Donkey Republic Bikes User Experiences

Has anyone on the forum used rental bikes from Donkey Republic? Does it offer good value for money?

Donkey Republic is a bicycle sharing company based in Denmark.

As far as I know it has plans to enter the Swiss market in big cities like Zurich and Geneva. It already has a presence in Berlin, Vienna, Munich and many other cities.

Unlike oBike and similar companies, it does not have its own fleet of bicycles. It works with local partners like private bicycle owners, bicycle stores, and so on. Part of the rental fee (apparently 20%) goes to Donkey Republic as its commission, while the bicycle owner gets the rest. As per their website, major partners pay a one-time fee of 2000 euros and a fee of 15 euros per month for the electronic lock. Of course there might be special Swiss prices if and when it launches here.

Bicycle owners can set their own rental fees on a daily basis. Donkey Republic handles the billing. The minimum rental is 2 hours, maximum 2 weeks per unit.

Donkey Republic provides an electronic lock and software which lets renters access the bicycle using their smartphone. The lock does not have a built-in GPS tracker. Instead it relies on the GPS tracker in the renters smartphone.

It has a partnership with AXA, so there might be insurance interest behind the service i.e. "Now that you are renting out your bicycles, you probably want to insure them". Naturally the data harvested through this app-based service also has value.

Why is the company called Donkey Republic? That's anybody's guess.