Riverhead, Suffolk bike rental program shuts down after losing sponsor

Bethpage Ride, the countywide program that offered bike rentals in downtown Riverhead and at Veterans Memorial Park, stopped operating this year after the company formerly known as Bethpage Federal Credit Union declined to continue its sponsorship.

The program allowed people to temporarily rent bikes through an app from stations across Suffolk County at hourly, daily, or annual rates. Five stations were installed in Riverhead Town — at Veterans Memorial Park in Calverton, the Riverhead Long Island Rail Road station, the River and Roots Community Garden downtown, Peconic Riverfront Park, and the former Town Hall on Howell Avenue. The service operated seasonally, from April through October.

Last year, the bikes were collected from their station for the winter but were never replaced in 2025. Christopher Dimon, cofounder of PedalShare, Bethpage Ride’s operator, said its sponsorship contract with Bethpage Federal Credit Union ended last year. The company, which rebranded earlier this year as FourLeaf Federal Credit Union, declined to continue sponsoring the program in 2025, Dimon said.

“Without the sponsorship and the funding, there’s just no way it can be done,” Dimon said in an interview Tuesday. 

In an emailed statement, a FourLeaf spokesperson said the company “discontinued its sponsorship of the rideshare program prior to becoming FourLeaf. The decision was made as a result of the escalating costs associated with the program, and was not influenced by the name change.”

PedalShare was unable to secure another sponsor for 2025, Dimon said, adding that he doubted the program would continue.

“It’s a very costly program and finding sponsors that are able to fund that is hard,” Dimon said.

In Riverhead, the racks that once held Bethpage Ride bicycles have remained empty at the spots where they were installed in May 2021. The town neither paid for nor received compensation from the program.

“Obviously, we had hoped that it could come back. We hope that in the future it’s something we can do again,” Dimon said. He said communities are still reaching out to the company in hopes the program could restart.

Council Member Ken Rothwell, who led the effort to bring Bethpage Ride to the town, said he still hopes that PedalShare can revive the rideshare program. “I want them to do it, because it was a great program up at EPCAL. A lot of people used it,” he said.

Veterans Memorial Park in Calverton was one of the Bethpage Ride’s busiest rental locations in Suffolk County, according to Dimon. The flagship town park is the starting point of the 9.5 mile Vietnam Veterans Memorial Recreational Trail, a popular cycling loop around the Calverton Enterprise Park, also known as EPCAL.

Bethpage Ride launched in 2019. PedalShare began operating it in 2020, after Suffolk County’s previous contractor was unable to continue. PedalShare, a Southampton-based company, had been operating a bike-share program in Southampton Village since 2018. 

In addition to Riverhead Town and Southampton Village, Bethpage Ride operated in Patchogue, Lindenhurst, Hampton Bays, Babylon, Huntington and Amityville, with stations set up in downtowns, parks, and beaches.