Posts Tagged ‘bike sharing systems’

Canadian businessman explores Minneapolis with a Nice Ride bike

Thursday, August 25th, 2011

Jim Bjorkes, a businessman from Vancouver visited Minneapolis recently, and had a fantastic time exploring the city and seeing the many sights. He credits Nice Ride for that—here’s why, in his words.

I took the train into the city from my hotel near the Mall of America, and quickly tired myself out walking from the Metrodome to the trails along the Mississippi. I really wanted to see all of downtown, the University of Minnesota, Target Field and Dinkytown. But I would’ve either had to spend a fortune in cab fare, or wear out my shoes walking miles and miles and getting lost.

Then, I noticed a Nice Ride stand, and although I’d never heard of it, the directions were easy to follow and it seemed like such a fantastic idea that I decided to give it a whirl. SO glad I did. What a deal for five bucks! And such a fantastic system.

The maps at each station made my trek around the city easy, and the bike stations were easy to find and plentiful. The bikes themselves were in great shape, and a lot of fun to ride. I went back and forth over the bridges, the university grounds, along the Mississippi—everywhere I wanted to go, everything I wanted to experience I did thanks to Nice Ride!

I spent about four hours exploring the downtown area, and used about five different stations. Thanks again! I’ll be telling everyone I know about Nice Ride and hopefully one day Vancouver, BC Canada, will adopt the same system. It’d work great in just about any city!

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Silicon Valley business traveler uses Nice Rice, picnic tables to work remotely

Friday, August 5th, 2011

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!

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