The ride stuff
Citi Bike tips hat to record-setting bicyclists
THESE NEW Yorkers wheely devoted to Citi Bike.
Ginger Holton has logged 5,791 rides on the blue bikes — the most of any woman in the city.
“I use it for everything. It is my mode of transportation, and it’s also my exercise. It’s my hobby,” said Holton, 62, who lives on the Upper East Side.
Holton was recognized for the record Sunday along with Joe Miller — who holds the top spot for men with 12,587 rides — as the bike-share system celebrated its fifth anniversary.
Holton said that when Citi Bike came to her neighborhood in 2015, she began grabbing a bike whenever she headed to volunteer, shop for groceries or meet with friends.
“I say yes to so many things I didn’t used to say yes to because it’s so darn easy to get to,” said are Holton, who is retired from a career in finance.
She rides rain or shine, and planned to pedal to Central Park on Sunday afternoon to attend the wedding of some neighbors.
Holton said she always biked casually, but became a devoted rider after Citi Bike debuted and eliminated the hassle of dealing with flat tires and broken gears.
She says Citi Bike is better than the subways she rode around town for 30 years.
“No one was having fun on the crowded subway. It was a chore,” Holton said.
She had no idea she was gunning for a record until Citi Bike notified her.
“I absolutely wasn’t going for it. This is my life,” she said. “I probably don’t fit the mold of what someone would have thought . . . . It’s just something I enjoy and just fits me so well.”
Miller, 33, said he’s still racking up the rides — and his number has grown to 14,600 since his record was calculated.
The East Village man pedals from neighborhood to neighborhood for his job taking dogs out for runs.
“It’s the most efficient and cost-effective way for me to get wherever I have to go,” he said.
Miller (photo) has owned several bikes — but some of them were stolen, and he struggled to find space for one in his small apartment. Now, he uses Citi Bike exclusively.
He also notched many rides participating in a program called Bike Angels, which rewards riders with points for moving bikes around so that docks have the right number.
Miller is also relieved to mostly avoid the troubled subway.
“I’ve been a native New Yorker basically my whole life, and I over time got more and more aggravated by that system and having to deal with a lot of service issues,” he said.
Since its launch in 2013, Citi Bike riders have clocked more than 58 million trips and ridden a whopping 104.2 million miles — more than the distance from the Earth to the sun.
The average trip minutes.
Over the past month, Citi Bike riders have cycled 2.25 million miles — which the company says is enough to burn the calories in 353,206 plain bagels. lasts 13.9