Zagster ABQ: A different model of bike share

Over our long Yum Kipper Break I headed out to visit some friends in Albuquerque, New Mexico (and return with a 48 hour train trip back to New York to have relaxation time). I wasn’t really planning to bike in Albuquerque, normally I find bike rentals to be expensive and generally just get around on public transportation and foot when I visit a new city. This all changed on Sunday afternoon when I drove downtown with my friend to experience the second annual ABQ CiQlovía (another event I didn’t know about until just after I arrived). ABQ CiQlovia is Albuquerque’s version of Summer Streets in New York or CicLAvia in Los Angeles. The closed to cars corridor felt extremely short at only 1 mile long (not worth acquiring a bike to ride). We did have a nice walk from the Civic Center to the Rail Yards market and back. As we finished walking, to return to the car and visit a different neighborhood to grab lunch (no restaurants in downtown seemed to be open on Sundays) I saw it, a bike share rack for Zagster! Alburquerque's bike share program.

            I immediately Googled Zagster and discovered this service is the ultimate locally organized and sponsored bike share. A business can pay different amounts of money for different levels of sponsorship, number of bikes outside, and different numbers off free passes for their employees. I also was amazed at how cheap their price list was to the general public, with a 24-hour day pass costing only $3 (granted their only about 13 stations) for unlimited 90 minute rentals.

Map (Zagster ABQ Website): 

Sponsorship Levels (DowntownABQ Website):

Riding Zagster (and the app):

Monday morning I had the Southwest Chief to catch at Noon. My friend dropped me off at the Amtrak Station/Main downtown Alvarado Transportation Center on his way to work. I left my suitcase at luggage storage and fired up the Zagster App. I then walked to the nearest rack, not in front the Alvarado Transportation Center but a block north in front of the Downtown Movie Theater (that had sponsored a rack).

I went through the app to register and purchase a $3 day pass using the app was easy, I then chose a bike, entered the code on my iPhone, got the lock box opened on the second try with the code given to me, got the key and unlocked the standard bike lock.

Note: Photos and screenshots taken at Different times during my Zagster Experience, these  all explain how Zagster work!

I then head down Historic Route 66! Riding I really wish that I'm warring a bike helmet! I am a Founding Citibike Member (and am used to riding the tanks that are Citibikes. There something about their sturdiness and slow speeds that make me feel safe riding without a helmet. Zagster, on the other hand, uses conventional and much lighter normal 7-speed Cruiser Bikes. I’m a bit of an aggressive rider and really feel like I was making good speed, just like on my own personal bike. The bike lane on route 66 (listed in Google as a bike route was also hit-and-miss).

I then ride a couple miles into Old Town, the most touristy part of Alburquerque that my friend says is a place he refuses to go (like Times Square you could say for New Yorkers).

Old Town is a tourist trap that feels a lot more lame, and less genuinely old, than New Mexico's more famous and larger Spanish Mission Style Old Town in Santa Fe. I end up locking up and ending this Zagster rental there, in the rack sponsored by the New Mexico Museum of Natural History. A block east of the Old Town Square since no business in the center of Old Town has sponsored a rack. To lock a bike you use the lockbox again, to get the key and lock the conventional U-Lock to a Zagster Rack. You then have to hit "End Rental" in the app, as a screen yells at me to make sure I'm actually locking my Zagster up at a Designated Zagster Rack (basically a regular bike rack with Zagster logos).

I take a short walk in Old Town, not all that impressed and decide that my last hour+ in Santa Fe before my train would be much better spent going on a longer bike ride. I walk to the entrance (through a parking lot) of the Bio Park to pick up my next Zagster. This rack has one bike nearly overgrown by a green (it's the end of a relatively rainy, by ABQ standards summer) shrubbery.

I ask someone and walk past the entrances to the botanical gardens and aquarium and find the Rio Grande Bike Path. This is a nice protected bike path along the extremely namesake river. I ride south until I'm a couple miles south of the train station, and realize I'm near the train tracks and might as well ride along them north. I cross the tracks and see the light of my train (that sits in Albuquerque for about an hour for it's middle of the second day service stop on its 2 day journey from Los Angeles to New York), zooming north for the station.

I head north towards the train station, on an empty two-lane road with sharrows.

I get back to the movie theater rack across from the transit center/train station and lock my bike up.

As I walk back to the station and am waiting in line at the ticket office to retrieve my suitcase I realize I've forgotten a step. Electronically ending my ride through the Zagster app!

I board my Amtrak Roomette Sleeper Car, and settle in, taking advatage of the trains onboard shower to get clean after my two hour bike ride. My overall impressions of Zagster is that it's a system that works well for small cities trying to do a 'pilot' bike share program with little government planning (Cleveland also uses Zagster for what's described as )