Thinking out loud about Lyft bikes
In February of last year, I walked into Valencia Cyclery to buy a bike helmet. The guy working there asked if I had a bike, too, since I was looking for a helmet. I responded that I'd get the helmet first, thinking that I'd try a few bikes from a bike co-op/FB Marketplace before making a purchase, like the prudent consumer I thought I was. Turns out the nice people at Valencia Cyclery had just fixed up a bike that fit me despite not having any other used bikes for sale. You can probably tell where this is going. I was with a friend visiting from out of town and she encouraged me to send it. I swear I don't usually succumb to peer pressure that easily. So now, I ride a used Marin road bike with a sweet little carbon fork that I impulse-bought that day.
I quite like that bike; however, for commuting rides where I do not want to show up at the destination covered in sweat, I ride Lyft bikes—the electric ones, never the regular ones. The breakdown is something like: commuting rides <2mi, use the road bike. Fun rides for exercise (1-30mi), use the road bike. Everything else (commuting rides 2-347 mi), Lyft bike. According to the BayWheels app, to date, I have logged 532 rides, 802 miles, and a total of 79h13min. I've visited 113 stations and am in the top 1% of riders. This feels kind of like Spotify Wrapped, where somehow everyone you know is in the top 1% of Taylor Swift’s millions if not billions of listeners. But anyway, I’m just reporting what I saw on the app to convey that the following observations and suggestions are based on numerous experiences.
Some suggestions, quips, and complaints will now continue here. Because what kind of post would this be if I were not complaining and offering slightly unrealistic solutions.
Brake inconsistency: The brakes are highly variable in how responsive they are from bike to bike. Some brakes you can merely exhale near and that'll be enough change in air pressure to trigger the brake to stop the bike. Others you need to squeeze like trying to juice out the last bits of an orange and it still might not stop. Given how often I see the vans that pick up bikes for maintenance, why is the variation in brake responsiveness so high? This is a real safety concern.
Solution: Standardize brake calibration during maintenance checks. Maybe add a simple responsiveness test to the repair checklist? Or use color-coded indicators on bikes that need brake attention?
On that note, there is a bit of a flow issue in the app: you can’t write thoughts about the ride after you submit a star rating.
Solution: Make a clearly accessible menu for ride history where you can tap and write a summary of the issue after the fact.
Software redesign may warrant another post. For now, this is about the hardware.
The real problems are physical though:
Docking noise: They are way too loud to dock, especially the e-bikes. Every time I dock a Lyft bike I wake up an entire neighborhood.
Solution: Add rubber dampeners to docking mechanisms or redesign the locking system to be gentler. The ebikes are also HEAVY and the turn radius is terrible, making removal cumbersome.
Solution: Better bike positioning in docks and maybe clearer instructions on the app for first-time e-bike users.
First-gen e-bike issues: Just get rid of the first gen black e-bikes with the seat adjustments that you need to pull out from the side instead of the nice ergonomic seat adjusters that pull out from the front of the seat pole. They don't show the available e-mileage on the bike anyway.
Solution: Phase these out systematically and retrofit with better displays and seat mechanisms.
Graffiti: Not that big of a problem until someone has black spray painted the QR code you need to scan to unlock the bike.
Solution: QR codes on multiple locations (frame + basket), or backup NFC tags that are harder to vandalize.
Seat durability: Hydrophobic seats are good for when it's raining or foggy or from morning dew. I think the seats are currently hydrophobic, though after the leather or polyurethane or whatever the seat is made of starts to crack, the effect fades. The pain point here is that I don't like getting my pants wet.
Solution: More durable hydrophobic coating or replaceable seat covers that maintain water resistance.
Bell sensitivity: Bells are over-reactive to the point where if you ride over a bump, sometimes the bell will ding even if you didn't twist the handlebar.
Solution: Adjust bell spring tension or switch to a button-operated bell instead of twist-operated.
Anyway, these are all quips I mean to be serious-if-you-work-at-Lyft-and-you're-reading-this but should probably be ignored if you're just a passerby thinking about using a Lyft bike sometime. Because in all honesty, I love Lyft bikes and rely on them to get me from point A to point B several days a week. I love that they're inexpensive (with free Lyft Pink from Chase Sapphire Reserve—for better or worse, this is not sponsored), and I love whizzing down the street and showing up to my destination covered in 0 drops of sweat and in record time at that. I love that I don't have to lug an e-bike indoors, worry about charging it, or worry about it getting stolen or damaged or setting my apartment on fire. <3
