Gothamist
A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC.
Gothamist
Listen Live
News
Citi Bike Uses Sci-Fi Math To Brag About Insane, Impossible Journeys
By
Max Rivlin-Nadler
Published Aug 19, 2014
Modified Aug 19, 2014
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Never miss a story
Email address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .
By
Max Rivlin-Nadler
Published Aug 19, 2014
Modified Aug 19, 2014
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
We rely on your support to make local news available to all
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2026. Donate today
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Despite a seemingly endless concatenation of financial and technical difficulties, many New Yorkers still seem to be enjoying their bike-sharing program quite a lot (love the adorable new out of service dock cozies!). So much so, in fact, that they have bent the laws of physics to travel impossible distances, traversing alternate dimensions in their attempt to get from Midtown to SoHo before their 6:45 reservation at Gato.
As a tipster informed us, Citi Bike's latest newsletter, trumpeting its 20 millionth mile, made some strange and telling calculations when trying to give New Yorkers some idea of how much Citi Bike riding they've done.
The newsletter in question.
New Yorkers seem to be following the laws of physics when going from NYC to Beijing (a long but not impossible journey), it's when they get really ambitious that they take a shortcut through the Phantom Tollbooth. As a Reddit commenter points out, we've only taken (theoretically) 83 trips to the Moon, and biked around the Earth a mere 803 times. But for these journeys, Citi Bike users typically turn left onto First Ave (because that's where cops park in the bike lane) and directly into a dimensional wormhole where they experience time as something observable, something that can be brought forward and backward (all at the same moment) as those Citi Bike wheels spin fruitlessly through the void.
Courtesy of Reddit user inmateAle.
We also took 7,207 trips across the country, which was a tad fewer than the 6,666,667 trips Citi Bike previously bragged about. But what's a few million here or there when Citigroup is picking up the tab?
A Citi Bike spokesperson tells us that the math has been corrected on their website, and that, OF COURSE, an intern was to blame. Reached for comment on the far side of Jupiter's moon Callisto, the intern told us, "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those... moments... will be lost in time, like tears... in... rain...."
Tagged
blade runner
citibike
Dimensions
interns
whoops
Max Rivlin-Nadler
Max Rivlin-Nadler has been a contributor to Gothamist since 2013. He has also reported for the New York Times, NPR, and The Intercept. His years-long investigation into New York City's arcane civil forfeiture laws led to a series of reforms which altered a practice that had been taking millions from poor communities for decades. Recently, he brought back a surfing habit from a few years on the west coast, and would love to see you all out in the Rockaways.
Read more
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
MORE news
16 arrested in New York auto insurance fraud crackdown involving nearly $500K
State officials say the cases include staged crashes and fraudulent medical claims, with seven arrests in the Bronx alone.
By
Giulia Heyward
Published Oct 20, 2026 at 6:34 p.m. ET
Coney Island's small, 1890s lighthouse may be landmarked by the city
It's in the private community of Sea Gate. Family members of the lighthouse's last civilian keeper are keeping its history alive.
By
Catalina Gonella
News
Coney Island's small, 1890s lighthouse may be landmarked by the city
It's in the private community of Sea Gate. Family members of the lighthouse's last civilian keeper are keeping its history alive.
By
Catalina Gonella
New renderings are out for Queens' Metropolitan Park casino
By
Willow Higgins
Inside Luigi Mangione's legal strategy before his federal guilty plea
By
Samantha Max
NYC proposes crackdown down on AI customer service chatbots
By
Arya Sundaram
Never miss a story
Catch up on the most important headlines with a roundup of essential NYC stories, delivered to your inbox daily.
Sign upEmail address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .