If you’re a Capital Bikeshare member, the bike sharing service all over the city, you’re probably familiar with “dock-blocking,” where either the bike dock is empty when you need a bike or it’s full when you need to return it.
It’s very annoying, sometimes requiring multiple stops, and frequently happens during morning rush hour — many docks in our area are empty while all the ones downtown are full, and vice versa in the evening.
They’re trying to combat the problem, however, with something they’re calling Reverse Rider Rewards — the idea is that if you ride the opposite direction of the usual travel in the morning, you can qualify to get a free membership or other prizes. Not a bad idea. Here’s the map of the eligible stations. If you take a bike from a black station (frequently full ones) to a yellow one (frequently empty) between 8 and 10 am, you’re in the running. The folks with the most points get prizes, and there are also random drawings.
View Reverse Rider Rewards in a larger map
