I've been fortunate enough to use bike shares in many major cities around the US- each with a name, seemingly dumber than the next. Bublr, is apparently a term unique to Milwaukee (except for a sliver of Rhode Island) for water fountains and hints at the city's aspirations to be a capital for water-related industry and research. I just know it as a fine marijuana-smoking apparatus. Either way, I think Bublr may be my favorite program thus far.
The baby-blue color of the bikes, seems to be a nod to their Lake Michigan neighbors, Chicago- with their Divvy bike share (perhaps my second favorite program). It appears that if there's one thing they know about here in the Midwest, it's bike shares. What about beer and cheese, you ask? Shutup; this is my review. No more questions.
Since the program is still fairly new, there aren't a whole lot of stations (10 for now). Thankfully, Milwaukee isn't really that big, so it's not a huge deal. Being that it is new, that also means that the bikes are, well... new. No one has had the chance to really jack these bad boys up yet. I imagine once spring comes back around, there will be some booze-fueled, bike accidents. For me, the location of their few kiosk/stations were perfect.
There was a station right outside of my hotel, on Kilbourn; from there I paid my $7 (a steal) for my 24 hour pass. We rode Kilbourn to Juneau Park, and then took Prospect ave to the Lake Bluff Condos, where there was a ramp that lead down to the lake/Veterans Park. From there we took the bike path around Lake Michigan and down to Discovery World, where I switched out bikes. From there we rode further down to the lighthouse and back to DW where we switched bikes out again, to make sure we didn't go over the allotted 30 minutes. After that we went to the Public Market to grab some lunch. It was never a chore to try and find a station, which was refreshing.
I also really liked the fact that Bublr doesn't print out your ticket number for your bike. You get to choose beforehand which bike you want, select it's postion # in the kiosk and then you have 30 seconds to unlock it; that's gotta save some trees. They also text you once you've docked it, so you know it was done correctly. Plus, their full baskets also have a lock, in case you need to run into a store, for say... some beer or cheese. read more