The new DRIFTERS City Bike Share program lets riders pick up rental bikes from docking stations around St. Augustine including at the St. Augustine Amphitheatre, the Lightner Museum and Bog Brewing Company on West King Street | Photo courtesy Old City PR
Published on November 5, 2026 at 3:11 pm
Free local news and info, in your inbox at 6 a.m. M-F. Sign up for the Jacksonville Today newsletter.
A new bike share program launches this week in St. Augustine with the goal of getting more people to see the historic city and the surrounding area outside of their cars.
The DRIFTERS City Bike Share program will bring 90 custom-made bicycles to St. Augustine’s streets, allowing riders to rent them from one of the more than 170 docking stations around the city.
Jacksonville Today thanks our sponsors. Become one.
The man behind DRIFTERS is Ian Guthrie, a longtime St. Augustine resident with a love for bicycling.
The new city-supported program isn’t the first time Guthrie has operated something like this. DRIFTERS previously ran a number of smaller bike rental stations around the city.
Guthrie put everything he learned from operating that program into the new bike share.
Jacksonville Today thanks our sponsors. Become one.
“It’s great to have bikes, but a lot of people, they don’t know where to go, what to do,” Guthrie says. “A big focus with this program specifically is really showcasing the businesses in town.”
After unlocking a bike from a docking station using the DRIFTERS City Bike app, all riders have to do is pay the rental fee and then it’s just you, your pedals and the road.
“People drive right by a great smoothie spot, a great breakfast place, but you miss it because you’re driving,” Guthrie says. “But if you’re on the bike, you’re more likely to pull in and see what it’s all about.”
Each bike is built with 10-speed gear shifts, lights and puncture-resistant rubber tires.
Of the available bikes, 10 are pedal-assist e-bikes to encourage people of all ages and skill levels to give the program a shot. Those bikes are built without a throttle and limited to traveling at just 15 mph.
Renting a bike costs $10 for the first hour and $4.50 for each additional hour — and that fee is the same whether you rent an e-bike or a traditional bike. Longer-term memberships are also available, offering unlimited rides at a rate of $99 for six months and $180 for a full year.
When the ride’s over, bikes must be returned to a docking station. If a user were to leave a bike on the side of the road, they would keep getting charged until their ride is returned.
Safe cycling in historic St. Augustine
While St. Augustine’s new bike rental program promises to get more people riding around the city, local cyclist and bike mechanic Teresa Rose worries that the city isn’t particularly accommodating to the riders already on the roads.
Between drivers not keen on sharing the road — even when the law says they have to — and a lack of true bike lanes in St. Augustine, Rose says there’s room for improvement.
“If anything,” she says, “there’s more cars and angry people than ever.”
Rose organizes weekly group bike rides around town with the West Augustine Wheelers. She’s always happy to see new riders on the road, but she says not everyone knows their bicycling etiquette.
“I see a lot of e-bike and e-moto riders riding the opposite way of traffic, and while there’s no law about riding on the sidewalks … there’s a lot of pedestrian traffic,” Rose says. “Pedestrians have the right of way, and I don’t think a lot of people know that.”
Guthrie acknowledges that St. Augustine could certainly be safer for cyclists. His hope is that more people riding bikes will encourage changes to eventually get proper bike lanes in the city.
“We can’t say that riding a shoulder is a bike lane,” Guthrie says. “I hope this program kind of highlights the need and the advantages of having something like that here, because nothing’s too far, and a quick ride is more enjoyable.”
The city of St. Augustine did approve plans to make King Street more accessible to bikes and pedestrians in 2024, but that project is still in its design phase. According to city spokeswoman Melissa Wissel, construction is expected to begin in 2029 and finish by 2033.
Grab your bike
The DRIFTERS City Bike Share launches Friday morning after a ribbon-cutting event at 10 a.m. in the Plaza de la Constitución in downtown St. Augustine.
DRIFTERS is also teaming up with bike company Priority Bicycles — whom Guthrie worked with to build the bikes for the new program — to raffle off a free bicycle, as well as several memberships to the bike share during the Friday morning event.
Participants in the raffle must attend the event to have a shot at winning.
