Riding the Lime-S & Loving it!

My visit to Denver last week coincided with that city’s roll-out (well, really, not the city’s; but more on that later) of Lime Scooters, or Lime-S as they’re called.

I wouldn’t have known had I not been there, but the non-dockable scooters and bikes are showing up in cities around the country to many different views from the city, the residents, the proponents, and those who find them objectionable to use the kindest term possible.

What’cha got here are electric scooters and bikes that anyone with the app and ten bucks to fund their account can use. The vehicles are sitting around on terraces, the edge of parking lots, sidewalks, wherever the last rider left it. If you want to use one you scan the QR code that’s on the handlebar with the app, the vehicle unlocks, turns on the electric power, the light and starts the meter running on your app.

In Denver with Lime-S, it’s one buck to turn it on and 15-cents per minute to ride it. A ten minute trip costs $2.50. You push-off as with the scooters of our youth, press the throttle lever down that’s on the right-hand handlebar, and you’re off, breezing along at a top speed of about 15 miles per hour.

The Lime-S parked on a terrace in Denver.

All the while the Lime app is tracking you via GPS. Because it’s new, people on the side are looking at you. Some smile, a few more glower, but most just look on with a quizzical expression. On my first ride I passed a group of elderly folks sitting on park benches under the trees and I stopped. “Hey, that’s a neat scooter,” said an elderly woman with an oxygen tube to her nose. “Yeah,” I said, “it’s electric and a new thing. I’m just an old guy doing crazy things.” She and the others laughed and she said “You just keep it up. And keep that smile.” It’s hard not to smile when riding a motorized scooter.

You ride ’til you get where you want to go, hop off, and press the “End Ride” button on the app, which turns off the scooter, bills your account and posts to your private account a map and the track of where your ride took you.

You just leave the scooter there. The app knows via geolocation where the vehicles are that are parked and displays the on other users’ screens so someone who wants one can find it. When I left one in from of the house in Denver, it was there for less than 15 minutes before it disappeared.

When night falls and ridership declines, denizens of the night, I’m told, gather up the scooters and take them to their homes. They’re the “juicers”. They charge them overnight and redeploy then in the morning. 

Away you go again.

Me, I loved it! The city not so much and they’ve moved to have the scooters removed. San Francisco has a longer relationship with the scooters, dating to March of this year but Wired magazine has come to the defense of the new mode of transportation. I think Denver should as well.

Let’s see what happens when they hit the Madison area streets. I’m waiting.