Which brings up two more glitches:

1) When docking the bike, even you see the green light, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the bike has been checked in with the system’s main computer. (Contrary to the whole point of my piece above that you must wait for the green light!) I’ve waited for — and seen — the green light when docking, only to find out that my bike was still recorded officially as “out.” This is made obvious when trying to get another bike, only to get the dreaded red light and buzz (necessitating a call to the customer service line).

2) Calling the Citibike customer service can be an incredibly frustrating experience, which probably isn’t a shock, considering that probably half the serious riders out there have will to call at least once to get their keys cleared! Most of the times that I’ve called, I’ve gotten a “this number does not exist” error message, which is bizarre, as it clearly exists and is printed on my key. When I have finally gotten through, the wait is usually about 3-5 minutes to talk to someone. That having been said, the customer service reps are very friendly and helpful, and I’m sure, overworked.

Still, when the program works (which for me is about 75% of the time these days), it works really well and makes me so happy to be a subscriber. I am hopeful that the city will clear up these little glitches soon.

That being said, add to your list of glitches the time when it logged my destination as my origin point so that it made it look like I had a bike out. Even though I could see it had done this on my account, I was still able to take bikes out, sometimes only after trying my key at 6 – 12 different bikes.

I got it cleared last week and it’s worked fine until today. Now it shows online that I have no trips and my key simply does not work and I’ve tried all of the bikes at 3 different locations.