Boulder B-Cycle

I did not encounter the same problems as other reviewers. B-​cycle uses the same system as other city bikeshare systems; you pay a flat rate for a membership fee and any trips under 30 minutes are free. After 30 minutes, you pay $ 3 every half hour.
Visiting Boulder, we wanted a way to see the city without having to drive around. Boulder is a nice flat city with great bike lane access. We also took the bikes up Boulder creek into the mountains a little bit, until there was no more pavement. The bikes only have 3 gears so uphill was really difficult, but the trip back downhill was fuuuunnnnn!!!
All in all we spent $ 14 each for 3 separate bike trips, and it was much easier and cheaper than renting an actual bike.
And can I just say that the app is surprisingly good? It not only shows you where the B-​cycle stations are, it also shows how many bikes are in each station and displays the route to get there. You also get stats on the time length and distance of your trips, calories burned, and money saved. It’s a great system that doesn’t deserve the bad reviews.

So, B-​Cycle is a nonprofit bike sharing organization. It is not a «bike rental» service. There are plenty of shops in Boulder where you can rent a bike for a day. This isn’t that. This is more like public transit. You learn where the stations are, like at the 29^th Street Mall, 28^th and Arapahoe, 28^th and Pearl, Pearl Street Mall, and tons of other places. You say, hey, I want to go from the Pearl Street Mall to Target. So you check out a bike at the Mall, ride it down Pearl to 28^th, and check it in by Starbucks, and walk across the street to Target. For annual members like me, any trip less than a half hour is free. After the first half hour, it gets very expensive, because the idea is you only have the bike while you’re traveling, not while you’re shopping or eating — imagine how expensive a cab would be if you made it wait at each stop! The rules are pretty clear… but then I signed up on the web and read how it works before walking up to the bike station and sticking my card in it.
So I love B-​Cycle… there’s a station near every place in Boulder that I go, and whenever the bus isn’t convenient, or if it’s too far to walk, I hop on a bike — rarely for more than ten minutes at a time, and it doesn’t cost me anything for the trip.
Occasionally, you get to a station and it is full… you tell the machine, and it’ll tell you the nearest station with a spot (usually pretty close by) and give you extra time to get there. In a real bind, I’ve called them, and they just let me chain the bike up at the full station, and they came and dealt with it. Fantastic service.
So if you use the service the way it’s designed, it is pretty great. Read the rules, and get around town.

If I could do 0 stars, I would. I encountered the SAME problems as all other Unilocalers on the review thus far and was appalled by their customer service and, what I found out later, this same issue was consistently a problem with their business.
I rented bikes from boulder b cycles with some friends on a vacation to boulder. We read over the instructions decided to rent the bikes for 24 hours, popped in our credit card, and we’re on our way to enjoy the city. Little did we know we were accruing fees the entire time. As soon as we found out that we were piling up fees on the bikes, we promptly returned them and re-​read the instructions. We really didn’t understand where we went wrong.
We contacted customer service and found out we had been charged about 130 per bike we rented. We explained that their program rules were unclear and explained that we didn’t understand this. They said since we were first time users, we would get to do the first time user fee. We were concerned that they had this policy in effect and asked to talk to others in the company.
After speaking with several members of the company, they were very rude, unhelpful, and really didn’t care about us as the customer or how their program is interpreted by their customers. I would never recommend this company to any visitors to boulder. Look into bike rental shops to provide you with better service in boulder.

My friends and I just ran into the SAME situation as Chris and Aryn did in previous reviews. We rented three bikes and THOUGHT we were paying for an entire day and therefore kept the bike to return within the 24 hours we paid. HOWEVER due to the unclear instructions we were informed the following day by Boulder B-​Cycle that we were supposed to dock the bikes EVERY THIRTY MINUTES. We returned right away and called Customer Service — our charges were reduced for a «first time user fee». We spoke to the marketing director who basically said that they are a nonprofit and are not obligated to refund anything and we should feel «lucky». In addition the Marketing Director continued to tell us that the directions were clear and this does not happen often (which is not true because of the 2 reviews I see they had the same issue). I think the concept is great but the instructions are not clear. They were unwilling to listen — when we gave examples of where we got confused they continued to tell us that it was clear and it was our fault. If you want to rent a bike for a longer period than 30 minutes I recommend going to a bicycle rental store.

$ 387 later…
Same problem as other Unilocalers. Sadly, I didn’t check Unilocal before renting the bikes, or I would have seen this this is a pattern with Boulder B Cycle. I would think this would be concerning to any business that the only reviews they have are negative — and for the same reason. And that’s not even yet getting into the customer support.
I checked out three bikes — for me and two friends — on a Monday afternoon from a kiosk near Pearl St. We took a look over the kiosk and the information provided on it, put in the credit card (three times because we had three bikes) and off we went exploring Boulder. We paid the $ 8 per bike for what we thought was 24 hours of use. Directions were extremely unclear!
Tuesday morning, I received a call that I needed to get the bikes back to the rack as soon as possible. We promptly did just that and then immediately called the customer support number.
We obviously would not have kept the bikes as long as we did knowing we would be charged the amount we were charged ($ 129/​per bike).
Knowing that there is a refund system in place for first time bikers for this EXACT misunderstanding tells me that this happens frequent enough to need such a «refund policy». As I explained to the Marketing Director, this is a sure sign that the informational pieces on the kiosks and bikes are not clear enough. I gave him my personal recommendation over the phone as to wording that would have helped to clear up the issue but he was not interested and was instead defensive and condescending.
Our original charge of $ 129 per bike (totaling $ 387) has since been reduced — per the organization’s «first time biker» refund policy — to $ 48 per bike (for a total of $ 144). Still in communications with the organization at this time.

Same thing as Aryn B. This place is a scam. Avoid it. Their was no clear indication that the bike had to be returned every hour or you would be charged an extra fee.

I rented a bike in a pinch from the N. Boulder Rec location, and Boulder B-​Cycle completely ripped me off!
The directions for bike rental were quite unclear — it appeared that if I kept the bike for more than an hour, I would be charged $ 7 for the day.
The bike itself was heavy, around 50 pounds, and old. The gears barely worked, and as I rented it to get to a meeting I was late for and could not even make it up a hill with the bike, I needed to load the bike onto a bus and had to have the driver help me. (I am not particularly weak, but the large size of the bike combined with the weight made it very awkward to maneuver.)
Boulder B-​Cycle has various locations to return bikes to, which I thought would work out since I could bus the bike back home and then return it to a closer location, saving an extra bus trip with a nearly unrideable bike.
However, B-​Cycle not only charged me the $ 7 day rate, but an additional $ 75 fee for keeping the bike out longer than an hour. When I called to inquire about this charge, the manager informed me that you are supposed to take short rides of less than 60 minutes and if you want the bike for longer without paying a fee you must return it to a kiosk and then check it out again every hour. There was no clear indication of this on the kiosk screen when I checked it out, or when I looked on the website. He then explained that they refund part of the fee for first time users who were confused, so I would only have to pay $ 27 for my terrible bike experience. When I commented that it must happen often that people are confused and that it seemed like a deceptive way to make money, he responded that they were a small non-​profit and had no obligation to return any money, so I should be grateful that they even do that. Take it or leave it.
What a horrible rip-​off! Had I known the policy, I would have promptly returned the bike and just taken the bus.