Don't Buy a Bike - Borrow One!: Tip-of-the-Day #265

A colleague just turned me on to The Bay Area Bike Share. It is the first formal bike sharing system in the San Francisco Bay Area, with 700 bikes and 70 stations across San Francisco, Redwood City, Mountain View, Palo Alto, and San Jose. The fleet of specially designed, heavy-duty, very durable bikes are locked into a network of docking stations located throughout the region. I just found one such station three blocks from my office but they are ALL over the financial district. Bikes can be rented from and returned to any station in the system, and bikes are available for use 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
How cool is that??

To use the system, you have to become a member; options include an Annual membership for $88 (I've spent more on a cab, fyi), a 3-Day membership for $22, a 24-Hour membership for $9, or pay-by-month for an Annual membership for just $99 paid in installments of $8.25/month.

This is neat for so many reasons. I've been considering buying a bike for a while to see if I would enjoy commuting to work in that way. But, I was worried if I bought a bike and didn't like riding it, I'd be throwing out hundreds of dollars. Problem solved, now!

Check out bayareabikeshare.com and give it a whirl! I'm gonna. Wheeeeee!