Capital Bikeshare Bike Angels Leaderboard (Archived)

What is the Bike Angels program?

(Editor’s Note: I’m archiving this post -tracking between April 2021-December 2023- in favor of a new Bike Angels page you can find in the header of this site or follow this link: https://adcjourney.com/bike-angels/). Good riding!)

Bike Angels is a program for Capital Bikeshare (CaBi) users to help rebalance bikes across the system, by awarding Riders points for certain rides.

Note: Capital Bikeshare doesn’t share this data on its website, but since they re-introduced the Bike Angels program in May 2021, I’ve been keeping track of the point totals for the Top 10 Riders for each month.

Using that, I’ve also created an All-Time list. Find a breakdown of the top 30 monthly point totals since May 2021. I’ve also created a list of all monthly winners by month. You can also find stats for 2022’s End of Year Report.

I’ll update this periodically to reflect new months. (Updated January 2, 2024)

Some factoids (for December 2023):

We only had one new entry on the Bike Angels All-Time Leaderboard at #3.

Three more Riders reached 1,000 points this month.

Happy New Year! I’ll post an end of year report out shortly.

Some factoids (for November 2023):

November saw three new entries to the Bike Angels All-Time Leaderboard, #9, #27 and #28.

Four Riders reached 1,000 points this month.

The November winner has also won three of the last four months.

Some factoids (for October 2023):

There were two new entries on the Bike Angels All-Time Leaderboard, #7 and #12, for October, including one person cracking the list for the first time. There are only 13 different Riders listed on the Leaderboard.

Four Riders reached 1,000 points this month, including two over 2,000 points. Seven different Riders have reached over 2,000 points a total of 15 times so far!

Can you get addicted to Bike Angels? Can the competition and gamification give rise to an addiction? We may never know, but some Riders may want to branch out and pursue other hobbies!

Some factoids (for September 2023):

September saw a mere one Rider crack the Bike Angels All-Time Leaderboard at #10, winning the month with 2451 points.

Four Riders reached 1,000 points this month, and one reached 2,000.

There has been a lot of chatter from nimbys (on Twitter especially) about whether we should be building protected bike lanes in DC, including one dude from NYC that is a complete tool. Find these nimbys and shut them down with statistics. Shut them down with logic, they can’t handle that. Let’s build ALL the protected bike lanes and make our streets safer for everyone.

Some factoids (for August 2023):

We have our fifth 3,000 point Rider in a month! Okay, one person has done it three times. Let’s call it a hobby.

This month saw an epic battle in the making, but the 2nd place finisher didn’t ride the last couple days. (Final: 1st Place w/ 3051 pts, 2nd Place w/ 2762 pts) Either they saw the writing on the wall, had to travel, or had too much real life going on. Been there, done that. Monthly battles that go down to the wire are fun to witness. (But not fun to participate in. lol)

There were three new entries to the All-Time Leaderboard (#4, #7, and #22).

There have been 11 different Riders that have won a single Month in the Bike Angels contest since May 2021. That’s out of 28 months. Let’s see more parity. And more bikes moved!

Riders have reached a point total of 1,000 points or more in a single Month 53 times since May 2021.

Some factoids (for July 2023):

This month’s winner and second place finisher got almost all their points in the first half of the month, and no one challenged them.

Four Riders reached 1,000+ points, and there were two new entries to the All-Time Leaderboard (#22 and 28). (Note: I updated the Leaderboard, had the numbering wrong.)

It was too damn hot to ride, but still Capital Bikeshare broke all their previous system-wide records on ridership during the month of July!

Some factoids (for June 2023):

Four new entries graced the All-Time Leaderboard in June, including this month’s winner cracking the Top 10!

June saw the 10th time a Rider has reached 2,000+ points in a month! The third time this year.

The person with the 776 streak had better things to do this month, thus the streak ends at eight months.

We are entering the dog days of summer, let’s see what the Bike Angel Riders have in store!

Some factoids (for May 2023):

Whoa! Bike Angels is getting crazy! Last month we had the first 4,000 point Rider, now we’ve got the first 5,000 point Rider. Someone please check on this person. You have to average over 161 points per day to achieve this milestone. Will someone ever do it again?

1776 points reached again! Same Rider has eight straight months with 776.

Some factoids (for April 2023):

April saw four new entries to the All-Time Leaderboard, including two in the Top 10.

The person who loves 776 had to scramble the last couple days, amassing hundreds of points, to reach 1776 again. This effort was good enough for the world record* of seven straight months finishing with the last digits of 776.

The big story this month is another Rider took over the #1 spot! AND we have our first 4,000 points in a month (4034 points)! Such lofty heights! Hopefully they get the rest they deserve after such a feat. Let’s see how long this record lasts, the last two #1 Riders both fell after only four months at the top.

I added the color blue to the Monthly Winners chart, showing when someone had the #1 spot on the All-Time Leaderboard chart.

* Obviously.

Some factoids (for March 2023):

March’s winner got the 10th most points of all-time (1776) in a month. It was also the same person that loves 776, so add the 1 and it is now six months in a row finishing with the last digits of 776.

Five Riders finished with 1,000+ points in March, so now all 30 top spots on the all-time list have reached 1,000+ points.

With five entries, March 2023 ties July 2022 and September 2022 with the most Top 30 entries.

Early in March Capital Bikeshare introduced 700 new ebikes into the system. The battery lasts longer in these grey ones, so you can ride further and they need less battery changes. They also climb to higher speeds quicker.

Some factoids (for February 2023):

We have a repeat champion, winning both January and February.

Ol’ 776 strikes again! Now five months in a row achieving exactly 776 points!

February was the first month since April 2022 where the monthly winner did not crack 1000 points (980). And only one new entry to the Top 30.

Some factoids (for January 2023):

A rather chill month, only one Rider eclipsed 1000 points.

One Rider likes the number 776, they have achieved that same point total four straight months!

In the last couple months I’ve noticed the new U shaped seat adjuster on some bikes, now seeing it more often. Very nice, hope all bikes are outfitted with this soon.

Some factoids (for December 2022):

An epic battle went down for 1st place in December! Hope those Riders are okay.

December saw the second Rider to ever get to 3,000 points.

Some factoids (for November 2022):

Nothing special!

Some factoids (for October 2022):

The main update to the Bike Angels this month was in how to retain your x 3 point tier. Originally, once you unlocked this tier for 24 hours you simply had to take one more positive ride to reset the clock. But now they changed the requirements, and you need to take four additional positive rides to reset the clock, making it a bit harder to keep active.

I also added a new chart, showing all the monthly winners by month.

Nine different people have been a monthly winner since May 2021. You don’t get anything (pride?) for topping the list. Hopefully Capital Bikeshare can correct that and actually give a prize!

Some factoids (for September 2022):

(skipped)

Some factoids (for August 2022):

We have our first rider with 3,000 points in a month in August! That’s a lot of riding.

We can temper that number with the addition of the x 3 point option. When you unlock this tier, you get 3 times the points for rides.

Four of the top five all time point totals came in August.

Some factoids (for July 2022):

Six riders reached 1,000 points in July! Previously only five total riders had reached 1,000 points. Bike Angels is booming!

On August 8th, Capital Bikeshare introduced a 3x point tier for Bike Angels. If you unlock this tier (by completing three qualifying rides), the point totals available at each bike station are calculated x 3. The most points you could get in a single ride will now be 24 points.

Some factoids (for May 2021 through June 2022):

40% of the Top 30 list came in the last two months (May and June 2022)!!

Seven different people have finished first in the Monthly Leaderboard! The most by a single person is five first place finishes.

Bike Angels is a program for Bikeshare users to help rebalance bikes across the system, by awarding users points for certain rides. If you opt-in, you can see the bike stations with three statuses; a) Up Arrow, b) Neutral (no Arrow), or c) Down Arrow.

Only three (of nine) station to station ride combos will get you points. The three combos are 1) Up Arrow station to Neutral station, 2) Up Arrow station to Down Arrow station, or 3) Neutral station to Down Arrow station. All other combos negate any chance to earn points.

16 points is the maximum point total you could get in a single ride. 

The Bike Angels program existed before the pandemic, and I did not track it from the beginning. There was also a window of time when they closed the program. But it was re-instated in May 2021, with revamped incentives, including a 5-tier reward program. So the stats are from May 2021 to present.