Bike Rental Central Park — Local services in New York

Misinformation. Cruelty. Broken equipment. I booked a tour online for Saturday at 4pm. This was an outing for me & a 13 yr old girl who are a part of a mentorship program. Prior to booking, I called the shop & asked whether it was possible to receive an electric bike for the tour & if there’d be an additional fee. The guy on the phone told me to simply request it at the counter on Saturday and assured me that there’d be no extra fee. I asked, “are you sure?” He insisted there’d be no extra fee. On Saturday morning, I received a call from Briana informing me that our tour was cancelled due to the tour guide not being available. Briana was very nice and helpful as she tried to come up with alternative options. We settled on rescheduling for Sunday at 4pm. On Sunday, we arrived early, waited in line to be helped, & did the required paperwork. I was told there’d be an additional $40 fee for the e-bikes. I was charged even after explaining that I was told there’d be no fee on a prior call.

We were then directed outside to get set up with the bikes. There was only 1 man helping with that, he was busy with other customers, so we waited our turn. As we waited, we met Sergio, our tour guide who pointed out a lady who’d be the only other person taking the group tour with us. Initially, I was happy to learn that Sergio would be our tour guide, because I read good reviews about him. However, Sergio was not kind to me & the child with me. He was rude, impatient, and continued to rush us, saying things like, “C’mon, we need to go. This lady paid for a tour and you’re holding her up. It’s after 4pm. Let’s go!” Clearly, he decided that she held more value than us. I can completely understand him wanting to be considerate of all who paid for the tour, but I too deserved that same consideration as a paying customer. It’s NOT like we were standing around & holding them up by taking pictures and talking! No, we arrived early and we were waiting to be helped to receive proper sized helmets, our bikes, & safety instructions. Sergio was aware of this and still continued to fuss & rush us, even as the nice man was trying to provide safety instructions. I was confused why he was speaking to us in this way, especially a 13 yr old child (she LOOKS much older & is taller than me, but mentally/emotionally is only 13). So I calmly said to Sergio, “I apologize, but she’s only 13 yrs old, and I need to ensure she’s safe.” I also turned and apologized to the lady who he was advocating for & thanked her for her patience. In response, Sergio stretched out his arms & shook his head as if to say, “so what, who cares.” Meanwhile, the lady was standing by relaxing and looking completely unfazed by the delay. In hindsight, I realize that I apologized in an effort to bring peace to an uncomfortable scenario, but I didn’t owe any apologies. I did nothing wrong and had no power over how quickly this company accommodated me.

Because of being rushed, it was overlooked that the 13 yr old was given a bike (#1) with a broken lever & she was unable to switch gears. The tour started off unpleasant with Sergio being grumpy, rolling his eyes, & looking at us with disgust after he noticed us shakily acclimating to the e-bikes. (My bike, #18, felt like something was loose & I struggled to keep the front wheel straight.) I refused to match his negative energy & remained positive, especially due to the child mentee that was with me. Eventually, after the first quarter of our tour, Sergio mellowed out and began to act like a descent human, but by then the damage was done. It’s ironic that we were treated so poorly when, in fact, we were the one’s waiting for service, plus we had been such good sports about the inconvenience of our tour being rescheduled the day before. A tour, I later learned, was rescheduled because of Sergio! So, we actually waited 24 hrs for this man, yet he had the audacity to be rude...

My family reserved bikes from this location (Bike Rental Central Park 1391 6th Avenue) while on vacation on August 4th for a pick up date of August 5th. Their site claims reservations are guaranteed. We reserved 1 regular men’s bike, 1 scooter, and 1 e-bike. When we arrived around 11:00am, we were told that they did not have any e-bikes charged despite the website claiming reservations were guaranteed. Due to a health condition one family member needed an e-bike and at that point had to cancel the reservation for the e-bike. We were told that we would be refunded the e-bike in full. So my family left the store with 1 scooter, and 1 men’s bike and nothing for myself. That left me walking the park perimeter looking for an e-bike rental from CITIBIKE and having to meet up with my family after I found one (do yourself a favor and use citibike, it’s cheaper, quicker, and there are tons of stations right outside the perimeter of the entire park)

We returned a few hours later to return the rentals. At that time the supervisor took the rental receipt from me and returned with my drivers license and a different receipt from the one I was given when we took the men’s bike and scooter. I asked her when I would have my refund and if I would also be refunded the insurance for the e-bike as well. She said yes, you’ll get whatever “wasn’t used, so the men’s bike and insurance.” At that time I said, “no, it was the e-bike that we did not get.” At that time she had a look that told me she just wanted to get us out of the store and said again “yeah yeah yeah, you’ll get everything refunded that you didn’t use.” My husband then verified “the insurance too correct?” “Yes everything that you didn’t use” she claimed.

Unfortunately for me, the new receipt she handed back was not what we actually rented nor was it the receipt we left the store with stating 1 men’s bike and 1 scooter. For some reason they printed a new receipt saying we rented an e-bike and a scooter. Classic bait and switch. Nice quality control. We arrive at our return rental window time and return a men’s bike and a scooter and they give me a receipt saying I returned and e-bike and a scooter when 2 hours earlier they had no e-bikes charged. So how would I return something they never had available?

I contacted the company when we returned and explained what had happened. A representative named Emma responded to my email requesting more information which I provided. My refund was for the men’s bike and not the e-bike and did not include the insurance refund either.

I then sent another email to Emma on Aug 18th re-explaining what had happened and requested the full refund including insurance and to please speak with the supervisor and front desk employee that worked with us that day. I have yet to receive a response.

Rental, service fees, tax and insurance came to $61.95 for the e-bike. My refund was for $21 We also had reserved a basket and helmets. We were never given the helmets- nobody leaving that store had helmets despite the website claiming they had them and my husband had to go back for the basket as they didn’t give us that either. Stay away from this company. Go to trip advisor, YELP, and BBB and read similar stories as well as bike...

My family rented three bikes all of which had major mechanical problems. The rear derailleur fell apart on one, front brake completely failed on my daughters, and the drivetrain wouldn't shift plus had a grinding noise on my bike. We returned the first bike right away because it failed 1 mile into the park and it was replaced. The second and third bikes failed a short while after and we walked them back. I asked about a refund but the manager explained there was no situation where they would refund a customer.

The bikes I saw in this shop are all very old and in poor condition. Given the problems with our bikes it is apparent there is no preventative maintenance done. Derailleur and brake failures can be dangerous on bikes and its a shame they don't value their clients safety. I noticed their competitors bikes in the park were significantly newer and in better condition.

Another interesting discovery is their pricing varies significantly depending on where you find them. They have discounts on each platform but they're an illusion of savings. The discounts have fake timelines which are just reset everyday. If you do make the mistake of renting here make sure you negotiate the price at the desk.

Update: As per below, I responded to their request for information and received the oddest response. They requested some details about what happened which I sent along with a copy of my receipt. Then I received several responses implying they hadn't received any information and were going to 'close the ticket'. The information I sent was in the response thread. So I messaged them back with a cut and paste of my response to the top of the email chain. Then I would receive the same 'closing the ticket' reply. It felt like they had an automated system to reject you. I would recommend not doing business here. There are so many bike rental companies in the area why take a chance with...