Capital BIXI <\/a>launched this morning; I’ve been waiting for this all spring, so at lunch time I made my escape and went looking for the nearest station. There was nothing doing at their stated location at the corner of Queen and O’Connor yet, so I went scouting for Plan B. I assumed the Elgin Street station would be the flagship location, and probably equipped with bikes first, and so it turned out to be.<\/p>\nI can report that the ticketing machine was easy to use — it’s basically a simple credit-card authorization –and the unlocking code it gives you for the bike lock\/stand is an easy-to-memorize\u00a0 5-digit combination of 1s, 2s, and 3s. But bring a pen if memory tasks make you nervous.<\/p>\n
How does the bike work? Well, the wide tires give it a very smooth ride, and simple 3-speed gearing activated by turning the handgrip makes for uncomplicated propulsion. The brakes were firm and quick, and overall the bike has the feel<\/em> of a safe and sturdy ride.<\/p>\nBONUS BIXI FOR DUMMIES SECTION: Remember your phone number!<\/strong> The only hiccup I had was my own fault; in my geekish haste, I mistyped the phone number associated with my credit card, and that is the piece of data BIXI uses to authenticate your card, as opposed to expiration dates and 3-digit security numbers. But the re-do was fast and it was no-harm no-foul, so I was soon on my way — and far too excited to care about the rain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Capital BIXI launched this morning; I’ve been waiting for this all spring, so at lunch time I made my escape and went looking for the nearest station. There was nothing doing at their stated location at the corner of Queen and O’Connor yet, so I went scouting for Plan B. I assumed the Elgin StreetContinue reading “Capital Bixi in the rain: a geek’s first ride”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5066,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5296],"tags":[339,3438],"class_list":["post-5911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bikes","tag-cycling","tag-elgin-street-station"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCapital Bixi in the rain: a geek's first ride - Spacing Ottawa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2011\/05\/18\/capital-bixi-in-the-rain-a-geeks-first-ride\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Capital Bixi in the rain: a geek's first ride - Spacing Ottawa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Capital BIXI launched this morning; I’ve been waiting for this all spring, so at lunch time I made my escape and went looking for the nearest station. 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<\/p>\n