Bikeshare stations reached Daly City BART earlier this year. Mayor Juslyn Manalo joined the celebration.
As we celebrate Transit Month, we can’t forget another great way to get around the city: bikeshare.
Bay Wheels is the Bay Area’s bikeshare program, and it’s got a whole secret menu of hacks we're excited to share with you.
Free e-bike rides. Extra bikes for non-member friends. Free hour-long trips. Cheaper ride zones. We’ll cover all the perks that will help you get the most out of a Bay Wheels membership.
How the membership works
With membership, every bikeshare bike is your bike! Even better: the annual membership price just dropped to $150. That’s thanks to an investment from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission earlier this year.
If you’re interested in joining, you can visit the Bay Wheels Membership Registration webpage.
With a Bay Wheels membership, you get:
- Unlimited 45-minute rides on regular pedal bikes
- E-bike rides for 15 cents per minute
But there are plenty more perks in store if you have a membership. Let’s cover the cool, less obvious features that can help members get more out of bikeshare. Here are some of our favorites.
No pedal bikes at a station means you can use a (lower power) e-bike for the same price.
Free e-bike rides
If a station has only e-bikes and no regular pedal bikes, members can check out an e-bike for no additional fee. It would cost the same amount as a regular pedal bike.
Remember, this only applies for e-bikes at stations with no regular pedal bikes. Also, when you check out e-bikes this way, they may have lower power assist. That means they won’t have the same amount of power as a regular e-bike. Depending on your trip, that might be all you need.
Bike Angels: a rewards program for e-bikes, extra rides and more
As a member, you can also sign up for the free Bike Angels program to earn points that can be traded for rewards.
Different stations offer different points for returning or releasing bikes. If you take three trips in a row with points, the point values can double and triple.
Points are based on whether your rides help rebalance the system. Here are some ways to make that happen:
- End trips at emptier stations
- Start trips from fuller stations
This way, you help make the system more usable for everyone. Plus, getting points can be fun!
Sometimes, it means riding one station away or taking transit one extra stop. Some people collect points as exercise. Others rebalance bikes as a fun group activity.
You can use points for:
- E-bike rides
- Free rides for guests
- Membership extensions
Some riders get enough points for years of free memberships.
The Bike Angels program also counts your lifetime point total, and you receive bonuses at major milestones.
For example, at 250 points, members get unlimited 60-minute regular-pedal bike rides (up from 45-minute). How far you can go in 60 minutes? You could go all the way across San Francisco, Bay to Breakers, in 60 minutes.
Bay Wheels provides a variety of prizes and bonuses for lifetime point achievements.
Get free rides for friends
Members can check out an extra bike for friends to ride with them. This is an easy way to ride with someone who isn’t a member. They don’t even have to wait to download an app or register an account.
As a Bay Wheels member, you just need to enter your friend’s phone number. From there, the ride costs the same as a non-member single ride. The cost and liability for extra bikes would go to your account. With a Bay Wheels membership, you get five of these free extra rides per year.
Tap on the group ride button to check out an extra bike for a friend who isn’t a member.
Hybrid bikes features – finding them and discount zones
You can now choose from two different kinds of e-bikes: hybrid or docked. They look very different. But the main difference is that with hybrid e-bikes, you can start or end a trip outside of a station. With docked e-bikes, your trips need to start and end at stations.
Finding hybrid bikes
The bikeshare app shows where you can find hybrid bikes outside of stations. To find them at stations, look at the specific ID number of the docked bikes. Hybrid e-bikes have 6-digit IDs, and docked e-bikes have 7-digit IDs.
Hybrid e-bikes have special discount zones. Some zones cap the per-minute e-bike cost at $2. Other zones that are away from the station network waive the out-of-station fee. Sometimes these discount zones overlap. You can see where these zones are from this E-bike Pricing Zone Map.
Check out this map for exact zone discount zone designations.
If you’re ending a hybrid e-bike trip and the station is full, parking within 50 feet of the station waives the out-of-station fee. We're working to add bike parking near stations so that there's less risk of facing out-of-station fees.
Remember to park and lock correctly at a bike rack. Bad parking obstructs sidewalks and crosswalks, which can lead to a fine. As an extra step, you might want to snap a photo of your properly parked bike to brag to your friends or show anyone who might claim you parked incorrectly.
Bay Wheels is better than ever
Like what you’re hearing about Bay Wheels? You’re not alone.
We are in the middle of our highest bikeshare ridership summer! This was the third year with a bikeshare valet at Outside Lands—on-site staff to help you park or check out a bike. They served more than 1,000 trips, part of the mid-August weekend’s 25,000 trips within the city.
Bay Wheels can now take you almost anywhere in the city, with 327 stations and about 4000 bikes available from the Embarcadero to Daly City BART. We’re thrilled to help more people than ever have the option to choose bicycling. To see if Bay Wheels bikes are convenient for you, check out the map of stations.
Bikeshare served over 1,000 trips to the 2024 Outside Lands Music Festival.
Bikeshare offers a convenient way to get around with no worries about theft, storage or maintenance. It’s also flexible since you can always drop the bike off and walk, take transit or drive. Because it works so well with other travel options, bikeshare helps you have fun and gets you around faster, easier and more affordably.
Share your bikeshare hacks with us
Sharing is caring. Pass this post along to friends and family so they can enjoy the best of bikeshare, too.
Did we miss any Bay Wheels hacks? Let us know. Drop your favorite perks in the comments.