A Quiet Holiday. Explored Rio on Bike Itau
New Year's Day. City is mostly closed, including privees in Centro.
With some downtime, decided to investigate the orange public bicycles (Bike Itau) scattered around the city.
I downloaded the Bike Itau app and registered a new account with my email, passport number, and credit card. I selected the Mensual Completo plan for $r39 per month. Within a few minutes, I was on my way from Catate to Gloria to Cinelandia to Carioca, then up to Av Presidente Vargas and finally Uruguaiana. I walked around for a while, but almost everything was closed, except for some restaurants and bars.
So I grabbed another bike, but this time the ride was different. Every time I turned the pedal, the bike would give me an extra boost. I pedaled again, and the bike boosted again. After a few minutes, I learned that I had chosen an electric bike. My first ever experience on one. It was actually a lot of fun, and obviously much easier to maneuver with the motorized assist. So apparently there is a mixture of normal and electric bikes available for use.
Overall Bike Itau is a fair price, good exercise, and the electric bicycles are quite fun. It's worth checking out.