Jonathan and I recently took a multi-modal San Francisco trip. On Saturday, Sept. 28, we rode down into San Francisco aboard Golden Gate Transit’s Route 101.
With bike helmets strapped to our backpacks and having packed our reflective vests, we were all set to try Bay Wheels Bikes rental via the Lyft app. This photo was taken at the Steuart Street at Market Street station near the San Francisco Ferry Building.
Handling the bikes felt unfamiliar at first. The step-through frames had cargo baskets in front so they were weighted and balanced differently from what we were normally used to: which is diamond-frame with rear trunk bag with or without rear panniers. But as we rode, we became more used to handling the rental bikes.
We discovered that bike rental works best when used for short, maybe 15-minute, rides, and we grew accustomed to using a station-map to check for bikes or spaces to dock.
We were able to slip easily along the San Francisco waterfront past a glut of pedestrians at the area’s most “touristy” attractions. We also felt safe biking in the San Francisco road-way due to “critical mass;” there were a lot of other cyclists in the bike lane.
The experience was not without its stressors: the final dock where we stashed our bikes failed to register ride’s-end, so our Lyft apps continued to show an escalation of time and ticking meter of supposed bike-use. It took 48 hours, but eventually the matter was resolved to our satisfaction.
Altogether, our SF bike-rental experience was interesting, fun, and educational. We will consider Bay Wheels Bikes rental for another San Francisco trip.
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