I've been very skeptical that this would work and I guess I still am but I've been pleasantly surprised to find quite a few people tooling around on these things today. It's not even that nice of day.

I was going to try one out but the kiosk (solar powered) said that they won't take debit cards so I was out of luck. You can get a 24 hour subscription for $5.00 + $250 security deposit which lets you use any number bikes any number of times in that 24 hour period.

They actively discourage long trips with "trip charges". If you bring the bike to another kiosk (or back to the same one) within 30 minutes, there are no trip charges. You can take the bike right back out of the kiosk again and go for another 30 minutes without trip charges. My guess is that this is to limit the possibility of theft. The kiosks are all over the place and they'd rather have you park it in a kiosk to go have dinner or shop than leave it someplace else.

The bikes themselves have lights, nexus 3 speeds, and a small front rack for cargo. The only adjustment is seat height.

The also have monthly and yearly subscriptions. You get a little fob or something with those to speed checkout. A year's subscription is $60. I'm not sure what it costs per month. The bike shop that my group ride is operated out of assembled over 700 of these. Supposedly there's a thousand.