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RentaBikeNow Makes Two Wheels Almost As Easy To Borrow As Four

June 23, 2009 at 9:22 AM | by | Comments (0)

Our number one travel biking request here at Jaunted is for cheap, Velib-style bike-sharing in every city on earth, but until that happens, we’ll settle for a national bike rental service that makes hopping on two wheels as easy as renting a car.

On the path to this is RentaBikeNow.com, a web-based company that partners with bike shops to provide rentals in 157 different cities across the U.S. and Canada. The site launched a few months back and got a boost recently when Lance Armstrong’s coach, Chris Carmichael, shouted them out on twitter.

Using RentaBikeNow is pretty much similar to renting a car, except with no carbon footprint. Type in the address of where you’ll be, then narrow down your search by type of bike (road, mountain, BMX, kids, even tandem), size, and what kind of extras you’ll need like locks, bags and protective gear. After securing a deposit via Credit Card or PayPal, you're free to pick up your bike whenever you need it.

You can even make a same-day reservation before 8 am, and while prices vary depending on the type of bike, they're mostly around $10 an hour or $40 a day. We could go with some cheaper options, but hey, they don't have a lot of competition yet in the online bike rentals market.

The site is easy to use, a good resource for finding a bike in a city you’re unfamiliar with, and it seems to be focused on bike-friendly locales. For example, searching for a cycle tomorrow in San Francisco, the site showed us bikes available in the city, as well as more in nearby Berkeley and Sausilito. Yet in New York City, results were not so good—the closest thing they’ve got is Farmingdale (Long Island) and Randolph (New Jersey)—not exactly convenient to a circuit around Central Park. Watch their space though, as the service promises to continue adding more partners, and even plans to expand to Europe by the end of the year.

Related Stories:
· RentaBikeNow.com [Official Site]
· Brisbane Bikes Soon To Be Shared [Jaunted]
· Even More (Nearly) Free Bikes In Europe [Jaunted]

[Photo: RentaBikeNow.com]

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