BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Brooklyn e-scooter company
Revel is launching a new
e-bike rental subscription service
this month, adding a new
subscription service to meet
New York’s bicycle market
surge of the COVID-19 pandemic,
according to the company’s
chief.
“We’re going deeper into
the two-wheeled space,” Revel
co-founder and chief executive
offi cer Frank Reig told
Brooklyn Paper. “If you look
at where cycling has gone,
it’s completely boomed since
COVID last summer, and that
trend is only going to magnify.”
The company known for
its omnipresent blue scooters
will offer battery-powered bicycles
by Big Apple manufacturer
Wing Bikes for rent at
$99 per month for residents of
Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx,
and Manhattan.
The waitlist to order the
two-wheelers opened Tuesday,
and Revel will deliver
its stable of buzz bikes to subscribers
COURIER LIFE, F 20 EBRUARY 19-25, 2021
early March.
“We’ll roll out with a few
hundred, but we anticipate demand
to skyrocket, so we expect
to scale pretty quickly,”
said Revel’s head of mopeds
Anne Emig.
The e-bikes come with a
classic U-lock and a removable
36-volt battery, which
can last for 45 miles of riding.
They can speed up to 20 milesper
hour (the legal limit for
electric bicycles is 25 milesper
hour) powered either by
throttle or pedal-assist.
The company also offers
subscribers a 70 percent
markdown on a Revelbranded
helmet by Fend,
which can fold to half its size
and retails for $119, along
with free 24-hour maintenance
“normal bike issues,”
according to the fi rm.
The City Council legalized
throttle-powered e-bikes in
the Five Boroughs last summer,
following a law change
at the state level, but the twowheelers
have been the mode
of transport of choice for delivery
workers since well before
they became lawful.
Wing also sells their bikes
for $1,298 and in 2019 tried to
get a similar rent service going
at $108 per month, pitching
the program as cheaper
than a monthly unlimited
MetroCard, Streetsblog reported.
Revel’s new program is
slightly cheaper but substantially
more expensive than a
Citi Bike membership, which
is $179 for a year, or $15 per
month. However you don’t get
to keep the e-bike and there
is a 10-cent-per-minute surcharge
while riding.
E-bikes is the second new
Revel’s e-bikes by Wing. Revel
venture for Revel within a
month, after the company
unveiled its new “superhub”
electric vehicle charging station
at the former Pfi zer factory
at the Williamsburg-
Bedford-Stuyvesant border
on Feb. 3, and Reig said these
moves were a “continuation
of our vision to electrify cities.”
The startup fi rst rolled out
its scooters in Bushwick in
2018 before spreading to more
parts of Brooklyn and other
boroughs during the following
years.
When asked whether the
company was moving away
from its fl agship scooters,
Reig said “absolutely not,” and
added that their 3,000-strong
fl eet will remain a vital part
of their business.
“As New York City comes
out of this lockdown, that option
that we’ve had since 2018
is only going to be more valuable
to New York City,” he
said.
Pedal to the Revel!
Popular scooter company rolls out
new e-bike rental subscription service