Germaphobe pedalers, beware — you might want to bring baby wipes the next time you grab the handlebars of a Citi Bike to take it out for a spin.
Men’s Health magazine swabbed six surfaces around Gotham amd found that a typical Citi Bike handlebar grip was up to 45 times germier than even the passenger surfaces on a 6 train.
Citi Bikes “are consistently among the most disgusting surfaces that we’ve tested in all of New York City,” Men’s Health editor-in-chief Matt Bean said at a Midtown bike dock.
Using a handheld germ counter, Bean also tested a Starbucks in Manhattan, a city-sponsored Internet kiosk, a taxicab handle, a door knob at Grand Central Terminal and a hold bar on a subway train.
A rep for California-based Hygiena said the device Bean used to find germs and other potentially hazardous biological material is calibrated so that a 50 rating should be worrisome for surfaces that touch food.
A 100 score should set off alarms at hospitals, which is considered a very germ-filled place.
The device showed Citi Bike with a germ score of 1,512, Starbucks 1,090, the LinkNYC kiosk 807, the taxi handle 424, the Grand Central door knob 45 and the hold bars on a subway train 35, according to findings for the magazine’s Facebook Watch show, aptly titled “Gross.”
A rep for Citi Bike didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment.
Hygiena rep Victor Castaman said he was pleasantly surprised at how “clean” the Grand Central knob and 6-train surfaces were.
“That’s fantastic, relatively speaking,” Castaman said of the Grand Central rating.
And the 6-train rating is “still really good, especially with all the people there,” he said.
But the germ watcher was grossed out by Citi Bikes.
“I would tell you that’s a fail,” Castaman said. “That means they’re not cleaning the bikes at all. People are getting their material on it and putting their hands on it.”
Bean tested one nonpublic surface — his laptop computer. It came in at a reading of 58, nearly clean enough to eat off of.



