Blue Bikes Nola 4+

Electric portion of the bike works for approx 10 minutes if the trip

We were in New Orleans for a week and thought being able to use this bike share service would be very useful, and at first, it was. Then the app glitches starting happening, like not letting us lock the bike after a ride (and yes, we carefully read all the FAQ’s about how to do it properly), or having the minute fee start, but then not being able to unlock the bike, which caused fees to start even though we weren’t using the bikes. And they worked fine the first few times we used them. Then it was 50/50 after that. That’s a lot of glitches, with 4 riders.

Then the issue with their customer service. You aren’t able to contact a live support person, so all you can do is submit a problem and wait. Well after 5-10 minutes of waiting, we realized we aren’t going to get a quick response, so then we had to pay for some other solution, like an Uber or cab. And even though they sometimes (but not always) responded, they did not refund our non-use rides; only a credit for future rides, which is useless to us, as we don’t live in New Orleans.

Overall, a very unsatisfactory experience, poorly developed app, and non-empathetic customer service. Avoid! Just rent a bike from a shop and be happy.

I spent a week in NOLA with two friends. We had ongoing issues with the Blue Bike app. On numerous occasions it would not load properly and we were forced to abandon the bikes and instead take an UBER. I contacted Blue Bikes (owned by Lyft) to express my frustration and disappointment. I was hoping for a partial refund. All they offered me was 3 x 20 minutes of free bike use. This compensation is useless as there are no Blue Bikes in my home town. As communities, we need to rethink entering contracts with billion dollar corporations with a complete disregard for ordinary users. If I return to New Orleans, I will arrange a bike rental through a small, deserving local bike shop.