Doug Kiner of Mountain View, Calif., recently visited Minneapolis with a few colleagues for a business conference downtown. He and his colleagues all used Nice Ride bicycles as their main mode of transportation during their time here. On behalf of the group, Doug shares his story below.
I recently returned from a work trip to Minneapolis, and wanted to share how much my colleagues and I enjoyed Nice Ride – what a great system! We were staying at the Hyatt and the Hilton downtown during a conference that was held at the Minneapolis Convention Center. A waitress that served us one night started telling us about the Uptown area and that it might be a fun place to visit. One of my colleagues suggested that we use the Nice Ride bikes.
The next day, we went to the Downtown YMCA station, followed the instructions, rented the Nice Ride bikes, and took off down Hennepin Avenue. We rode down to the Lake Street and Humboldt Station, docked the bikes, and grabbed a cup of coffee at Caribou Coffee.
After coffee, we grabbed our bikes again and rode down to and around Lake Calhoun. While we were riding around the lake, we realized that we had a conference call that we had forgotten about, so we pulled over and used one of the picnic tables as our ad-hoc “conference room.” The photo depicts me and one of my colleagues deep in thought as we “conferenced” on my cell phone.
We then rode through the Uptown area, docked the bikes at the Lake Street and Lyndale station, and had lunch at Stella’s Fish Cafe. After lunch, we grabbed some bikes from the Lake and Humboldt station again, and rode back to our starting point at the YMCA Downtown Station.
We had a blast, and in large part due to Nice Ride! It was so convenient, well documented, and with the Nice Ride stations located so conveniently, it really made our excursion enjoyable and convenient (not to mention healthy). The next morning, since it was still within my 24-hour rental period, I grabbed another Nice Ride bike, and pedaled over to the downtown FedEx/Kinko’s location and took care of some business there.
I wish we had a system like Nice Ride in Silicon Valley!
Tags: bike sharing, bike sharing systems, Nice Ride, Nice Ride MN
