BCycle Reviews

On two occasions I would take bike out “successfully” and it would read ERROR in RED. Yesterday… it did that again and I tried re doing it.. and after 3 FAILED attempts of the bike getting unlocked but showing as “failed attempt”, I tried being correct and putting it back in so it is on record of what bike I took out… it told me I was over my limit!!! Then, my friend tried paying for me EVEN THOUGH I HAVE A MEMBERSHIP. And guess what? It took her money, but didn’t let me take a bike out so she needs her money back for sure. BCycle needs an update and I don’t need a limit for something I paid for as a member, especially when it’s BCycle ’s fault. Please fix. I DIDN’T even get to ride! I couldn’t even call customer service because it was 6 pm. And then I’ve sent emails. Hopefully this gets resolved… but I’m frustrated as I did not get my workout in. AND it took my friends money. I gave this 5 stars but I’m taking it down to 3 as it is taking money and not providing the service I paid for.

I travel quite a bit for work. I really enjoy exploring a city by bike. BCycle isn’t great for going from city to city. Even though they all use BCycle and they will tell you how many cities they are in, each city is a separate entity. Each requires a separate log in and pass purchase. And BCycle doesn’t make it easy to do that. When I called the customer service to find out how to log in for the city I am currently visiting, they couldn’t tell me how to do it. To be clear, I don’t expect to be able to buy a pass in city A then use it in city B. But they need to make it easier to purchase a pass in each city without going through all of the steps to set up an account in each city. Once I set up an account with this app, I should just be able to purchase a pass in any city they serve in one or two clicks.

Great idea—loved seeing a new city on e-bikes and saving money on cars. However, if your service is completely reliant on an app, BCycle should work, especially for something as vital as transportation. We were on vacation but what about those who use the bikes to get to work? Main issues:
-Kiosks did not accurately reflect how many bikes were available.
-The returned bike was not always ‘registered’ as returned, which meant I was either charged an overage fee or unable to check out a new bike.
-BCycle would say a bike had been unlocked when it was not released from the drop station.
-I was not always able to check out another bike immediately after returning one. I get the whole 60 minute time limit, but there should be clear expectations conveyed to customers who are planning to ride for longer, such as can’t unlock same bike, have to wait a certain amount of time before checking out a new bike, etc. We met several similarly frustrated customers.
-Attempted to reach customer service by phone on several occasions but they were not consistently available.
-Because of the above, my husband and I got stranded two days in a row. Our choices were to double up on the one available bike, walk, or pay nearly the cost of a monthly membership fee for a ride share back into town.

Got the day pass for I think 7 dollars. What they don’t make known(or it must be in tiny print somewhere that no one really sees) is that you have to bring your bike back and dock it every 30 minutes in order to not be charged extra. I was at a park/ lake with only the one dock. So I could only go 15 minutes away and have to turn back just to re-dock my bike every 30 minutes. I didn’t know and If I had I would have never rented the bike because that’s pretty ridiculous. I called and asked for the rationale behind the rule. And was told that the person I was talking to, didn’t know and I would have to wait for a call back from management. They never called me back. And every time I called I would get the same tech who had no answers. Charged me an extra 8 dollars. I had the bike for a couple of hours so it would have been half the cost if I hadn’t have gotten the day pass and just did the hourly one. Won’t rent again.

BCycle works fine but I feel I have to toggle through too much to figure things out. Put info like past rides/statements, current ride time and how to recheck out a bike in the menu or on landing page of app.

I have to agree with many others on here that I HATE HATE HATE that I have to hunt down a dock station every hour to avoid fees. The trails are extensive here in Fort Worth and this is a hassle that is making me consider just buying a bike instead of incurring fees everyday. Instead of telling us to contact our local office, why don’t you just change the business model as people are requesting? One hour isn’t long enough!! We should be able to just extend our ride by one hour increments in BCycle FEE FREE without having to re dock. That would make the most sense.

I have been using this app less than a month so I will share my opinion..

I have the monthly pass, and have used both that and daily pass’s in the past.

The bikes are somewhat unreliable as I have found some of them will display a charge when in fact they cut off mid-ride. Often times the bikes work.

I have also encountered issues with the charging stations where the stations simply won’t release the bikes forcing me to change my plans somewhat as you have to walk station to station.

I have also experienced a rude weekend customer service agent some weeks ago who was incredibly inpatient with me on the phone as I was trying to figure out why the station at mansion inn would not release bikes. I left that conversation being encouraged that I can also communicate with text instead of calling. The situation was frustrating as it was my first time using the product.

Unfortunately there is only one bike ride sharing company in Madison so you are stuck with them. They have a long way to go and they may never get their as there is no incentive to change due to a lack of competition.

When you sign up, your account will be automatically set to “auto renew”. If you don’t turn that o off when you first sign up, it’s difficult to get back to turn it off. Very bad behavior from the service.

Also, it’s possible to unlock more than one bike, but they don’t tell you about this feature until after you have signed up for an account and unlocked a bike, at which point there’s an option to unlock additional bikes. In our case, we had already created multiple monthly accounts, which charged each one an automatic $30. So this app got a lot more money than if we had just used one account to unlock the extra bikes for my family.

I don’t like the way this app does business. So riders beware.

I downloaded BCycle to use while visiting my sister in Nashville. Bought two single use rides for us both and was able to successfully check out one bike. When checking out the second, BCycle would alternate between errors stating that I did not have the ability to check out another bike and stating that I was able to check out up to 4 bikes using my one “membership” but that I needed to purchase another single use ticket, which I could not do. We tried to create another account, which could not check out any bikes because of “ERROR” messages. We then tried the physical stall to check out a bike which also only gave an “ERROR” message. So ultimately we could not even access a bike to use.

DONT USE THESE BIKES. Bikes work fine but it feels like i got scammed. I returned the bike i rented and expected to be charged for $7 each for 30 mins of usage. I used it for an hour and returned them(we borrowed two bikes). I made sure the bikes were locked but i dont think the docks recognized my return so i called customer service. Allie said she'll send someone to check if the bikes are there but who knows how long the person who to check will take. Someone might rent the bike before they get there. Now i see my card being charged for $70 for usage til after 5pm when i already left santa barbara before 2pm. I dont recommend using their service/product.

I really like B-bike and rented them several time. However, recently, whenever I try to use BCycle , it just shows renew membership error. I have tried to use different cards and reinstall BCycle , but still got the same error. Call the technical support but still cannot help to resolve the error, which is really disappointing.

Barely works. When it finally didn't crash for a minute it took my money and wouldn't unlock the bike. Customer service refunded the funds (in 5-7 days). But I couldn't get a bike. I've used bike shares all around the world, this really shouldn't be so hard. Total fail.

Edit : tried it again today because I really need a bike. And it actually worked. Twice! BCycle stopped crashing long enough to let me take a ride. The bike was great.

Before Redbike was a little hard to navigate, especially using the terminals and understanding pricing. Now that I can manage everything on my phone, unlock with the tap of a button, and monitor bike status at each station, I feel like I can confidently rely on bike rental. The monthly plan means I can park at a distant station and commute downtown for a fraction of the cost of parking. Awesome!

My husband and I visited Santa Barbara last month and had so much to see in a very little amount of time. this app made it really easy and SO fun to see everything. Payment was easy, staff was really nice and helpful, and the bikes were incredibly simple to operate. The pedal assist really came in handy! Would very highly recommend this app, the best way to see Santa Barbara!!

I’ve been using this app around town for the last year. For the most part, it has been an amazing experience. I could always ask for more features (exporting my trips more easily), and I wish check-outs were available for longer than 1 hour, BUT love the service, and BCycle consistently works just as it should! Thank you

BCycle is broken 70% of the time. It inaccurately represents the available bikes, plus most (90%) of the electric bikes are dead with zero charge left. In some instances, there is a bike with a decent enough charge but when trying to unlock it, it declines for some reason. The majority of the time I’m riding a dead electric bike that took like 5 minutes to unlock because BCycle is so buggy. I’m only paying $12/yr as a student and still feel like I’m getting scammed. Please fix BCycle and charge the bikes.

The worst user experience I’ve ever seen. Paid $10 for two “memberships” (first of all what is a membership) and could only unlock 1 bike, the other refused. On another attempt with my girlfriends phone she unlocked a bike, couldn’t pull it out of the station, and was still charged.

I then later proceeded to get an email that my bike wasn’t returned. There’s no clear indication from BCycle that i still had a bike rented.

Immediately uninstalled this horrible app. I’d rather pay for Ubers all day then deal with the frustration of trying to use these bikes.

The whole experience from start to finish is awful. Here’s why 1)users are forced to download BCycle and create an account in order to even just attempt to rent a bike 2) I had 4 bikes at 2 separate locations error out even though BCycle said they were available 3) BCycle does not accurately know that charging stations are full (I had to go over a quarter mile out of our way just to return the dang thing. BCycle and the whole system is hot garbage. Do not use it. I’m asking for my money back.

The concept is great and the e bikes make it super easy to get around campus, but BCycle is literally never updated for what bikes are at the station, takes 10 minutes to update every single time, and half the time when it updates it doesn’t accurately show what bikes are at the station. I’ve had to walk even though there were numerous bikes available more times than I can count because BCycle wouldn’t update.

Grab a bike and go anywhere then lock it temporarily in any of their base stations, then grab it again - I used it in downtown Ft Worth, app worked fantastic. And best of all I only paid around 8 bucks for constant riding for 24 hours...How could you possibly go wrong? Definitely will be doing this again and telling others...

First time rented bike it kept shutting off randomly. Returned it in under 5 minutes and got a notification verifying my return. Still charged. Second time the bike worked I used it for 20 minutes and returned it getting another notification verifying my return. Two days later I get charged 53$. Called in and was told I didn’t return the bike till 7. Then charged several times after that despite getting a timestamp notification verifying my time of return. What a joke of a service

I love bike share and use it all the time so thank you for supporting it in Denver. The new update is much faster to check out a bike and use, which is the main thing.

I would love to see more data on my trips displayed in a visual and fun way. Calories, trips, total miles, badges, etc. Take a look at the Citi bike app for more inspiration.

Thank you again!

I love BCycle and concept. I only issue I have is not being able to checkout multiple bikes on one account. If one person is trying to check out bike for their family/group it is not possible, at least no at support could explain how do it.

I use BCycle everyday but one thing I wish I was able to do is book mark my frequently used stations. In addition to this, it would be cool if I could get notifications when any of these "bookmarked stations" was either empty or full.

This would help a lot of people using this at school immensely.

Would like to be able to see the charging status of each electric bike available on BCycle . Occasionally a glitchy system - sometimes it says bikes are not available and won’t let you check one out when there are several at the docking stations. Overall, a great way to get around a pretty hilly town.

-App crashes occasionally when checking out a bike
-There is no clear indication on the map to distinguish whether it is displaying available bikes vs parking spaces
-A timer would be useful to show how long you have had your bike checked out
-I receive an email notification every time I return a bike, despite having chosen the ‘no email notifications’ setting

This this app App is excellent!

I walk up to a bike station and tap the two digit number of the bike slot. The bike immediately releases and I am riding within 3 seconds of walking up.

I can see how many open bike slots are available at my planned destination very easily in a very clear map. I can also type in my start place and end place and get clear information.
At the end of my ride, I can see time and gps map of where I went.

This is such a great UI, easy, fast, and consistently works. It always amazes me how accurate it is in a constantly changing inventory.

Excellent work!

Was charged for going past the time on a trip due to a bike rack not operating so I had to find a different one. Then when contacting the company they say it’s up to their business department to respond. Also got another charge the next day for something I have no idea about because it has a different receipt tag. When contacting the company they said it was for the same thing but I have no email for that charge as well. Finally I haven’t been contacted back about my calls for several days.

BCycle allows you to ride a bike daily without the pain of owning one. Only thing I request is a small buffer before your charged an overage fee. I was charged an overage fee for 1 minute over. Seems ridiculous. Maybe put a 5 minute buffer on being charged the full next 30 minutes

App works great. However I try to use BCycle a couple times a day (RTC Bikeshare, Las Vegas) but BCycle says I still have a bike checked out, even though I have a text confirmation that the bike was returned. Which means I have to use my monthly membership card... the RFID card doesn’t read certain docks. Frustrating

I used BCycle with a student account and made sure to turn off the auto-renew feature well in advance. But now that the service costs money, I was still unfortunately charged literally an hour after making sure the option was turned off... I am actively trying to find a way to delete my card off of BCycle, but it seems that this is not an implemented “feature”......

Don’t waste your time with BCycle. I’ve spent more time waiting for it to load than actually riding the bikes. When you need it to work the most, it just freezes and doesn’t work at all.

Never use it if you need to be somewhere. I’ve ridden bikes with flat tires, bikes with broken brakes, bikes with bent guards because I was in such a rush I didn’t have time to check their condition.

It’s honestly better to just jog than to use this unusable system

Most convenient thing on earth. The new electric bikes will assist you up hills and will get you to class in no time. this app makes getting around campus very easy. Also, you get 50% off for the membership if you’re a student, faculty, or staff at UW-Madison

I have had multiple times where there system is down, or doesn’t register a return and my account gets “suspended”.

You call for support and no ones there, then you get a voicemail that cuts you off after 15 seconds so you can’t even leave an actual message to let them know what went wrong.

Complete tourist trap, locals stay away.

Title says it all- used to crash constantly but looks like the new builds have really improved things. The new electric bikes are awesome! I’ll be renewing if this keeps up