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| - Whoever came up with BIXI, and the idea of bike-sharing, is a genius! Every city on Earth should be mandated to come up with their own system if its citizens don't commute by bike, and New York is finally catching on with their Citibike plans!
Back to BIXI in Montreal. For those of you who have no idea how bike-sharing works (including me pre-Montreal) there are stations all over the city where you could insert your credit card (no cash) in a machine, pay, get an unlocking code, punch it in next to the bike you want, and pull out a bike from the docking station. My friends got one while visiting Parc Jean-Drapeau on Île Sainte-Hélène and, as a testament to how crazy I am, I also got one with them in spite of taking a learn-to-bike class the week before! I know what you're thinking- how could a grown woman in her late twenties not know how to ride a bike???? Long story short: learned to bike for one summer as a kid, never tried it again until college, fell on second attempt because I didn't know how to use the brakes. The end.
But not the end of my review: I was nervous since I was a fresh newbie who had recently discovered bike riding, and could tell other newbies a few things about the BIXI bikes. First, the bike is HEAVY. Second, there are three gears that I had no idea how to work, and was pedaling wildly at gear 1 while moving at a snail's pace. Gear 3 required the most leg strength, but that was what I was comfortable with. Also, there was a basket to put my bag in, with a cord to hold it in the basket, and a bell.
About the BIXI system: we paid $5 for 24-hour use, but that doesn't mean you can hold on to the same bike for 24 hours straight. You have a half an hour with one bike, must return it to the station, wait 5 minutes, get another code with your credit card (without being charged again) and get another bike...and repeat for 24 hours. You'll pay an extra charge if you hold on to the same bike for more than 30 minutes. My friends and I decided to hold on to our bikes for an hour and a half, knowing about the extra charge (which amounted to USD $12 for the total cost of renting the bike) so we could enjoy riding around without worrying about making it back in a half an hour. That wasn't a problem. The real problem is when the bike docks are full, with no places to return your bikes, and that's the reason why I deducted 2 stars with no regrets.
A quote from the montreal.bixi.com website:
"What do I do if there are no empty bike docks when I want to return my bike?
You can obtain an additional 15 minutes free of charge from the pay station. This should give you enough time to return your bike to a nearby bike station."
Ummm... what if the other two on the island are also full?? Well, in that case, you're screwed! Lady Luck of Montreal was truly on my side because, when the four of us arrived, my friends went to get an extension while I stood near the bikes, dazed and confused, then a guy near me pulled out a bike, so I was able to successfully return mine in its place. As for the others, they waited.... and waited.... and waited, as well as other bikers who approached the docking station with their bikes and waited.... and waited... and waited.... To make another long story short: All 3 of my friends needed a second round of extensions, Friend #1 managed to return her bike without being charged again, Friend #2 ran out of extensions and was charged another fee before he could return his bike, and Friend #3 was the unluckiest friend of all. Not only was he charged another fee because he ran out of extensions, he also had to ride around to see if there were places at the other two stations where he could return his bike. We were waiting for so, so, soooooo long for someone to just take out a damn bike from the damn docking station so my friend could return his. And he wasn't the only one: the people that came after him to return their bikes also had to ride around, desperate. I got into a conversation with a friendly Montreal resident who told me that it was never like that, that the BIXI company would usually come and clear away some of the docks, and she called them but they told her they "weren't coming." Nothing short of a fiasco.
The moral of this story is: never get a BIXI bike on an island where there are only three docking stations (or do so at your own risk!) because, like I said, if they're full when you want to return them, well, you're screwed! But off the island and in the city: BIXI is a brilliant stroke of genius!
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