Duane: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of Electric Bike Radio. I'm Dwayne, and that's, and I'm Jared, and that's Jared . We are outside, as you can probably tell on a little bit of an adventure today. We decided to see what it was like to rent, uh, an electric bike. Um, sometimes they call them dockless electric bikes because you can sort of find them and leave them.
Uh, which is what we've done. We've ridden a few and parked them somewhere on our recording. 
Jared: So we're in downtown Tampa, actually right now. We're across from downtown Tampa in Julian b Lane Park. Um, we basically went from, uh, where, if you're local to here, where armature works is we hopped on a spin bike and a line bike over here.
And then we headed down to, where did we go? What's the name of it? Sparkman's Wharf. Sparkman's Wharf, which used to be Channel side. I still can't remember the current name. Headed down to Spartans Wharf. Had lunch swap bikes and headed back up. And here we are. 
Duane: Yeah, so Having electric bikes.
We don't usually rent [00:01:00] electric bikes, but there are times when that's nice. We just wanted to see what the experience was like. So we kind of just showed up at a place where the, where the bikes are kept and, downloaded the apps and, and, and headed out for a couple mile 
Jared: ride. Right. And so Dwayne actually downloaded, I think, at least one of the apps beforehand, or he had a, uh, he had the line app, uh, from using it previously.
I had never used any of the apps and I intentionally didn't download them until I showed up because I wanted to see what the experience would be if I just showed up and said, Hey, you know, I feel like riding a bike today. Let me check this out. So, um, and also for reference, I have an Android phone. Duane has an iPhone, and we checked up both of those.
I would say the app experience was pretty similar. 
Duane: Very easy. I mean, don't be intimidated by that. If you decide you want a ride and you haven't downloaded the app, it was two or 
Jared: three minutes. Really? Yeah. Uh, mine, at least for both of them, let you sign in with your Google account, which I use mine all the time.
So that was very easy. No setting up passwords or anything, just clicking on a [00:02:00] button. Um, also I use Google Pay and it lets me, it lets you pay with Google Pay, so that was very convenient. It just is already hooked up to. Uh, my payment sources and there was no complicated typing of 
Duane: anything. Yeah. And I paid with Apple Pay, so, uh, auto fill on a lot of the fields.
It was very little typing. It was, it was easy. Um, the spin app did ask for a photocopy of your DR or a picture of your driver's 
Jared: license. Yeah, that was weird. The, the, the backside of your driver's license to confirm your age, supposedly. Yeah. Um, I don't know. I'm a little wary of taking pictures of my back, of my driver's license, but, but we did it for you guys.
Okay. We did it for the. Um, oh, and just so you know, uh, spin and lime, if you haven't seen them before, but if you've seen the scooters around your locality, same thing, same companies. The spin bikes are orange, just like the spin scooters. The lime bikes have the same white and green, uh, motif as the lime scooters.
And they work just like the scooters too. 
Duane: Yeah, and I think lime, in my travels I've [00:03:00] seen lime more than anything I. It may be the most popular 
Jared: brand and lime downtown in Tampa. I would say four or five to one maybe compared to spin bikes. Yeah. Um, so plenty of them around. Um, not as many spin bikes, but, but a, a few enough.
A few, 
Duane: yeah. So the process is kind of the same. If you've never done this, you, you walk up to the bike once you've got the app downloaded, you walk up to the bike. Um, both of these bikes have indicators as to what the battery life is. Before you ever scan into and select the bike, you can see that it's got a charge.
Um, Jared and I also just sort of check tire pressures just to make sure that, you know, , everything's working before we commit. But then there's a, uh, barcode, uh, QR code. Yep. Uh, on the handlebar, and you scan it into the app and it will give you some instructions. Uh, easy instructions is how to unlock the bike and your ride starts and basically you're good to go.[00:04:00] 
Jared: And, and the locking procedures they have, both of them have like a, a pin on a cable lock. You pull out of an area near the back wheel. The the lime one has a pin that goes straight through the back spokes. Which, or sorry, not the lime, the spin, uh, the spin bike has a pin that you pull straight out of the back spokes.
So it acts as a, a heavy duty lock for the bike too. Um, and you just hook it up to the top. And you know one thing about the spin too, it has, um, alloy wheels. What? Mag mag wheels. Yeah, like much like Dwayne's, uh, pedago that he's mentioned a few times. Um, but you pop into the back, the line bike, very similar.
Um, it just has a little slot that you pull the pin out of and then shove it in somewhere else, and the bikes think you're ready to go and it sent you on its way. Yep. 
Duane: Now, as far as riding them, uh, 
Jared: yeah. What's your first, first, uh, impressions? You know, I 
Duane: was pleasantly surprised. . Um, I rode the line bike first.
Yeah. Um, it was very, uh, stable, very sturdy. I. And, [00:05:00] um, these bikes have, uh, some sort of either a torque sensor or maybe a combination torque cadence sensor. I'm not sure exactly the technology, but it was very natural to ride. Uh, they want these bikes to feel good for people that don't have a lot of experience riding electric bikes, and I thought it.
Experience. I thought 
Jared: it was easy to ride. I think they do a really good job of that. There's really not much on the bikes for you to have to learn or figure out or feel intimidated by it. If you've never ridden an electric bike before, this will not be anything super new to you. It's just gonna feel like you get a little bit of a kick in the pants, but you don't ha there's no throttle.
Um, nothing, no gears to shift. There's no gears to shift, although we do think that the, the spin bike has an internal automatic two speed, but again, nothing you have to touch. It's just riding a bike. You'll just feel it change gears as you get up to a certain speed, but 
Duane: basically pedal, brakes and a bell.
That's it. 
Jared: Or, or two bells in the case of the line. Yeah. Uh, both sides have a, have a, have a bell, but, [00:06:00] um, Yes, Dwayne said, pleasantly surprised. And, and I'll be the first to admit, I don't think either one of us had, um, high expectations no. Of, of riding any of these bikes. You know, we, we both, we have our own bikes and we know how much they cost and we know how much other bikes cost above that and, um, that they require maintenance.
And I thought these might be just beaten up, low powered. Um, maybe they'll get you to where you're not gonna go, but they wouldn't be fun to ride and. I had a blast, honestly. Um, they're so easy to hop on and ride and, and give you a regular old, simple electric bike experience. Yeah. I 
Duane: was surprised at just how much pep, uh, particularly the line bike had mm-hmm.
um, from the, from the start, you know, it makes it, even though they're heavy bikes, you get some right from the get-go, so it's easy to take off. It, doesn't it? Feel like a heavy bike, uh, until you don't have any boosts. We'll talk about that in a minute. . But, but in normal riding, it feels very, uh, natural, I think and [00:07:00] quite peppy.
Yeah. I mean we were doing, uh, you know, north of 15 miles an hour when it was 
Jared: appropriate. Yeah. Um, I agree. Either the line bike feels a little peppy or off the line. I think they probably both have the same amount of power. Yeah. I think it's all in programming, but the line bike picks up off the line a little.
The spin bike will give you a cyst up to a full 20 miles an hour, um, and just feels like the faster bike. Whereas the line bike, the line bike doesn't have a speedometer whereas the spin bike does. Mm-hmm. , I would guess the line bike was probably doing about 15 or 16 at 16 as I, uh, went by it while I was on the spin bike, uh, at a full, full tilt
Um, but, but on a 15 or 60 miles an hour on an e-bike is plenty fast. That's actually probably my standard cruising speed on my, my home bike, so perfectly fine both of them. 
Duane: I should also say, um, I was worried about the adjustability of the bike, um, because I'm pretty tall. I'm at six two. Um, both of them had, were easy to adjust the seat and had plenty of height for that.
So sometimes I find, like on inexpensive [00:08:00] bikes, it's hard to get. Uh, the seat high enough, and that was not an issue either. So, yeah. 
Jared: And, and, and I'd say I'm five eight ish or whatever. Uh, no problem for me either, but I don't think there'd be any problem with my wife who's five three. They, I, there's plenty of room to go down and the handlebars are curved, both in a way.
One's a little more curved than the other. The one's a little more curved, but both of them are in a way that they're gonna be easy to reach for pretty much anybody, of anybody, any height, I would say five feet and up, you're probably. I don't know below that, but I wouldn't be surprised if you could be comfortable even shorter than that.
Duane: So when you finish the ride or, or you're ready to stop because you are getting, we'll talk about billing in a minute. You are getting billed by the minute. So when you're ready to end your ride and, and, and stop the billing, like we stop for lunch, you just, you know, end the ride. Um, there are restricted areas where you can't park, but as long as you're in a authorized area and the app will tell you if you're not mm-hmm.
you just sort of stop the bike, uh, put the [00:09:00] kickstand down, hit a button, end the ride, and it will direct you to, uh, re-lock the bike and, uh, you're 
Jared: done. Yeah. And by re-lock the bike, you don't have to lock it to anything. It's just that, that pin we talked about earlier on, both of them, they're a little different, but both of.
They just ask you to pull that pin out and shove it in a different hole and it latch latches and it is done and you just leave it where it is. Um, 
Duane: ideally, that's the dockless concept, right, is you don't have to look for a wine bike rack, right? Or a spin bike rack. You can leave it, I mean, You're, they ask you to use some common sense and some courtesy as to where you park the bike.
A bike rack or, you know, appropriate bike area would be, would be best, but you can leave it anywhere. That's not a prohibited area. And 
Jared: ideally, as, as a regular bike rider myself, try to leave it not in the middle of the sidewalk . Um, I know our listeners would do that, but, but so many people do that with all the scooters and everything, and they get in the way of everybody else.
So if you leave it off to the side in a parked area, Um, that's plenty fine. Just try to make it so it's convenient for everybody else. [00:10:00] 
Duane: Now we should mention there are a couple of mm, idiosyncrasies Sure. At least in our area, about riding these rental bikes. Um, . You know, sometimes there can be resistance when these companies come in with scooters and with bikes and metropolitan areas, and so usually there's some negotiations involved between the companies and the local government, and they set up no ride areas.
And low speed areas. And since the bikes are are, you know, GPS enabled, they know where they're supposed to be and where they're not supposed to be. And it's not always super obvious, but like in Tampa, the Riverwalk is, it's not a no-go area, but it's an enforced slow speed area. And so the bikes actually.
Will only assist you, uh, at slow speeds in 
Jared: those areas. Right. And the, the spin bike, so one thing that's a little different about the two bikes is the spin bike has a really good mount to mount your [00:11:00] phone to up on the front. And the spin app, actually the lime ha lime has the same app or a very similar app, but the.
The spin just seems to do it better is that it shows the logo areas and no right areas in a purple color, um, on the app. So if you're looking at the app, you're good. Um, but still, I, I ride the river walk every day and, and you're, you're kind of, it's difficult to avoid it, I would say. Yeah. Um, if you're using it for a nice cruise in downtown Tampa.
So I think that's honestly where, uh, these potentially fall a little bit short. Um, is. You're not gonna get a full, convenient, easy E-bike experience down the Riverwalk because the city of Tampa's negotiated with spin and said, sure, you can have these and leave them everywhere, but we're not gonna let you go crazy.
Duane: And then we actually. Found ourselves cutting across the University of Tampa , which is a no ride zone and, uh, found you have actually no [00:12:00] power . 
Jared: Well, well that's, that's, that's funny, right? So, so the line bike is in the Riverwalk area was much more on, off, I think the spin bike was stayed on for much longer and had fewer restrictions than the line.
But then when we got to the University of Tampa, the spin bike basically just shut completely off on Dwayne. Uh, we had swapped at that point, whereas the line bike had no restrictions at that point, except don't park it. It had a, a no park symbol, so I couldn't have stopped on the University of Tampa campus and left it somewhere.
Um, so I guess I could ride it. 
Duane: Yeah. I guess if you ride in an area that has restrictions like that, you might want to try different brands of bikes and see how they're programmed, uh, because it does make a difference. But is this something you're gonna be aware of? If, if you're coming out here solely to ride the Riverwalk, um, in Tampa, the lime bike wouldn't be the best choice.
Right. But, you know, it's, it's hard to know that until you try it. 
Jared: So let's, let's talk a little bit about the, the riding experience as far as. How good of a bike are they [00:13:00] aside from, you know, do they feel like an e-bike? They, they both feel like good E-bikes. They're both solid bikes. Convenient to ride.
Right. To talk about the two of them. Yeah. I felt like the line bike felt like the peppier more nimble bike. The spin bike felt like the more solid the. Faster cruising kind of bike. What do you think? 
Duane: Yeah, I think that's right. It's funny, there were things I liked about and disliked about both with the line bike.
Um, I did like the, you know, the, the peppiness from the start. I thought the seat was a little more comfortable. Um, I, I liked the handlebar arrangement a lot and I love the basket on the lime bike that. , the lime has a solid plastic basket, so you can put anything, you could put change in it and it wouldn't fall out.
Right. Um, where the, the spin bike also has a basket, but with, you know, it's just a metal is your welded aluminum type basket. Yeah. Basket. So huge holes. Can't put your phone in it, you know, can't put anything small. 
Jared: Definitely a purse would be fine. [00:14:00] A bag would be fine. Anything like that would be fine.
Right. Your hel a helmet, that 
Duane: sort of thing. Right. Yeah. As far as the riding goes, I, I think I prefer the wine bike. There were, there were, um, things I liked about the spin bike too. It did, it is faster overall. Um, you could cruise a little higher speeds. Um, the fact that it had a speedometer was very nice.
It has a much better cell phone holder. Um, and I kind of like the kickstand. It's got a real, uh, floor stand as opposed to just a kickstand that makes it a 
Jared: little more stable. Yeah, this, this spin has the, the double kickstand a lot like, uh, my rat wagon does, whereas, uh, the lime is just 
Duane: a single, but all in all, both very serviceable.
I wouldn't hesitate to ride either one. 
Jared: And I actually kind of like the spin bike better. Um, I liked how solid it was. It wasn't as nimble, but I liked, it has, it has a two speed gear train in it. Um, automatic shifting, and I like that. I liked by having the pedal furiously at 16 miles an hour to, to keep up that speed.
Um, The line again, felt peppy and I [00:15:00] wouldn't be, you know, price aside, which we'll talk about next, . Um, I wouldn't be hesitant at alter ride, whichever one had the more battery life when I picked it up and happened to run across it first. Yeah. So, alright. Do you have, uh, do you have your receipt from the, the first lime ride?
I do because we, we both, I was on the spin and Dwayne was on the line for our first ride, which I don't remember how many miles. , but that one we can compare apples to apples and exactly how far we went and how much it costs. 
Duane: Okay, so our first ride. Now granted Jared, we were messing around, we weren't trying to get anywhere.
We were just, you know, we, we spent some time stopped and that sort of thing. So the first ride, um, was uh, about 35 minutes. And it's funny that the, the, um, the app doesn't actually tell me the mileage. I'm thinking it was about three and a half miles. Okay. Do you have a mileage? 
Jared: No. And I didn't, I didn't check my phone.
Duane: It's interesting, the receipt doesn't tell you the mileage. But [00:16:00] it was pricier than I thought it was. Uh, three 50 was the base fee for the first seven minutes, and then it's, uh, less than a dollar a minute after that. So my per minute was 1375, so it was $17 plus tax. It was $18 and 84 cents for a little less than.
40 minutes of, you know, riding around 
Jared: downtown. All right, so mine's interesting. So on the spin bike, same amount of time. Remember we within a minute or two, because I think I took longer to get mine set up than Dwayne did, just because I was doing the app right up back. So mine shows that I started renting mine 1120.
And I checked it back in at 1152. So 32 minutes base cost of renting was a dollar. And then it says cost of ride 12 minutes. So it appears the spin is only charging for the minute you are actually moving, which also I wonder what we were doing for another 20 minutes . Um, but whatever. And that's how long it counted.
So 4 68 sales tax of 5 cents. [00:17:00] And then I actually got what we both did. We got $5 off of our first, um, ride with. So that brought my grand total for the same ride. Duane just spent, how much did you say? $18. I paid 73 cents now. Now. Okay. So exclude the $5. I paid $5 right now. Exclude the $5 off you got for your first ride.
I would've spent about six bucks. Yeah, for the same ride. And on the way back, we both saw something. Similar. We swapped bikes on the way back, and, and we, we, frankly mess this up and didn't coordinate as well all the way back. But again, similarly, the spin was much cheaper than, yeah, 
Duane: the, our, we had lunch and rode back and it was, uh, the spin app says it was 12 minutes.
My watch said it was about 2.2 miles, and my charge is $6 and 11 cents. 
Jared: Oh, it does show mileage. I, we did 2.1 miles according to Lyme. And history. Bike ride, 2.1 miles, 25 minutes, $15 and 30 [00:18:00] cents. What did you say again? $6 and 11 cents. $6 and 11 cents. Um, and that's without the $5 because, correct. Actually, Dwayne had one, uh, one hiccup hit.
We hit the wrong button when we got Dwayne on the spin bike the first time on the way back. Canceled the ride right away. So he got $5 off of a $1 ride. . Yeah. Be careful. So, so line is significantly more expensive. 
Duane: Yeah. And I don't know if there's something we're missing, Jared, we, we might have to look in, there may be monthly Yeah.
Memberships and then there may be ways to make it more affordable. Mm-hmm. . But definitely the lime struck me as more expensive than I thought it would be. And, and frankly the spin struck me as cheaper than I 
Jared: thought it would be. Same. And we just wanted to share with you our experience with this, because frankly, I think this is what most of you would do if you were gonna try this out.
Um, so we haven't researched it. This is, uh, here off the cuff in a park with screaming children behind us and playing around and everything. It was a 
Duane: beautiful day in Tampa and a great day to do [00:19:00] some, uh, off the cuff research. 
Jared: Right? And we haven't gotta do this in a while. So that is a, well, I guess you 
Duane: line has been, the bottom line is I would do it again.
You know, if I had a reason to get around downtown Tampa, I wouldn't hesitate. Now that I have the app downloaded, I wouldn't hesitate to jump on one and, and, you know, park on this side and ride to the lightning game on the other side of 
Jared: town, no. If I didn't have my bike with me and I had somewhere to go, say I was at work and I needed to go to, um, like a bar luncheon or something that's about a mile or two away, I'd hop on a bike before I grab my car and try to negotiate parking.
So, absolutely. So that's a pretty good. Pretty good assessment, I think. 
Duane: Well, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the podcast. You 
Jared: can catch us on whatever podcast app you like to use. Spotify goo uh, Google Podcast, apple Apple Podcasts, and the like. Um, if you have any comments about rentals in your area, let us know because I'd be curious to see what other companies are out there.
I know we have a bunch of other companies in Tampa. Uh, the [00:20:00] Dart already aren't renting bikes yet, but we've got scooters all over the place. Ra. Um, what are the silver ones? Bird, bird, bird. You know? So I think it's only a matter of time that, that they have more bikes here. So what do you think? Have you had the same kind of experience that we have?
You have a far worse experience that you'd like to share with our listeners? Let us know and, and we'll pass it on. Um, in the meantime, I guess that's it for this episode. Thanks 
Duane: for listening to podcasts, and stay tuned for the next episode of Electric Bike Radio.
Jared: I say you just publish it the way it is.