Let a thousand pedals bloom

Happy birthday to Citi Bike, which turns 5 years old on Sunday. But large expanses of the city outside the blue-bike zone — meaning uptown, most of Brooklyn and Queens and all of Staten Island and the Bronx — didn’t get a slice of cake. Until now. This summer, City Hall will grant four different companies the chance to offer dockless bike shares, for Coney Island, the Rockaways and parts of Staten Island and the Bronx.

Some of these newfangled bikes lock to a rack or pole; others are self-locking, freezing the wheels. Pegged at a buck or two for a half-hour spin, the trial runs will see who provides the best service, including which of the players has the best system for keeping available bikes in their preset zones (and off turf that’s supposed to be exclusive to big blue).

Dockless bikes are champing at the bit to disrupt Citi Bike’s major-league sharing monopoly in Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn and Queens. That can’t happen. But let’s see them shine in the minors.