Nice Ride Minnesota

I was staying at the Hilton on Marquette and there was a Nice Ride location conveniently located directly across the street from the lobby. I was lucky enough to spend a week in Minneapolis where the weather was amazing! I paid $ 6 as a rental fee, and then $ 3 each additional half hour. The bikes are clunky/​heavy but I understand that all programs like this is various cities have pretty heavy bikes. Thanks to a posted map at the Nice Ride location, I understood what direction to take to get the river. I ended up on some nice bike trails along that river that led me to Mill Ruins park. The bike had three gears and worked well for its purpose. The kickstand held the bike fine when I needed a break. I stumbled across a street party at the top of some stairs, but the bike is much too heavy to bring up stairs to my dismay. That is the one bummer. It would also be cool if bike rental stations offered clorox/​purell wipes for the handles. The price was reasonable and I would easily use this service again.

When in Minnesota…
RIDE A BIKE! Who would’ve thunk it?! Of all people, ME, telling people that if there’s one thing you do (if it’s not freezing cold, of course) in Minnesota, you ride the Nice Ride Minnesota’s bikes. When my Unilocal Minneapolis friends suggested via my Talk thread that I ride a bike, not gonna lie, I scoffed. Shame on me.
To be honest, I don’t know what got into me. Literally, when sitting around in our hotel room, I blurted out to my husband — «Let’s go ride bikes.» Mind you, it was less than 40 degrees, the sun was going down in prob a half hour, and I wasn’t even sure I remembered what to do on a bike. (I haven’t ridden a bike prob since I was twelve.) But, true to form as they say, you NEVER forget how to ride a bike. I was jamming! I felt twelve again and rode all over the city with my husband.
Ok, enough about me, let’s go over the Nice Ride Minnesota’s awesomeness. There are bike stations ALL OVER THE CITY. It’s the best. And to make matters even better, there’s an awesome app that you can use to locate all the bike stations and track your timer. (Here’s a link to the app:
) If you aren’t a resident of MN, you prob are like me and only need a 24-​hr pass which is $ 6. Basically, you can use the bike in 30-​min intervals for FREE. You can stop and reset your timer at a bike station any time before your 30-​min expires by returning your bike and immediately issuing yourself another bike for another 30-​min before you can say, humuhumunukunukuapua’a (haha that’s the Hawaii state fish, no joke)! The bikes themselves are easy to ride (trust me, I am not a bike rider by any means), easily adjustable seats, and bike lights that light up when you are peddling.
I could go on and on about this nostalgic experience that I had riding a bike all over Minneapolis. Yes, I panicked when the timer got close to expiring (7 minutes means get dramatic, haha) because I’m so cheap. (My husband knows how crazy I am.) But the stations are so easy to find — so just enjoy yourself. I seriously had the time of my life and didn’t care how stupid I looked or that we rode right into strip club central (oops!). This is the BEST way to see the city and even wished that I had more time to get my bike on, haha.

What a great bike sharing program this is. The bike locations were convenient, and the bikes were safe, clean and well maintained. I rented a bike for a week for $ 15 during a business trip. Unfortunately, the weather sort-​of turned, so I was only able to use it for one evening, but I was able to enjoy a bike ride along the river. I highly recommend this healthy and environmentally sound means for transportation in the downtown St. Paul area… weather permitting of course.

Nice and easy, lots of bikes available, lots of stations, decently priced! Compares well with the Nashville bike share and Chicago, great way to see a city!

if u cycle, want a bike in this city, this is fantastic. simple, great prices, quality bikes. on par w nashville, chicago (actually better than chicago).
higly recommended, better way to see more in a shorter time period.

Great service. I’m about halfway into my free month membership trial and have been finding excuses to use Nice Ride as much as possible. It’s great for people who live in dense areas like downtown and uptown, but Nice Ride is noticeably absent from certain areas of St. Paul, like the East Side, and Greater East Side.
The bikes have 3 speeds, but aren’t exactly the fastest. If you also own your own bike, you might think these bikes are as slow as molasses. I was topping out on the Greenway wishing for more gears.
It would be nice if the bikes came with a lock and key and/​or combo for the times you want to ride quick to the store, but there isn’t a nice ride station anywhere nearby.
Overall, I’m happy nice ride is around, and hope to see them expand to the suburbs.

Just used Nice Ride for the first time. Bought a 30 day pass online and was bummed that I couldn’t use the bike right away. You’re supposed to wait 2 – 3 days for your key card to come in the mail. So, I caved and bought a $ 6 pass at one of the stations so I could ride that day to the Irish festival in Lowertown. Well. .. I left my phone at home while at the Irish festival, and when I returned I saw a Welcome email from Nice Ride saying «Hey, if you want to ride before you get your key card in the mail, let us know and we’ll give you a free coupon code.» Ugh.. . I just spent $ 6! So I called Nice Ride and told them that I just paid $ 6 for the day, not knowing there was a coupon code option. The customer service rep was SUPER nice and immediately refunded my $ 6. She said that I can continue to get coupon codes until my key card arrives. Excellent customer service, which makes me happy about my decision of buying a 30 day Nice Ride pass.

Green
Bike share
Cruisers for
A fun and cheap
Way to explore. Six bucks for a full day.

Rented a bike and toured St Paul including Harriet Island. Just six bucks if you return every half hour. Wish I had a helmet though.

Super easy, environmentally friendly, and fun. $ 6 for 24 hrs on these bad boys is one heck of a bargain… especially in such a bike friendly city.
The bikes are a little heavy and don’t have that many gears, but overall it’s an awesome service that I hope comes to my hometown soon.

Nice Ride was a great way to see the city as a tourist, and I’m not even the kind of person who really enjoys riding bikes.
It’s easy enough to use — pop in your credit card, get a code, punch it in the bike stand, and take off on your bike. If you’re frugal and ambitious, you can manage to only pay the daily fee by returning your bike to another station and checking it out again every 30 minutes. But that can take a lot of planning, and we had sights to see, so instead we took ours on 2 60 minute rides, meaning we paid $ 6 for the 24hours and $ 1.50 for each ride. So $ 9 for a couple hours of riding across the city.
The bikes are cruisers. And they’re meant to be used by all sorts of people, so while I could adjust my seat for my long legs, it kept sliding down. The bikes have 3 gears so you can make it up the ramps and hills if you know what you’re doing.

Nice Ride is awesome. They need one of these in every city.
In Minneapolis for the weekend, my friends and I had some spare time to kill, so we went bike riding. One of the Nice Ride bike stations was located next to our hotel. For only $ 6, you can rent a bike and ride it around the city. Minneapolis is very biker-​friendly, several streets having bike lanes.
The rental process is simple. Just swipe your credit card at the kiosk and you’ll be given a 5-​digit unlock code to release one of any of the bikes at your station. All of the bikes are the same. The only thing that can be adjusted is the seat height, which is pretty easy to do. From the stations I saw, each station carries anywhere from about 10 – 20 bikes. Each bike has a bell, hand brakes, and can shift up to 3 gears.
$ 6 is the subscription fee. If you hold onto a bike for longer than 30 minutes, additional trip charges are incurred. However, if you find another Nice Ride station and «check-​in,» you don’t incur any trip charges. Ergo, you can ride around for virtually an unlimited amount of time for only $ 6 if you remember to check-​in to a Nice Ride station at least once every 30 minutes. You return the bike as you normally would then re-​swipe your credit card to check out another bike for free — the system remembers you by your credit card.
Be sure to grab a Nice Ride map so you can see where all the stations are. Beware when riding with a group. We had 7 in our group and when we walked to one of the stations, there were only 6 bikes. Luckily, a couple rode up and returned some bikes so we ultimately ended up OK. There’s also the situation where you can ride up to a station and there won’t be enough empty slots to return your bikes. I think these are some reasons why Nice Ride encourages frequent check-​ins.
Riding through the streets of downtown between the skyscrapers and over the bridges of the Mississippi River are must-​dos. Have fun!

Why walk when you can Nice Ride? It’s a great municipal service that’s useful to both locals and tourists. After the first summer, they’ve worked out a few logistical kinks so it’s even more user-​friendly. They’ve also expanded to St Paul so you guys don’t have to feel left out!
Five dollars nets you a twenty-​four hour membership and as many half-​hour rides as you can squeeze into it. You pay additional fees for rides longer than a half-​hour since Nice Rides are more for commuting than for 20 mile rides. That seems restrictive but it’s not!
What can you do in a half hour ride?
1. You can bike from one part of downtown to another to meet up for lunch with your downtown friends.
2. You can bike and park over again as a kind of Tour to Minneapolis since most of the stations are near some point of interest (Walker museum, Target Field, Lake Calhoun, etc)
3. You can bike in a dress or skirt since there’s no obstructive top tube.
4. You can bike with your family since they’re adjustable for most heights.
5. You can park for free somewhere in NE and bike down to Target Field for a baseball game; you get a workout and instead of paying $ 20 for parking you can buy, like, three hot dogs!
The bikes are certainly overbuilt; they’re like the minivans of bikes. So take time and smell the roses, enjoy that Minnesotan summer! The maintenance is also very consistent; I always see Nice Ride folks around the city and checking up on the stations.
Even though I own a bike, I’ve found myself using Nice Ride when the old Bianchi’s not around. They fill that niche where «It’s too far to walk, but not far enough to drive.» I feel proud of Minneapolis for encouraging cycling through services like this.

Nice Ride is awesome… and Minneapolis is the perfect type of city to offer this service. Getting around town can be time consuming on foot, and can get expensive if you try to cab it or drive and park. Perfect solution? (During warm months at least…) Bike it!
We only utilized Nice Ride on one day of our trip to Minneapolis, but we were wishing we had used it more. After the initial payment for the bike rental, undocking and docking was a breeze. The stations are fairly plentiful — although I do wish there was an easier way to find the next station. Even their station map was incorrect in showing the location nearest to the Guthrie and we were forced to spend 10 minutes circling looking for one.
The bike wasn’t the greatest bike I’ve ever been on– when trying to bike up a relatively small hill, I didn’t think the bike was gonna make it! Also, thought it was hilarious how folks on foot would occasionally yell «Nice Ride!» at us as we biked past.
I highly suggest utilizing this service — wish Detroit had one just like it!

I am a huge fan of Nice Ride. These should be in every city.
Minus a ½ star because the bikes are slow, heavy and clunky. I know they need to be cheap, durable, and easy to maintain, but I hope someone can develop a slightly better design. These suckers had a turning radius akin to an 18-​wheeler (relative to each’s size.)
Minus another ½ star because there was no option to rent a helmet. I did feel pretty safe riding without one in Minne, though. Drivers seemed aware of and courteous to cyclists, even the slow-​moving Nice Rides. I only had one driver nearly hit me (speeded up and cut me off in order to make a right turn), and he at least had the decency to look sheepish and see that I was ok before speeding off. Lots of bike lanes, too, although not always where you’d expect them (some on right, some on left.)
But I had a blast with these… I literally covered all of Downtown Minne during my 36-​hour stay in the City. I took the light rail (Hiawatha Line, currently the only line, I believe) right into downtown, walked 8 blocks to my hotel, and used Nice Ride the rest of the time I was there.
Cost — $ 50 deposit (refunded within a few days) + $ 5/​day fee +a couple more bucks because I once kept the bike for more than a ½ hour.
The fees are tiered to encourage short-​term use: If you return it to another Nice Ride docking station within 30 min, you pay nothing above the $ 5/​day fee. If you keep it 30 – 60 min, it’s something like $ 1.50. 60 – 90 min is something like $ 4. Over 90 min gets expensive. While it sounds like a pain, it’s really not. The stations are all over Downtown, usually no more than 4 blocks apart. So you will pass a couple before your 30 min are up. Return it, and take another one and go. After the 2^nd time you check out a bike, you’ll have the hang of it, and it only takes about 2 – 3 min to swap one bike and take another. They also have a little rack and bungee cord strap on the handlebars, so you can strap in a purse or small bag or backpack.
If you’re a local needing a quick trip from A to B, or a visitor who’ll be happy pedaling around with a slightly clunky version of a beach cruiser, I highly recommend these. On a budget? Only there for a day or so? This is an excellent way to go.
If you want a more serious bike for some distance riding, then I recommend One on One Bicycle Studio in the North Loop. They rent real bikes, locks, helmets and related gear (I didn’t rent a bike here, but I did enjoy their coffee and picked up some gear — I reviewed them, too.)

Phenomenal! Should be in every city.
We were in town from Friday-​Tuesday and opted not to get a rental car and Nice Ride made it possible to get around much of the city without a car, while getting exercise and saving money. There are a ton of bike returns all over the city. $ 5 per 24 hours and you have 30 minutes to get to another station without any additional charges. It’s almost like a fun game just trying to keep your trip under 30 minutes. You can instantly check your bike back out once you check it in.
They may not get you right to your destination and you might have to walk a few blocks, but much quicker than walking the whole way and cheaper than a taxi.
The bikes are a little heavy and only have 3 speeds, so don’t get too crazy like we did trying to go too far like St. Paul. Doable, but starts to lose some of the enjoyment.
Where we went on our bikes…
Day 1: Sculpture garden, Uptown for dinner
Day 2: Lake Calhoun
Day 3: University area, up and down the river, Guthrie, even to Summit/​Grand Ave in St. Paul,

Found out how the trip fees work, 2 days after writing my review, because of the confusing fee details I had initially hesitated to post my Nice Ride review until I knew for sure how it worked, but it was such a nice resource that I felt overly eager to share it with people. Hopefully my review didn’t mislead anyone and if it did I’m terribly sorry.
Anyway’s it turns out that it is not free to ride, the 30 minute no fee period is actually reffering to the trip fee that kicks in if the bike isn’t returned to another station in 30 minutes. So essentially you need to pay 5 bucks for a day subscription and while you can use it all day you will need to check it in and out of nice ride stations every 30 minutes to avoid trip fees. In my case this turns out to be a $ 20.00 lesson, not as bad as it could be but it is enough to buy a real good steak so I’m a little bummed. I don’t expect something for nothing but for the brief 1 way trips I took that didn’t even take 8 minutes each I feel that is a bit too much.
While Nice Ride is still an excellent, and affordable resource for getting around Downtown, the requirement of a $ 5.00 day long subscription fee makes it less practical for many situations, after all that is more than a bus or train ride, 50 cents is all it costs to ride public transportation in the «Downtown Zone». If you’re only going to ride the bike once or twice in a day for only 8 — 10 minutes each time, which is how far away most places Downtown are from one another on a bike, you shouldn’t have to pay 5 bucks for it, they should offer a rental at a lower cost for these types of rides.
It definetely has it’s place though, and if you’re exploring Downtown, or would be needing the bike many times throughout the day it’s not a bad deal. However unless you’ve got no other way to get to where you need to be in the time you need to be there, I think for short one way trips you’re better off just walking when it comes to most Downtown destinations, biking will only cut you’re trip time by 50 — 60 percent. It only takes 15 minutes to walk from one end to another Downtown, if you have time it is alot of fun anyway.

If you don’t want to purchase a bike or are in town for a visit, Nice Ride is a great option. I found getting around Minneapolis fairly easy, but this was a nice added convenience; especially in such a bike-​friendly city.
The concept is simple; choose a subscription period, swipe your card, get a code and ride; when you’re done, return the bike to any Nice Ride station. If you choose the 24-​hour subscription period, your card will get hit with a $ 50 refundable deposit. There are signs on the kiosks about this, noting it may take several business days for a bank to release the hold on your on a debit card. My advice: use a credit card whenever possible.
The bikes aren’t trendy, fancy, or light; you won’t become the next Lance Armstrong riding them. What you will find are apple green 3-​speed cruisers with bells, lights and a small basket — perfect for quick trips or a little exploring. The bikes can be stored at other nice ride stations, otherwise you’ll need to bring your own lock to secure it elsewhere.
At first we were a bit perplexed about the two-​pronged pricing. The first piece of the pricing is the subscription fee, which is a flat amount based on the subscription term. You can get a 24-​hour, 30-​day, and 1-​year subscription, with 24-​hours being only $ 5. The second component, the trip fees, is where we were a little perplexed, they only kick in when you’re actually using the bike. The longer you ride, the more expensive it is per half hour. This is to encourage short-​term use and to keep bikes in circulation; rides up to 30 minutes have no trip fee.
I wish they had a weekend subscription option, they could even charge a slightly higher deposit for the convenience. I’d also like to see better signage. There isn’t much alerting you to the nearest station, we either searched out the ones we encountered or happened on them. It would also be nice if there were signs along the river path directing you to the nearest station.

I absolutely love this concept and especially for the car heavy ‘Sota. Rent these puppies any hour of the day or night to get around. Plenty of pick-​up/​drop off locations around the town.
Bonus for the great features of the bikes too — plenty of lights, bells, basket, etc. Perfect for biking home from the bars (tee hee).
Get on it and ride that Nice Ride!

Took a little one way ride on a Nice Ride bike on June 12. Walked a couple blocks from my home (Uptown), grabbed a bike and rode it within a few blocks of my final destination (Cedar/​Riverside). Sweet!
Then again, these be some Granny riding bikes. Slow, heavy and upright. I would not recommend you do a three mile ride (as I did), especially if you are used to riding at a good clip (like I am). The bikes and the pricing plan are designed for short, quick trips.
I think this is a really cool idea. I support it. How often will I use it? Probably not very much. My own bike, and other mass transit options take care of most of my needs. I hope this new resource fills a need for you.