New Rental Bikes in Shanghai

In the past couple of months, new rental bicycles have been popping up around Shanghai, and the rest of China. I went for a ride on three types of them to gauge the comfort, convenience, and economics of riding a rental bike in Shanghai. I tested the MoBike, MoBike Lite, and Ofo bicycles. MoBike Lite is a cheaper version of MoBike with the solid rubber tires.

Regular Mobike rental bicycles.

Registering for the bicycles is often exaggerated as one of the more painful apps to register for in China. After all, if you are a foreigner you do need to hold your Passport up to your face. However, after holding my passport up and capturing a selfie, the process was done on both apps in under half an hour. On the MoBike app, they require a 200 RMB reimbursable deposit for the use of the bicycles, while Ofo only requires a 99 RMB deposit, which is much more manageable.

As far as cost goes, MoBike and Ofo tie at one yuan ever thirty minutes, while MoBike Lite is only half a yuan every thirty minutes.  Overall, the bicycles were all easy to find just about everywhere, especially outside Fashion Park mall. However, the MoBike Lite bicycles were slightly less plentiful, and therefore harder to find.

Mobike Lite rental bicycles.

For comfort, all of the bikes had a well padded seat.  On both of the MoBike bicycles, the seat was not adjustable.  This was the biggest flaw with these bikes in my opinion.  It is very hard for someone my size or taller, about 170cm and up (5ft 8in), to pedal the bike comfortably while sitting on the seat.  My knees hurt after about one minute on the bike, and it made the journey unpleasant.  However, on the Ofo bike, the seat was adjustable, and that made it very comfortable for people of all sizes.  All of the bikes rode about the same, which was very smooth on the road and slightly bumpy on cobblestones.

Yellow Ofo rental bicycles.

All in all, the Ofo bicycles are the way to go in my opinion.  Considering the adjustable seat, the 101 RMB cheaper deposit compared to MoBike, and the ease to find, they are well worth the one yuan for every thirty minutes you ride them.