Bike Chattanooga

Can I give them half star? We rented 4 E-bikes, on complicated app, complicated forms of payment, my wife's bike was defective (Rear Wheel - Bended) after our ride the real nightmare starts...the counter didn't stop and after several calls and more than 1 hour of hard time, We talked to someone in the "office". Thank God they charged us correctly. Expensive but We knew it.

I seriously do not understand the bad reviews. Perhaps it’s a barrier with reading and the ability to follow directions! I was nervous to try these bikes because of all the bad reviews! But it was GREAT!!!! We rented 2 bikes throughout the day on 2/27/25 Key takeaways- 1-it looks like they have changed the model from previous reviews. You now pay a cent per minute rate. At the writing of this post regular bikes for $.20 and e-bikes for $.30 per minute. For us we did e-bikes, which averaged $18 an hour (but again you only pay for minutes used) 2- as clearly stated in their directions, you must dock your bikes within the hour. If you go over an hour they do charge you fees. For us- I just set a 45m timer each time we started, this gave us plenty of time to find a charging station to re-dock. 3-these bikes are not meant to go on long rides - there are bike shops in town if you want an all day rental 4- these bikes are not meant to leave around town and not dock. For example, in Atlanta there are bikes everywhere you just pick up and use, and leave when done. This is not the same concept in Chattanooga. 5-These bikes are perfect for what we did. We wanted to explore the city and the river. We took the free shuttle to Northshore and started in the park (there are bikes by the visitor center). We rode around north shore and then to River Bluff. We docked there and walked around the art district, had lunch, etc. We then retrieved bikes from the same dock and rode towards the east side, taking the river walk to a park. We once again docked at the park, as our time was getting close. We spent some time at the park and then checked the same bikes out and headed back into town for another hour. 6-make sure to download the official app which is PBSC (on the bike Chattanooga website). This will show you where the stations are so you can plan, as well as available slots and available bikes. 7- if you plan, and aren’t looking for a multi hour all day ride, these are perfect for seeing the city, and getting you to the various districts to then walk around! 8- we used the PBSC app. By entering our credit card we set up an account and then simply chose the pay as you ride option. At each bike dock we could scan the QR code on the bike and the bike would unlock. There was also the option of entering a code on the code box. 9- docking the bikes- not hard just be patient. You slide the front tire into the bike rack and just wait a second for the light to turn yellow and then red when it’s locked. I checked ours each time just to make sure they had locked. It wasn’t hard. 10- I imagine during peak visitor seasons there would be issues always getting an e-bike. There were definitely more regular bikes to e-bikes at each station. **I have attached photos showing the app to download / use, the map the app shows you which includes where docking stations are and what is available at each, and an example of how the routes are billed, which they give you in the app. Bottom line- Read and Follow directions, have realistic expectations of the bikes purpose for exploring the city, and have fun!

We had a very poor experience renting bikes in Chattanooga. To start we struggled getting bikes out of the docking station. It was not clear that the place to key in your code is the box with THREE numbers on the left side of the bike as shown in the picture. We kept looking for a digital keypad, and even considered that maybe you enter the code at the kiosk and specify a bay number to release the bike. Secondly, on a map the Tennessee Riverwalk looks like a nice continuous, bike-friendly path along the water front. In reality it randomly ends in places. It stops at stairs with no signage or direction. And ramps are narrow with hairpin turns that don't have enough allowance for bikes. Room for improvement here.

Great experience. I simply downloaded the app and followed the simple directions. Unlocked bikes and my wife and I had a blast. The day pass is great, docking every hour was easy because there are stations everywhere you'd want to bike.

I rented two bikes for the day and it cost $20 for both. I continued to get charged on my credit card so I called and they said after 60 minutes, you must get a new bike to not “ overuse” the bikes. That means there was an additional charge of $15 for each bike. That was stated absolutely no where on the website.

Great bikes. But they charge you like you are renting a Ferrari. Their vending machines are very poorly maintained. The first one station we tried had a broken touch screen and was unusable. The second one was barely usable, and we got charged for an extra hour on one of the bikes.

Poor, poor experience. This is the second time I have used the bikes and the second time I was unable to pull out E bikes that were fully charged. Was really excited to take 3 other friends around town on the bikes, finding E bikes docked, and our access code had to be reset each time, and even then, it took us 15 minutes to pull 4 bikes out, trying 6-8 different codes, re inserting my credit card. Additionally charging a late fee when it took half of the said hour to just get our bikes out.I ended up giving up and we used 2 electric and 2 regular bikes. I wanted to use this service and get an annual membership to save on purchasing a bike for my partner and I, but at this point it would be worth buying brand new bikes to save the headache of bike Chattanooga. Not to mention that I have had an $80 hold on my card for almost a week on top of the $40 charge for 4 daily passes. Never again.

Wish I had read the reviews before renting from this company. We had a hard time finding an e-bike with any charge to them and when we found one with a charge we couldn’t get them to unlock. We wasted a-lot of time trying to find a bike with a charge. The 60 minute rule is ridiculous. You have to watch your time instead of enjoying a bike ride to go turn in a perfectly good bike and hope you can dig through all the broken or dead bikes to find a bike with a charge. We will just rent from a local company without all the fees next time and keep a perfectly good bike the whole day.