Red, Red Bike...Stay close to me...

Last night, I made a major purchase. I buyed a year-long pass to use Red Bike - Cincinnati's popular bike-sharing program.

The cost of this pass worked out to only about $6.67/month. And it allows an unlimited number of 1-hour bike trips - for a whole year. Yes, I already have the Peace Bike, but Red Bike recently began offering electric bikes - which comes in handy after the Road Ruiner's motor blew.

My cellphone costs about $50/month, my Internet is $70, and electric probably averages about $80 (for an efficiency apartment, no less). All 3 of these services are owned by large corporate monopolies. And quality of these 3 services ranges from average to terrible. I've also had bad luck with intercity travel companies like Greyhound (also a monopoly) and Delta (which has a monopoly at the Cincinnati airport). But Red Bike - which is a nonprofit, according to its website - costs less than $7/month. So far, my experiences with Red Bike have been positive. This should ream a gaping chasm through the unceasing cries of those who claim that only for-profit services should exist.

Today, I used Red Bike to ride around Cincinnati. Although the pass allows each trip to last an hour before additional charges accrue, you may restart your hour by docking the bike at a Red Bike stand and undocking again. There's a limited number of these stations, and most are clustered together in small areas, but it sufficed for today.

Here's a detailed itinerary for today. The Red Bike stand near my place in Bellevue didn't have any electric bikes when I left this morning, but I found one at the next station - on Riverboat Row. I easily took that across the Purple People Bridge. The end of the bridge had a stand where I restarted my hour. Then I braved the construction gauntlet on US 52 east of downtown.

The only hill I had trouble with today was Collins Avenue. But the bikes I used today were more efficient than the Road Ruiner ever was. I zipped up to Avondale and dropped off the bike at a station. I got a snack and then returned to the station. I think I ended up with the same bike.

I absolutely flew downtown. I shut the motor off on much of Vine Street, since it's steeply downhill. I dropped the bike off at the stand in front of the library downtown. Then I foraged for lunch and rested at Piatt Park for a while.

When I left there, the electric bikes at the library station were gone, so I walked around the block to the stand on 7th and got one there. The battery was very low on this bike. I tried to swap it out at the aforementioned stand at the Purple People Bridge, but there were none available. But this bike managed to make it all the way to the stand where I left from this morning.

Later, I logged on to my Red Bike account, and it estimates that today's trips covered 15 miles and have already saved me $18.45.

Red Bike has so far been usable, and hopefully it'll be allowed to expand outside the few small areas that have it.