My first Bike Share experience
 

About 10 days ago a new bike sharing system was put in place in our city. Today was my first chance to try it. Attempting to use an American Express card to get a bike seemed to completely befuddle the kiosk. If I had looked closer I would have realized they don't take American Express but it would have been nice if the Kiosk software had acted in a sane manor when I tried it.

Swiping a Visa card made it happy. Their fee structure really encourages you to leave the bike at another kiosk rather than trying to lock/leave it some place else. As long as your trips between kiosks are less than 30 minutes you can use the bikes as often as you want all day for $5.00

The website shows you a map of the kiosk locations and how many bikes and open slots are available at each one. The kiosk where I got my bike is right outside our building and there was another one less than 2 blocks from my destination. There's a lot of kiosks but they're concentrated in the middle of the city. There aren't any out in the residential area that I live in.

As I was riding I thought it would be great if the bike themselves could show you a map of where you were and the locations of the nearest kiosks. Technically possible I suppose but wouldn't survive the inevitable vandalism. Anyway, I did discover that there's an iphone/blackberrry/android app called spotcycle that does the same thing. Very Cool!

The bikes themselves are very different from what I'm used to and I felt a little weird riding them because of that. One problem I see is that there's only a small rack on the front for carrying stuff. Shopping with them could be a challenge. Other than that they're very serviceable bikes for shorter distances. Three speed Nexus hubs, fenders, chain/skirt guards and lights.

How is the bike itself in terms of riding experience? Is it heavy? Wooden feel? Gear shift (if equipped), balance... etc. There was a trial here in Vancouver. However that fizzled away with no conclusion.

Welcome to the world of bike sharing!

Denver's recently introduced system is awesome. A high density of stations combined with pretty much the same pricing structure encourages bike "sharing" and not bike "renting." Or at least, that's what they told us. You can see a map at the B-Cycle website: http://denver.bcycle.com/

Looking at the photos of your guys' bikes, the front rack really does look useless.

Compare it to the large size of the baskets on Denver's b-cycles:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3503/...7c5d842fb1.jpg

Bike sharing is awesome, and I've already used Denver's enough to sign up for the annual student membership at $45/year ($65/year if you're not a student). There's a station two blocks from my house, so a friend will come over without a bike and we'll go the station near by and check out bikes so we can both ride to downtown.

Denver's bikes are heavy. I think they weigh 50-ish pounds. They have a three speed nexus gear shift which works quite well. The front fork actually has a spring in it to help maintain balance when the front basket is loaded down. You can sit at a stop light with your hands off the handlebars and a full load of groceries won't tilt the handlebars. The feel is just fine for a bike designed for short trips. Sure, they're no speed demons, but then again, you're not exactly expected to ride the bike more than a few miles at a time.

I don't know the weight of the Minnesota bikes but I'm assuming they're in the same neighborhood (50 lbs). They're heavy anyway.

I'm actually tempted to disqualify myself from commenting on them altogether since I'm used to a road bike and these are... umm... much different than a road bike.

On the positive side, they are solid and well balanced. There weren't any squeaks or groans. The 3 speed gearing is adequate for the flat terrain. The lights are probably good enough to be seen but I don't think they're going to help you see anything. They're painted a neon green so they're quite visible which is both good and bad. As a semi-roadie, you'd think I'd not be too concerned about standing out but I felt like I was getting a lot of looks, especially from other cyclists who are naturally curious about these things. I feel more invisible in my most gaudy primal jersey and spandex shorts.

Like I said, the rack is small. There's a bungy cord that you can use to secure items. I imagine it would be plenty good for a purse and it worked well enough for my 13" laptop in its small bag.

So for longer rides, this is somewhat expensive... $6 for each addition half hour?

It's not quite that bad. The first 30 minutes is free. The next 30 is $1.50, then it starts going up. After 90 minutes they starting dinging you for $6.00 every 30 minutes. Trust me, you're really not going to want to ride these for more than an hour at a shot anyway.

I'm kind of struggling with who the intended market is. If you live in or near downtown in a small condo/apartment where storing a bike is a hassle, I could see how a $60 a year subscription could make a lot of sense. Same with a university student. Rather than subject your own bike to the abuse of being in a bike rack all the time, you can just use one of these for a relatively cheap price.

I can see a visitor to the city wanting to take longer trips from downtown out to the lakes, the sculpture garden, or even uptown. Having to constantly be on the lookout for a kiosk to check them in to would make that a little more complicated.

Well, these are bike sharing systems, and not bike rental systems. B-Cycle explained it to us that they'd rather you rent a bike from a bike shop for something that you'll need for a few hours.

Looking at nice ride MN's fare structure, its graduated.
$1.50 for the first extra half hour, $3.00 for the second extra half hour, and $6.00 for each half hour after that. All rides under 30 minutes are free.

Both MN's and Denver's system allow you to check the bike back in and check it right back out at a station to get another 30 minutes if you need it. Really, these bikes should almost never leave the core areas where the density of the bike stations makes it hard to have it out for longer than 30 minutes.

This was brought up when B-Cycle was coming around Denver. They want tourists to rent bikes from a proper shop rather than the bike share bikes.

That makes perfect sense but unfortunately in Minneapolis there's no place downtown that I know of that rents bikes. The rental places are near the recreation areas.

Does it come with some sort of lock to accommodate destinations without kiosks.
I believe Bike Share didn't or hasn't taken off is because helmet is mandatory when operating bicycle in Vancouver.

No lock. I thought they might provide a way to lock the wheels at least. The whole thing is set up to move from kiosk (or station) to kiosk. There are quite a few stations otherwise it wouldn't work.

There's a sign saying they encourage helmet use. Based on what I've seen, I'm guessing a lot of the people that have checked out the bikes so far have done it on a whim. Requiring a helmet would definitely curtail that type of usage.

Checking out a bike is completely automated. These aren't manned stations so providing a helmet and/or lock would make it more difficult.

I have wondered if the bikes are fitted with some sort of homing device that would allow them to be recovered if they were "lost". There's a $250 charge made to your credit card as a deposit. You are later credited that amount back.

Denver's bikes have locks :)

They have a built in cable that allows you to wrap it around something, and once you insert the cable into the side of the basket, a key pops out. $10 fee for loss of key.

Denver's bikes also have GPS and can be tracked from B-Cycle headquarters.

No deposit here, but you get charged $1,000 if the bike isn't returned in 72 hours.

I am jealous of Minneapolis' system though. There appears to be more stations, more bikes and above all, your infrastructure is better.

I like the Yehuda Moon plan of just putting bikes on racks and not locking them up, free to whoever...

That seems pretty sweet. It looks like there is a pretty good density of stations so having a bike out for more then 30-60 minutes seems pretty unlikely.

How do they make sure that certain stations do not either go empty or overcrowded to the point there no spots to park the bike? I guess they can track it and have a guy with a truck who can transfer bikes if needed?

The problem I see with that is two-fold:
1) Most people don't appreciate something they get for free... why bother taking care of a bike and treating it good if you can just go grab another free one?
2) As in the comic: people just flat out stealing the bikes and then trying to sell them.

A lot of places have bicycle collectives or co-ops where you can get a bike for either free or very cheap... most of them teach you how to maintain it... and many have you build it up yourself from the individual parts. That way you didn't get it 'free'.... you put your time and energy into it, so you're going to do your best to take care of it.

The Montreal ones are popular with commuters who take the Metro(subway) or bus for most of their journey to downtown. then use a Bixi for the final few blocks. A couple of weeks ago I left work at 9.30 pm and saw several tourists riding Bixis on an unlit bikepath and the lights were more than adequate for their modest speed. The front rack is just a tubular loop arrangement, which would require bungees to hold packages down, but I have seen it being used as a child seat without any problem.

I did this in Copenhagen a few years ago. I wanted to take a bike out a few times but could never find one at the kiosks. I finally did find one and I took it out. It rode like a lead weight but overall it was a pleasant experience being able to ride around with all the other cyclists there, and there are a LOT of cyclists there. The cyclists outnumber the cars. The final note to this story is that it was World Cup week (just like now) and I went into a bar and didn't lock the bike up or put it back in the kiosk. I wasn't in there for long, I was just bringing a beer outside, but the bike was gone. Oh well. In Copenhagen there are bikes parked everywhere and I would think theft isn't a problem so I don't attribute this to theft as much as another drunken guy needing a way home.

I was surprised last night when I left work to see that the station at my building had completely disappeared! Well, not completely. It turns out they'd moved it about half a block to where there's a gap between buildings. I'm guessing they did that so the solar panels would get more direct sunlight. That could have been why the kiosk was acting flaky when I first tried my American Express. It kept resetting itself. Maybe there wasn't enough juice.

I'm not an expert in photovoltaics so I might run it by some guys at work but the panels they're using seem undersized. If they're having trouble in June, it doesn't bode well for November.

I read an article that alot of the bike share bicycles in Paris get vandalised and found its way to Africa. How far is Minneapolis to Mexico? ;)

FYI -One on One does. Swobo's - I was just in there and a guy was returning one after a week of riding for $100. Included helmet and repair kit.

I'm looking forward to trying the Bixi system in a coupel of weeks - I'm going to be visiting Montreal :)

I was in Melbourne, Australia last week and they were just launching such a scheme. I don't know if the whole thing wasn't just a plan to lure tourists into fines, because they have a mandatory helmet law in Victoria, and there was nothing on the detailed instructions on how to use the system that it was illegal if you don't have a helmet.

..

http://www.sustainablecobourg.ca/graphics/bixi_bike.jpg

..