Spinway bike rental opens at Aqua Radisson

Spinway, an Australian bike rental company, began peddling its pedals in front of the Aqua Radisson in June. Offering eight bikes from a station near the hotel’s front entrance, the service is designed to accommodate tourists visiting the city and Chicagoans looking for a leisure ride.

According to Global Technology Director Kevin Cooke, Spinway offers a convenient alternative to the bike rental options currently available in the city. Whereas the Divvy bike-sharing system requires customers to exchange their bicycles frequently throughout the duration of the rental, he says, “Spinway allows people to get a half or full day of riding without having to return the bike every hour.”

Rental fees are $11 for one hour, $22 for four hours, and $33 for eight hours. The process for paying and obtaining the bikes is extremely straightforward. “Simply walk up to the interface at the kiosk,” says Mr. Cooke, “enter credit card, press number of bike, walk up to the bike and push it forward and pull it out.”

Mr. Cooke — a native Californian who owns two mountain bikes, two road bikes, a BMX bike and a beach cruiser — spent nearly a decade as a store manager for one of the largest retailers in the biking industry before joining Spinway about five months ago. He makes sure that the rental stations throughout the US and Australia, which rely on solar power wherever available, function properly. He also rides to work at the company’s Santa Monica office everyday.

He believes that Spinway’s service is strengthened by its relationship to the hospitality industry. “We work with four or five-star hotel properties,” he explains. “We utilize the hotel’s experience with guests and hospitality, so helmets, locks, maps, and lights are available for free from the front desk in most of the locations.”

The station at the Aqua Radisson also offers two family-friendly bikes. One is a “trail-a-bike” that Mr. Cooke describes as “a half a bike with a tandem attachment for an adult back that allows kids to ride on the back.” The other is a bike with an attached child carrier.

Besides the ease of use, the leisure centric policy and the line of free accessories, Mr. Cooke is confident that Spinway’s bicycles are among the safest and most advanced in the industry.

“There’s been a lot of thought and engineering put into the bikes,” he says. “The spokes are three-crossed lace stainless steel, for increased stability and strength. We have thorn resistant tubes that are heavy on thickness, which will take a puncturing, and extra-thick tires with tire liners.”

Additionally, the bikes’ gear-shifting mechanisms are three-speed internal hubs that do not require the galvanized industrial steel chain, which Mr. Cooke refers to as a “pretty phenomenal piece of equipment,” to move from one sprocket to another when shifting. “There is rarely any mis-shifting,” he adds.

Spinway was founded in 2013 by Australian Matthew Rennie, a graduate of the University of Sydney. It boasts nearly 200 rental stations in Australia. Its US locations include Chicago, Santa Monica, Minneapolis, Atlantic City, and Rochester, NY. Plans are underway for expansion to Orlando, Miami, and Traverse City, MI.

If the popularity of its Chicago rental station is any indication, more locations are soon to follow.

“In the first hour that it was operational,” says Mr. Cooke, “the whole station was being rented out.”