Yosemite Bike Sharing 4+

I love the idea of free bike sharing in Yosemite. Most of the popular Yosemite valley bike path can be covered in 2 hours. I think it would be much better if the conservancy can improve the condition of bikes (There were a few broken bikes when I tried to check one out. And the one I checked out was squeaky during ride). Also the robustness of the return need improvement. I encountered issues at return, which errored out saying I am out of the return area, although according to the map in the App I was right in the middle of the area. I am not sure if it was using the GPS on my phone or the GPS on the bike for location. In my opinion, it should always use the latter because the wireless connection in the park can be sporadic.

So we just finished our trip at Yosemite and I have to say that I absolutely love the idea of bike sharing. It was so wonderful to use the bikes for short periods of time and a highlight for our family trip. However every time we attempted to use a bike it was never easy due to the app. It actually takes so long to download the app and use the app many give up. Also once your finish your ride the app requires you to stop your ride end it is supposed to automatically lock the bike. The problem is 1) it’s difficult to stop your ride on the app 2) your Internet service is spotty 3) one time my phone died so I was unable to. Obviously this happens to most riders because every time we attempted to unlock that bike and begin a ride we would receive a message that said the bike is still in use. This happened to almost everyone when we walked by the bike rentals. In fact many times we were considered the “experts” because we had finally figured it out and were trying to help everyone else. There is seldom anyone on duty to help with the program.
My advice, be patient and download the app when you have service and then familiarize yourself with it so you can use one of the bike shares. It’s worth it if you can figure it out.

Pilot program has its bugs, but there was a recent upgrade which fixed a lot of issues. I tried 3 bikes during my trip here and they all worked well! I had no issues with lost network. I was able to explore more parts of the valley than I would if I walked. This bike program is a great idea, although it could use further improvement, I hope it continues for years to come! :)