Nice Ride? You betcha!

Minneapolis was named the nation's most bike-friendly city this year by Bicycling magazine. One reason for the honor was the addition of "Nice Ride," the city's public bike-sharing program - the largest in the nation.

Nice Ride, a nonprofit started by Mayor R.T. Rybak and the City of Lakes Nordic Ski Foundation, launched June 10 with 1,000 bikes at 60 kiosks and continues to grow. The bikes were taken on 50,000 rides as of August 23, and the city is taking suggestions for where to add kiosks. (St. Paul, are you listening?)

On a recent vacation to Minneapolis - a mere hour south of our rural home - my family and I decided to leave the car at a park-and-ride, take the new commuter train in from the northern suburbs and spend the week on the bike paths of the City of Lakes. We brought two bikes along and rented two more from Nice Ride kiosks.

Our review? Two thumbs way up.

The bikes, heavy-duty 3-speeds, don't win many style points, but they're great for the relatively flat terrain of Minneapolis. The kiosks are strategically placed to get you close to most of the museums, theaters and other attractions.

Here's how it works: You swipe your credit card at one of the kiosks and pay $5 for 24 hours of unlimited half-hour rides. Locals can also subscribe to the service for $30 per month or $60 per year, students pay $50. The machine gives you a five-digit code that you punch in to free your bike.

If you lock the bike into another kiosk within a half-hour, you don't get an additional charge. If you're not through riding, you can swipe your card again, get another code, and take another bike. So you could conceivably ride for 24 hours straight for five bucks, or less with a monthly or yearly subscription.

If you keep the bike longer than a half-hour, you get charged extra, and the cost gets steeper the longer you keep the bike - up to $12 per hour for the real bike hogs. That prevents anyone from taking the bikes out of circulation by locking them up outside their workplace, home or hotel.

In four days we saw many miles of the city's amazing bike paths, from the lakes in the Uptown area to the dedicated riverfront trails, to the wide bike lanes downtown and heading south.

If you're visiting Minneapolis between the months of April and November, I recommend you do what we did: Leave the car at home and take advantage of Nice Ride. You'll see the city in a whole new way, and possibly get a glimpse of the future of urban commuting.

??The Stone Arch Bridge and dedicated paths along both sides of the Mississippi River take you past the remarkable new Guthrie Theater, Mill City Museum, University of Minnesota campus and Weisman Art Museum, and Cedar-Riverside West Bank neighborhood.

??The Nicollet Mall is the downtown shopping district, and the road is open only to bikes, buses and taxis, with a 10 mph speed limit. We biked from one end to the other on Wednesday morning, when the farmers market filled block after block with colorful flowers and vegetables.

You can finish your downtown ride at the Walker Art Center's sculpture garden after crossing Interstate 94 on a bike and pedestrian bridge that leads directly to the Walker. A stop at the Basilica of St. Mary is well worth it.

The Midtown Greenway is an old railroad cut bisecting south Minneapolis from east to west. Along the way you'll cross the Sabo Bridge, a modern bike and pedestrian bridge over Hiawatha Avenue. Heading east from Uptown, you'll end up at the river, and you can take the dedicated trails along West River Road back to the downtown area.

Brett Larson is a weekly newspaper editor who enjoys a variety of silentsports. He lives with his family in rural central Minnesota.

1.) Check the map and bring a watch: You pay $5 for 24 hours of unlimited half-hour rides. Each time you have a bike for more than a half-hour, you get charged extra. It pays to know where you're going to return the bike and to check your watch to get it there on time.

2.) Plan ahead: You can also save a few dollars by planning your Nice Ride trips in advance. Rather than going to the movie one evening and the grocery store the next, hit the grocery store the morning after the movie, and your bike is already paid for.

3.) Adjust your seat: The seats are easily adjusted, but it's best to do it before you start your ride. More than once I hopped on the bike and realized the seat was either too high or too low. By then, the wife and kids were a block ahead, and I was pedalling like a grown man on a tricycle or a kid straining to reach the pedals.

- Brett Larson