5 Amazing Tips for Riding Lime Scooters in Rochester

I know you've seen Lime scooters laying all over the place in Rochester, Minnesota.  But if you are terrified to try one, let me reassure you, it is SUPER easy to use.  And, honestly, they are pretty fun!

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5 Tips to Ride Lime Scooters Successfully in Rochester, Minnesota

Because I'm a newbie like everyone else when it comes to Lime scooters, I really only had two goals in my little experiment:

1. don't fall off, and
2. just get the thing to actually move.

To help with #2, there are 5 tips below to help you make your scooter adventure as easy as possible.

Where can you find Lime Scooters in Rochester?

Finding a scooter is pretty easy because they are usually all over.  That wasn't my first step though.  First, I needed to get the app and to save on data, I pulled into a parking lot and found some free wifi to use to make that happen.  #thanksrandombusiness

Once the app was on my phone, it was time to find a scooter for me and my kids.  (And before you send me hate mail saying my kids are not old enough...they are.)  Yep...it was a family fun night and we were going out on the town on Lime scooters.  The app helps locate where the scooters are at so really, it was a matter of finding where to park so we could hop on some scooters.

The whole adventure was fun but there are a few things to know before you hop on a Lime scooter in Rochester...and some of these aren't even explained that well on the Lime scooter website:

1. Only move the scooter if you pay.  Why?  Well, they beep. I know...because we tried.  We weren't trying to steal them, we were just trying to get them closer as we got things figured out.  I would suggest NOT doing that.
2. How many accounts do you need?  Well, for each scooter you want to use, you need an account, and those accounts need to be tied to a phone, email, or Facebook account.  In our case, four people were riding which means four accounts had to get set up.  Luckily, we have four phones in our family so we could set up accounts but we didn't have all of the phones with us.  To be honest, this part was a bit frustrating and I would highly suggest looking into this before you go ride, especially if you are wanting to ride with multiple people, like a family.  It is not impossible but it is challenging and you will need to get special codes to unlock the bike that are specific for each account and also lock them back up.
3. You pay per minute...but you can save some money.  Promo codes!  A quick little Google search and BAM! I saved a few bucks.  Do a quick search before you even get to the scooters and you might be saving some cash too.
4. When you are done, you need to login to your account and end your ride.  If you used your phone for your account, you log back in to the app with that phone number and the app will send another special code to that phone number.  You MUST have that code to stop the bike from charging you and if you try to get the code too many times, it makes you wait a bit until you can try again.  We learned this one the hard way...and remember, it charges by the minute so you literally just stand there waiting and paying.
5. They can go pretty fast!  You don't have to go top speed...but you can. 😁  One of my kids did say “It’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done.  I don’t like how it accelerates so quickly.”
6. Bonus Tip:  The battery doesn't last forever.  If you can, find a scooter that has a fully charged battery.  One of our rides ended a little bit earlier than the others and so it was all muscle moving that scooter...but we still got to pay for that too.

Would I ride a Lime scooter again? 

Yeah, I'll put my helmet on and ride again, but probably only on the trails until I see real change happen on our roads, especially in downtown Rochester.  I'm still seeing drivers texting while and to be honest, I'd rather not get hit because they are distracted.

Have you tried the scooters? 

Let me know what you thought of them. Send me a message on my Facebook page (Jessica On The Radio) or DM me on Instagram.