Monday, September 3, 2018

Why I Prefer Dockless Bikeshare

St Paul, Minnesota
late August, 2018

The space between The Palace Theatre and Great Waters Brewing used to be 7th Street if I have my facts correct.  It has been closed off to traffic.  This makes the que to the venue safer and provides a place to relax although it lacks benches.  The Hamm's Bear statue is here.  But more importantly for me and this blog several Lime Bikes were parked here.  Walk up to one, follow the instructions on the bike to download the app and then point your phone's camera at the sticker on the bike's rear fender and it unlocks and off you go once you set the seat height where you need it.  The lock is the "meter." Unlocked you are being charged, $1 for the first half hour, locked and the meter stops.  The lock looks like a cross between a U-Lock and a rollercam brake from the 80s.  It is on the  seatstays and a red lever is used to send a metal "U" through the rear wheel to lock the bike and prevent it from being ridden.  This stops the fees.  Brilliant.

Basic green yellow bike with a 3 speed Nexus hub with generator hub lights and a basket.  On the left Handlebar where a GripShift would be is a gripshift bell.  Geared well for climbing and flat areas.  The ride was a bit rough on my bum as it felt like I was sitting directly over the rear wheel or a really stiff tire but we were not doing a century.  It did the job well and we enjoyed ourselves.  I will look for these again.  They gave us freedom of travel.

We headed to the river to ride on the trail system there.  And somewhere in a nice neighborhood we heard two cars collide at an intersection we had crossed moments before.  Then the need for a restroom hit and I remember seeing a brewery on Google Maps right off a bike lane.  We headed there, 12 Eyes Brewing Co.  At first I thought it was 12 Elves Brewing Co, a name I will trademark for myself  IF I ever start a brewpub.  Nice taproom in the bottom of a the historic Pioneer Endicott Building that once was the home to a pre-Prohibition saloon.  The taproom is a lounge not a warehouse which helps the acoustics quite a bit.  I had a Hefeweizen, the Heidi Klum, and a brown ale.  Then since our bikes were not rented by anyone else we returned them to The Palace area and sought food for our final meal in St Paul.

I've heard it all before and I understand that the biggest problem with this method of bike share is that users leave bikes everywhere and it becomes a mess.  Other issues is that companies flood cities with these bikes and no human presence exists there to fix broken bikes or deal with issues that arise.  Require people to live in and work in these locations.  Docked bike shares, however, have specific bike racks to leave the bike when one is done with them and have a visible human presence to take care of the bikes.  BUT those docks are few and not where people really want to be and until the bike is returned to the dock fees accumulate.  So if you want to ride to 12 Eyes Brewing and have an hour pint session if on a bicycle you have a choice to park a bike at the taproom that will charge you for non-ride time or a bike that does not.  I prefer not to pay while not riding.  Essentially, there needs to be more bicycle parking/racks.  Require dockless bike share companies to donate racks or perhaps the city and businesses need to do this.  "Hey, there appears to be a lot of bicycles spending money at my business perhaps I should help my customers."

The point of this that we were able to go where we wanted to go without being, pardon the pun, docked to the dock.  When I ride bicycles that I own I do not have certain places to park them and walk another mile to where I want to be.  It is a bicycle not a car.


No comments:

Post a Comment