In the beginning, everything was rosy. I was a busy, mobile man with a demanding job, deadlines, commitments. The bikes understood this. They wanted nothing more from me than to convey me to my next port of call. I secured their services discreetly, over the Internet.

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Just before leaving my office, I’d check the Captial Bikeshare station map to make sure I’d find an available ride at one of the two bike docks located on either end of my block, at 14th and Harvard streets NW and 16th and Harvard. There was just enough of an element of risk to keep things exciting: You can’t actually reserve a bike, after all. And while the map will show you both the number of bikes and vacant docks available at any station in the system, there’s no guarantee you’ll actually find a bike waiting for you by the time you amble over, or a dock open upon arrival at your destination. If you wanna live fast, you have to roll the dice.

One time I was late to meet a source for a drink in Adams Morgan and the dock at 18th & Columbia was full. Of course it was, it was 9 p.m. on a Thursday! How could I have been so stupid! There was no time to panic. I pedaled double-time to 16th Street, rammed the bike into the waiting dock, and ran back west to apologize to my appointment for making him wait ten minutes. I blamed the bike. The bikes never objected.

When choosing a ride, I lost no time exchanging pleasantries. I just slid my key into the slot and awaited the cheerful electronic chime that accompanied the changing of the light from yellow — is that the light staying yellow longer than usual? — to green.

We both understood this was to be a one-ride relationship. If I happened to find myself on the seat of the selfsame cycle again, it would be happenstance, not providence. The bikes did not resent this. There are just shy of 1,000 of them in the District, after all, and the total will hit 1,100 once the remaining eight stations in the District’s initial order of 114 are installed, according to Chris Holben, the District Department of Transportation’s project manager for Capital Bikeshare. Current plans are for another 20 stations to be added by the end of 2011.

Even if I never let one of our dalliances go on for longer than 30 minutes (so as not to accrue any charges on top of the annual membership I’d purchased for the crazy-low introductory price of $50), the bikes never seemed to resent that our entire relationship was driven by my need to be somewhere else very, very soon — if not five minutes ago. I in turn abided their heaviness, their flaky kickstands, their not-quite-big-enough-for-my-gym-bag basket, their only-three-speeds. Nobody gets exactly what they want in a relationship of convenience. And our relationship was very convenient.

That was then. Just over four months after their docks opened for business, the bikes remain an attractive and reliable option for crosstown transit. But they’re no longer perfect.

Perhaps that's because they're spread thin. One blustery, 20-degree afternoon in December, all the bikes at the 16th & Harvard station were checked out. Twenty degrees! Another time, I tried to borrow a bike in front of the Giant on Kenyon Street in Columbia Heights, and it turned me down cold with a red light and a wrong-answer-on-a-game show buzzer — like I was some frat boy in flip-flops and a backwards baseball cap! I know there’s nothing wrong with me. Was it the bike?

"That’s possible, sir," said the bubbly customer service agent who took my aggrieved call from the bike station, assuring me my account remained in good standing.