Ever Tried Spinlister?

To Spinlist or not to Spinlist... that is the question

Sunday night we headed out in search of dinner & air conditioning for a brief respite from the heat & forest fire smoke haze. After dinner it was actually a reasonable temperature outside, so we went to a park to give the kids a chance to run off some pent-up energy. Shortly after we arrived, another cargo bike pulled up & parked next to mine, a Joe Bike front loader. Of course I headed over, "I've come to ogle your cargo bike."

The dad laughed & told me it wasn't his, he lives in Portland & was just up for the FIFA World Cup final with one of his daughters, so he'd rented it on Spinlister. I had heard of Spinlister, but it's not that popular in Vancouver yet. Chris put it well--Spinlister is basically AirBNB for bikes. You join the site, list your bike & people can rent it, making bookings & contacting you via Spinlister.com.

Talking it over with Oliver a bit later, he thought Spinlister might be a great way to subsidize the purchase of another cargo bike. Of course our angle is, "How can I use this as an excuse to get more bikes?" Ha! But after thinking about it more, I wondered if he might be onto something...

I went to the site & poked around. I could only find two cargo bikes listed, neither of them a longtail like our Yuba Mundo. That was something Chris had mentioned--he rides a Yuba too at home, & he wanted to rent a longtail, but all he could find was a Dutch style front loader. If we listed our Mundo on Spinlister, we'd have the market for longtails cornered!

I'm not sure I could give up my cargo bike for a week or even a weekend at a time, since we use it SO MUCH, but it's something to think about, definitely. How about you, have you ever used Spinlister to rent out your bike or rent someone else's? What was your experience like?

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