Vivian H.
Nov 21, 2017
Just a warning, you must be a UNM student, faculty or staff to rent a bicycle from here. Now, I am none of those, but I managed to finagle a bike rental for a week. And here is how it all went down. I called the store on a Monday morning to ask if they rent bikes and the clerk that answered said, "yes, we do." I asked how much for bike rental and he answered, "$10/day and $40/week including the weekend." I hung up and thought, "sweet!" Now, I'll have wheels. But then I looked at the 1 Yelp review listed under this store and good things I did. Aengus W. mentioned that you needed to be affiliated with UNM. So, I gave another ring to the store. The same guy answered. I asked if you had to be UNM student, faculty or staff to rent a bike and he said, "yes." At this point, I was pretty bummed out as I was back to square one. But then he said to me, "but if you have a friend's UNM ID, we can rent the bike out to you." So now my hopes were back up again and I have some colleague/friends that work at UNM. Now I was on a mission to get a bike rental. After walking for about 90 minutes, I finally reaches this bike shop. When I get to the counter, I explained to both gentlemen at the desk that I am not affiliated with UNM, however, a colleague/friend would be willing to loan me her UNM ID so I can rent a bike. One of the guys said to me immediately, "We can't rent the bike to you unless your friend provides the UNM ID and also signs the agreement." At this point, I am super exhausted. First, no one explained any of this to me over the phone. I had to call back to find out that bikes are only rented out to those persons affiliated with UNM. Second, when I get to the store, I had another hoop to jump through and now had to involve my friend in this bike rental project. My friend was super nice and was willing to sign the form and vouch me. So, I walked over to where my friend worked, had her sign the agreement and then go back to the bike shop. So, after over 2+ hours, I finally got a bike. When I went back, only one guy was there and he helped get all squared with a bike rental. He even offered to throw in a free helmet rental. Appropriate of him considering all the hoops I had to jump through. He found a decent mountain bike for me, adjusted the seat and sent me off on a bike. Overall, a very exhausting experience and I am not sure I would go through the hassle again, but I have the bike for now and will enjoy it. And besides I got a bargain for $40/week rental whereas elsewhere, they will charge you $35/day.
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