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Comment by CydeWeys | Hacker News Reader

I know it's a huge nit to pick, but did the editing on the title bother anyone else? "A Tale of Twenty-Two Million Citi Bikes" implies that there are 22 million Citibikes. They're actually numbered in the thousands. The article is an analysis of 22 million RIDES.

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Agree that it's unnecessarily ambiguous, made worse because the obvious interpretation is the incorrect one.

OTOH, there's an interesting bit of English going on here: You can "go for a bike" like you can "go for a swim" because "bike" has been verbed for a very long time (in a way that, say, "car" has not, but in some English-speaking countries, "motor" has.)

This is true in Dutch to a larger degree than English. It seems several English people learning Dutch on duolingo are confused that there is a verb that means "bike". https://www.duolingo.com/comment/3786991 for instance.

Still, you'd never say '10 fietsen/bikes'.

You'd in Dutch, just as well as English, say '10 fietsritten/bike rides'.

That's interesting, as a native American English speaker approaching 40, I have never heard anyone say "go for a bike". Neither native speakers nor people whose first language is not English.

Is this common in some part of the country, or outside the US?

Yeah, from western Canada, i'd go biking, or go for a run, but I don't think I've ever said, I'm going to go for a bike. I'd say "I'm going for a bike ride".

I've never heard anyone say it in the UK either. I think the OP's reasoning is off. Just because 'bike' can be used as a verb doesn't mean that it will get used in that way in all situations.

My knowledge of grammar isn't great, but isn't bike(-ride) working as a noun here? I can use it as a verb and say "I biked here this morning" or "it's faster if you bike across the bridge". But I've never heard "I'm going for a bike", or going for a "20 mile bike". Bike ride is what sounds natural in those sentences.

And yet you can "go for a run/jog/walk/swim". English is weird. I guess it's because bike as a noun already means the bicycle itself, while there is no object named "run/jog/swim".

I thought the author was reaching for a questionable "Tale of Two Cities" Dickens pun :\

Saying "I'm going for a bike" would be the equivalent for "I'm going for a sneakers" (for a run).. its the action of riding that makes sense.

I think they were trying to have it parse as close to "A Tale of Two Cities" as possible. I agree it didn't work very well.

Thanks for the clarification. I was irritated by it as well. It really is a very misleading headline.

> It really is a very misleading headline.

Unless you instantly and intuitively understand that there is not in fact a system whereby 2.8 actual bicycles per city resident were procured.

My first intuitive reaction was "How many other cities is Citi Bike operating in, I thought they only operated in New York?"

I know we're digressing, but Citibike does now also operate in New Jersey.

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