Rideshare CEO Hops Moped To Race From Bushwick To Queens

BUSHWICK, BROOKLYN — Revel Transit CEO Frank Reig hopped on one of his own mopeds Tuesday morning to race six others from the company's Bushwick headquarters to a diner in Long Island City.

The race pitted Revel's motorized bikes against Uber, CitiBike and the MTA in a test meant to prove to New Yorkers that mopeds were a Brooklyn-to-Queens commuter's best bet.

Reig beat his the others with time to kill — it took him 19 minutes to get from Cypress Avenue in Bushwick to the Court Square Diner — and he boasted to reporters about the zippy ride and low cost of his trip.

"Today’s study was designed to showcase how shared mopeds can help New Yorkers can get from A to B in less time," Reig said. "With less stress, for less money.”

Revel released race findings that showed Reig's trip had taken the least amount of time and, at $4.36, was among the least expensive.

There was just one catch: Had Reig actually been heading toward a job in Queens, that uber-convenient commute would have cost him more than $30-a-day.

That's because Revel, which recently launched with 68 electric bikes stationed in Greenpoint, Williamsburg and Bushwick, charges its riders per minute, with prices increasing as time elapses: it's $4 for the first 20 minutes, then 25 cents-per-minute while riding and 5-cents-per-minute while the ride is paused.

And as yet, there are no Revel stations in Queens, which means Reig would have been charged continuously for eight hours of parking plus time commuting home, had he actually been heading into an office.

That adds up to $4 for the ride to Long Island City, $24 while the ride is paused during the hypothetical eight-hour workday and $4 for the 20-minute ride home, or $32 in total.

A Revel spokesman responded: "Part of this race is about showing New Yorkers how Revel could fit into the transit landscape in the months ahead with an anticipated expansion in Queens."

In comparison, Brooklynites who used CitiBike, which charges $3 for a 30-minute ride, or the MTA, which charges $2.75-per-trip, would spend about $6 for the same commute.

As Reig told the reporters that Revel was designed to help North Brooklyn commuters facing the iminent L train shutdown, a passerby stopped to ask what was going on.

When it was explained to him that a Buswick CEO had pitted his fleet of mopeds against workers armed only with MetroCards bike-share fobs, he replied, "I hate gentrification," and walked away.

Patch reporter Danielle Woodward contributed reporting to this article, which she cowrote.

Photos courtesy of Russell Murphy/Risa Heller Communications and Revel