It Turns Out Citi Bike Handlebars Have 50 Times More Germs Than New York City Subway Poles

Men’s Health- If you don’t want to scrub your entire body clean after walking around a major American city, well, maybe you should. In an episode of Gross from Men’s Health, editor-in-chief Matt Bean used a handheld germ counter to swab a number of surfaces in New York City, including a Starbucks door handle, a taxicab handle, a door knob at Grand Central Terminal, and a city-sponsored Internet kiosk. The device ranks how germy the surface of an item is, depending on the bacteria and biological material it finds. The lower the rating, the fewer germs it has. If something gets a rating of 50, it shouldn’t touch your food.

So what did Bean find? Germs. Lots of them. The title for the grossest public object in New York City goes to Citi Bikes. Turns out, the handlebars on these communal bikes are less hygienic than the hold bars on subway trains—45 times germier to be exact. “These things 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 says.

Here are the results for the other objects Bean tested:

1. Citi Bike handlebar – 1,512

2. Starbucks door handle – 1,090

3. LinkNYC kiosk – 807

4. Taxi handle – 424

5. Grand Central door knob – 45

6. Subway hold bars – 35

First the entire city rejoices over news that the MetroCard is going to be dead as fuck in a few years and now it turns out that the subway isn’t the most filthy surface in this concrete jungle of misery. Not even close actually. Have yourself a day MTA! And maybe this kid can come back from Shutter Island or wherever his parents banished him to.

The first thing I thought of after the subway pole mumbo jumbo was that Feitelberg should call off his war against the cyclists this very instant. It will stop him from getting thrown into Twitter jail every week and those crunchy, dirty hipsters will be dead once they contract ebola of the ass from their handlebars. For any cyclists reading this, do not come at me. I’m just the messenger. Maybe throw some soap on your paws when you wash them before riding your bike and hose that bitch down with some Purell once you are done. And don’t go to Starbucks for your coffee, those door handles are fucking DISGUSTING. Maybe buy a nice refreshing Dunkin Cold Brew instead. #VivaLaDunkin

As for anybody that touched one of those LinkNYC internet kiosks on the street, you deserve everything that comes to you. I’m talking gonorrhea, the herp, AIDS. Those places were hobo beat off dens the millisecond the city installed them. No real shock about the taxi stuff. In fact, I bet a taxi’s door handle is the most sanitary thing in those yellow death machines. The seat, the leather handle nobody uses, the plexiglass window taken right from a peep show booth from 1970s Times Square. All definitely filled to the gills with germs.

I refuse to talk shit about Grand Central because it is my home base for commuting to and fro Winterfell. But there is noooooo way it has more germs than that cesspool known as Penn Station. Then again, I think sleeping homeless people keep all of the doors open 24/7, so you never technically have to touch a door knob there.

P.S. A friendly reminder that the subway is definitely still a disgusting nightmare, regardless of what this report says.

P.P.S. This is definitely the face my computer made when it saw I was reading an article on Men’s Health