Rental Bikes!

So, people have been e-mailing, asking what adventure Ben and I did yesterday afternoon, I guess I made it out to seem to be a more exciting than it actually was, it's my life here people, it's not like President Obama came over for lunch!

Anyway, Ben and I both have bicycles that are in desperate needs of a tune up, and it just hasn't happened this summer to due to the time to get them there, the money to tune them up after the wedding, and a million other excuses. However, yesterday Ben was hankering for a bike ride, so he suggested we try out the new Rental Bikes available in Minneapolis. Because of my hip issues, I told him I couldn't bike, but I'd gladly come along on my rollerblades.

So, we headed to Uptown, and picked up a bike at one of the many rental kiosks around the city. The program is called Nice Ride Minnesota, and it's pretty easy to use. Insert your credit card, get a printed out code, use that code to unlock the bike, and take off.
You can return the bike to any of the stations they have around the city (currently in Uptown, Downtown and the U of M area) and be charged on a daily or half-hourly basis.

Ben Getting Ready to Rock His Bike

So, Ben and I hit the Greenway yesterday to put on some good mileage, and the bike worked great! It wasn't a piece of crap, it was easy for him to ride, and equally easy to return just by locking it back into one of their bike racks. He even rode to the Twins Stadium (yes, you can bike to a Twins game, great way to save money on parking and burn off those hot dog calories before you have them!), while I turned around a bit earlier to be extra careful with my hip injury (the joys!).

I'm so impressed that Minneapolis has taken this initiative to have these affordable and reliable bikes available to the general public. It really shows the initiative this city has to keep people healthy, and also cut down on the number of cars on the street. I wish that more cities would do this, as it's simple things like that that make communities healthier, improve a person's quality of life, and cut down on health care costs for all of us.

Have you tried these rental bikes? If you're outside of the Twin Cities, does your city do something similar?