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May 31, 2024
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A small number of Citi Bike renters complained that the front brake was too powerful; no injuries or malfunctions were reported.
The popular ride-hailing company Lyft is removing several thousand e-bikes from its Citi Bike service in the cities of New York, San Francisco and Washington, due to a braking problem.
According to the company, they received a small number of reports from riders who experienced stronger-than-expected braking forces at the front wheel. They revealed this to customers in an email sent on Sunday.
Citi Bike is a division of Lyft and the company is working to replace roughly 3,000 e-bikes with traditional bikes in order to prevent service interruptions. They will join the roughly 17,000 bikes already in use in New York, San Francisco and Washington.
Customers may see e-bikes in Citi Bike docks, but they will be unavailable for rental.
“After a small number of reports and out of an abundance of caution, we are proactively pausing our electric bikes from service, Citi Bike spokeswoman Julie Wood said. “Safety always comes first.”
Lyft purchased previous Citi Bike operator Motivate last fall, prior to the company’s IPO in March. The move was meant to keep Lyft competitive following Uber Technologies Inc’s purchase of e-bike sharing startup JUMP Bikes.
The Citi Bikes use a drum brake in the front hub and it doesn’t seem difficult to foresee that some consumers would be alarmed by power of the brake unless they received some introduction or education about the brake prior to renting one of the Citi Bike e-bikes.
We would be less inclined to wonder if education might help had the issue been poor braking due to a lack of or insufficient maintenance. Complaints that the brakes are too powerful is, as we like to say, a happy problem as it’s always possible to educate riders to use less force when braking. Citi Bike would have a bigger problem if the brakes weren’t working well enough.
Here’s to hoping the e-bikes are back in circulation before summer is over.
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