I biked all the way from MIT to Newton on a VBike (it only cost $2) and met Nicole Freedman!  When I started working with PN2K is when I first became involved with the bike safety.  When you’re at MIT and in the field of bike safety, you’re bound to hear some names, one of them being Nicole’s.  Nicole was formerly known as the “bike czar” of Boston, one of the main instigators of the stationed bike share system Hubway.  She’s also really cool in person, and I was thrilled to have the chance to meet her.  Nicole is now the Transportation Director of Newton, and she met with me to discuss a mode of station-less bike share and possibly introducing this into the City of Newton.  I will thrilled to just meet her, and the prospect of working with her to make the surrounding cities more bike friendly is mind-blowing.  Thanks for your time Nicole, and for all you’ve done with transportation in Boston and the Greater Boston area!

P.S. Just in case you’re wondering, VBikes is a new station-less bike share system being introduced to many cities in Massachusetts.  They’re super snazzy designs — I couldn’t help noticing all the looks that random people gave me (heads turning) when they saw my bike.  This one in particular had no gears, but it’s also our prototype bike and is by no means the final version (final version will include adjustable seats, dynamo hub powering front light, solar panel powering bike lock, Shimano gears and Shimano brakes, lighter bike, etc.)  Why this beats out stationed bikes?  The entire ride from MIT to Newton cost me $2! (and I did not have to worry about kiosks). Now hey, no technology is perfect, but these new no-kiosk VBikes are definitely worth considering, especially when they don’t cost $100K+ in taxpayer’s money and are pretty high quality, sturdy bikes! More info on their website: www.vbikes.com (download the app to use a VBike)

Exciting news: recently one of our teammates went to interview David Shan, the owner of VBikes, a stationless bicycle sharing company originating in Dallas, Texas with headquarters in Garland, TX.  They were interested in our mission and work and heard about our dilemma and troubles using Hubway bikes for our long Blue Heron bike ride.  (We have been wanting to increase the number of bike rides we lead, but we are trying to encourage people without bikes — so you can see where our dilemma lies). After speaking with a VBikes company contact (Shawn), VBikes decided to partner and support our efforts.  We don’t know exactly where the collaboration will go but in the meantime, we are excited to announce that we have five new VBikes at the PN2K Office. Here’s Yaoming with our snazzy new VBikes! The great thing is that they don’t require kiosks and only cost us $1/hr to ride. I think we’ll need to take this out for a test spin soon! ~ Keep Calm & Pedal On