Making bicycles mainstream Again! MYBYK

In the summer holidays of 2007, my parents got me my first bicycle on scoring good marks in my school exams. Earlier then I used to rent out cycles for Rs 2/hr from the local cycle shop nearby my house. I learn to ride the bicycle with the help of my family members doing a lot of mistakes and accidents sometimes. In the end, it was worthwhile, I used to ride it day and night till I can’t get enough fun and felt fatigued. Growing up I used my bicycle to go to tuition and run daily errands in my household because it was so much more fun riding and carrying stuff than usual walking. Currently, I just go cycling in the evening just to refresh my brain from a daily dose of dopamine from the Internet.

If you are like me who loves to ride a bicycle for fun and cover long distances around your cities while using it for your daily commute, you'll definitely want to know about MYBYK.

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• I didn't have shared any early copy of the blog with MYBYK, it's not a review blog but just a perspective of a normal user of their service, so treat it as the same.

• Most of MYBYK's images are sourced from the official website and they have full authority and copyrights to it.

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What's MYBYK?

MYBYK is India’s First Premium online bike-sharing service that allows its users to rent bicycles for a brief amount of time for their daily commutes around the city. The company is founded by Arjit Soni and primarily started its service in Ahmedabad city Gujrat, India first. Over the years they have expanded their service to a brief number of cities by tying up with local transit corporations around those cities like Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kochi, and Nagpur.

The goal of the company is to provide an affordable and sustainable transportation option for short trips around the city for common commuters, tourists, and fitness enthusiasts.

As their motto said:

Making cities liveable Again!

Their bicycle can provide shorter commutes just like a personal bike and make longer commutes easier by integrating it with the already present public transit system in the city.

How does it work?

To use MYBYK services, you first need to ensure that its services are available around your city. You can check that out by downloading The MYBYK App which is available for both IOS and android devices. It helps in finding out locations where bikes offered by the company are available.

After downloading the app follow these steps:-

1. Sign up: Users can sign up for MYBYK with their mobile number or e-mail Id

2. Locate a bike: Once a user has signed up, they can use the app to locate a nearby bike

3. Purchase a Plan: The user then can select a plan listed below, to use the bicycle for their desired time

4. Unlock the bike: Once the plan is purchased, they can unlock it using the app easily by scanning the QR Code on the bike.

5. Ride: Users can then ride the bike to their destination, enjoying the convenience and freedom of cycling.

Return: When finished, the user can return the bike to a designated parking area, and lock it using the app.

App Interface

Features

The MYBYK App is a great convenience for riders as it offers a great number of features to its user whether they are on or off the bicycle.

• Map support: It gives a complete view of city lanes, MYBYK hubs, and navigation options to commute around the city easily.

• Bicycle Status: We have complete details about bicycle ID, Date of pick up and pick off with the locations, Total duration of the ride, and fair took.

• Wallet Support: We can get our refunded money on this wallet and later transfer it to our bank account.

• Notification: It provides useful info, every time you use it to unlock a cycle with its transaction alert as well as the battery status of the GPS system.

• Profile and My Trips: We can have the complete overview of our account which have details regarding how many total rides we have taken down, the total distance covered with time, your best ride score, how much money we spent on our rides as well as health details like calories burned on a trip. It also suggests cycle trips happening in your cities get you engaged in cycling and communities.

Bicycles

MYBYK around different cities offers three variants of bicycles especially design for commuting daily around various areas inside the city. These are:

• Plus: This variant of a bicycle is the most common one and can be found in most of the hubs available inside the city. It’s a no-gear bicycle with a carrier on the front to carry your luggage for items waiting around 1-5kg. It also offers up adjustable sit, making it flexible and accessible to a wide variety of people with different heights and weights. In the frame, it also has a bottle holder attached that can carry one 1 liter of water bottle easily. The tires are tubeless helping in preventing accidental punctures during the commute. The back tires have a mudguard installed on them preventing your clothes from dirt on rainy days. It has a great suspension, handling, and braking system.

• Junior: This variant is more focused on having a fun riding experience which comes with most of the features as the previous one but doesn’t have a front carrier and mudguard. It’s comparatively smaller than plus and can be early carried up if needed around metros or railway stations. Its size also helps in carrying it on a mid-size lift inside buildings.

• Duet: The largest offering from MYBYK comes with a dual sit and pedaling system making it for couples and friends a great choice to enjoy a healthy Sunday ride. It has all same features as Plus but its frame is extended with back support for riders within sitting. It also has a carrier on the front and a kickstand on the back for proper parking.

I have used both Plus and Junior, The ride quality on them was awesome whether it’s a good road with great lanes and marking or offroad with dust and stones on the path it handles every condition very well.

Pricing

MYBYK offers a wide variety of options to rent bicycles of different categories easily. The rentals are generally based on the time you have taken the bicycle. But for safety measures, you have to first give a security deposit of Rs 500 and after that, you can choose any of the plans shown below.

MY EXPERIENCE

Recently on my trip to Nagpur, I got a chance to experience the MYBYK ecosystem and which I say is the best transit system I have ever ridden to date.

To explain MYBYK, I first need you to know about the transit system around Nagpur.

Nagpur is an important city in central India which have a rich history, vibrant culture, and a strong booming economy. It’s the third largest city in the state of Maharastra after Mumbai and Pune with a population of about 2.4 million.

As with any city, its people need to work and contribute to the economy 24 X 7. So it needs to have a good transit system across its regions. Nagpur already had a big railway station, bus transportation system, and local auto and cab services. But recently for its ever-growing population, it introduced the Nagpur Metro which can I say in future will be the feet of the city. You can travel to big prime locations inside the city with ease while traveling in Nagpur metro with a much fair price compare to other services. It has good quality trains running every 20 minutes from the station with both online and offline ticket booking services. All operating well because of the great staff at Nagpur metro. Within minutes you can reach anywhere in Nagpur city without worrying about delays and heavy traffic jams.

What makes it greater is that they have permitted to carry out any bicycle inside the metro and its stations with dedicated coaches and lifts to easily commute around. This helps make navigating around different locations inside the city faster and more convenient as cycles can go places where other four-wheeler vehicles can’t. Plus it’s eco-friendly and cost-effective also. If you’re fitness conscious, it will help you maintain your daily cardio goals and make you healthier in every ride you take.

To explain this ecosystem further, I will give you an example of a tour that I made in Nagpur in MYBYK. Me and my friends decided to go to VR mall which was located at the other end of the city and we were at VNIT Nagpur.

We first rented out two MYBYK bicycles from VNIT gate 2 ( It’s noteworthy that at every gate of VNIT, we can get an MYBYK hub easily) and then head out to the nearest metro station was LAD Chowk which was only a 5-minute cycling route. Then we take our ticket to Sitabudi which cost us only Rs 20/per person. After reaching Sitabudi, we had to switch our trains since the route was opposite fortunately, you don’t have to pay extra to change lines inside the metro, it's already included in the ticket you have earlier taken on. Then, we headed down to Congress Nagar which was the nearest metro station to VR mall. In both stations, we used lifts to take the bikes on the main station floor where we have to take our trains.

After reaching Congress Nagar, we just cycled to the VR mall for 10 minutes and reached our destination on time.

The whole transit system with MYBYK was so good that we enjoyed our journey more than the destination.

Ps. You need to follow all the guidelines assured via the metro authority to prevent any fines on you like you can’t ride the bicycles inside the station.

So, let’s discuss some positives about the MYBYK system

MERITS

• The UI of the MYBYK app was user-friendly and very instructive, it gives every info like trip details, location, and bike status at every point in the travel without any lag.

• The bicycle system is very eco-friendly and a very robust solution with little to no maintenance compared to other travel services.

• They offer a wide variety of options for bicycles for every need.

• The cycles offered are of very high-quality build and provide good ride quality on any terrain.

• Having a carrier at the front helps in carrying lightweight luggage easily and also having a water bottle holder on the frame is a plus in a city where you travel daily long routes.

• Collaborating with already present transit infrastructure like buses, metro, and trains makes it accessible to much more locations and make switching bikes easier.

• Having adjustable sits is also a must for any modern bicycle, especially which can be used by so many people of different weights and heights around the public. It makes sure the rider has good posture and riding position.

DEMERITS

• The first demerit we found out was that the app was very good in user experience but it was not properly working on some devices. Like in my friend, mobile it just showed a weird message and the app then automatically shuts down. ( May be permission issues in its device only)

• It was not available to all areas in Nagpur such as Itwari junction nearby Nagpur

• In some cases, when we tried to unlock the bicycle the lock stuck upon the spokes and doesn't open (thankfully the app can know the issue and suggest moving the back wheel a little bit, so that lock can open smoothly)

• The Rs 500 deposited through the bank account generally can be refunded in the wallet which you have to manually send back to your account for the first time.

• Using only lifts to carry bikes on the main floor and the ground floor was a little time-consuming. A bike escalator (bike travelator, bike conveyor belt) should be installed on stations to make the transition from one floor to another easier.

• Generally, commute bikes have also a bike carrier for luggage and extra passenger but it was missing from bicycles offered by MYBYK.

• As you know safety should be the number one priority, but MYBYK didn't offer any helmets with bikes to commute around cities safely. This issue is easily addressable by implementing a Bluetooth-based helmet that should always be connected to the user's mobile app to prevent theft.

Conclusion

As I have said earlier, MYBYK and the city of Nagpur have given me the experience of the best transit system I can find in any city till now. And I recommend it to anyone who wants to travel well and have healthy eco-friendly life in their cities. So DM and email MYBYK on their social handles, so that they can start their services in your cities soon.

Author's Note

Hope you like this blog about a company that is changing the way we travel and making it more accessible to the normal public, do read my previous blog here (It’s about friend's dreams and ambitions), and of course, share your views in the comment section about the MYBYK initiative as well as how they can improve their infrastructure well when implemented in your cities. Till then have good health and live life to the fullest every day.