ebike)
So on Friday I set out to hit 250 over 3 days with my partners subscription. She recently got one so we can ride together and she wouldn’t have to deal with everything that comes with being a 3rd floor bike owner (mainly getting the bike up and down the stairs). Here are some take-aways:
- Its more walking than riding, I walked between 5-6 miles each day. I had a much better time wearing walking shoes vs the shoes I wear riding.
- I put in between 2-3 hours each day
- Its all about maintaining the multiplier streak between days. 4 positive rides in a row resets the multiplier clock. Try to plan it so you only need one “positive” ride to restart the clock the next day.
- Finding drop off/pick up loops with a short walk is the best way to get a lot of points quickly, I had a lot of luck in the West Loop.
- I cashed out 150 points for $30 in lyft credit that she can use for ebikes when we want to haul ass.
- Fun/different way to get some exercise and see the city
- The newer classic bikes (they have the same style basket as the ebikes) are definitely a better ride than the older beat up ones with only 3 gears.
- Cracking the top 20 leader board was a lot of fun
- I’m probably done with it now that I unlocked the 60 minutes rides, the other perks don’t really seem worth it to me, but we’ll see.
- They’re gonna send me a dumb pin that I’m actually excited about
Happy to answer any questions!