CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cycling in Cleveland gets a fresh spin forward today with the launch of a bike-sharing program that will offer rental bikes at six locations throughout Ohio City and at the Superior Viaduct.

The "Breezer" bikes, with step-through frames and front baskets big enough to hold a bag of groceries, are for rent for $3 an hour from Zagster, a Cambridge, Mass.-based bike sharing company that until now has concentrated on corporate and university settings

Residents and visitors can hop on a Breezer to run errands or zip to a restaurant over lunch --- and leave the cost of buying, tuning up and storing a bike to someone else.

The program pushes off at a noon press conference at one of the new Zagster stations, between the West Side Market and Market Garden Brewery on West 25th Street in Cleveland.

With streamlined bike racks, onboard bike-locking technology and rentals accomplished with a phone app, Cleveland's system is expected to ring in at about one-fifth the per-bike cost of networks in New York and Boston that use expensive touchscreen kiosks and bulky docking stations.

The financing of Cleveland's venture departs from the norm, too. It's the first bike share in the country to be led and funded by the private sector.

The small group of bicycle-loving business owners and civic leaders who pitched in money said they aren't looking to profit on their investment. The returns they're focused on are more about promoting economic growth, linking neighborhoods, encouraging physical activity, cutting down on car dependence, and offering a convenient and fun way to make urban trips.

By adopting the Zagster model, they figure they've identified a way to do all that. And they say Cleveland's pilot network of 34 Breezers at six stations could expand to perhaps 200 bikes and other neighborhoods, including University Circle, in the spring.

"We as young business owners and developers decided that we wanted to make it happen and we would pay for it out of our own pocket," said Justin Carson, a co-owner of Platform Beer Co. and one of the sponsors. "We're really proud that we've been able to do that."

The venture's other partners are Graham Veysey and Marika Shioiri-Clark of the Hingetown area of Ohio City; Sam McNulty of Bar 25 LLC and Market Garden Brewery; Daniel Brennan, chief marketing officer of Skylight Financial Group; Rafid Fadul, a Cleveland Clinic doctor and manager of Left Side Developments LLC, which bought the Superior Viaduct Lofts in November; Brian Zimmerman, chief executive of Cleveland Metroparks; and Tom McNair, interim director of Ohio City Inc.

They declined to disclose how much they invested to underwrite the Cleveland bike share for a year.

"Suffice it to say that's it's a significant commitment and a real show of support for bike sharing in the city, but exponentially less than other big city programs," said John Williams, a spokesman for the group.

Tap in a code and pedal off

To rent a bike, users create a Zagster account with the Zagster Mobile App (available for iPhone and Android), or online at www.zagster.com/Cleveland.

They text the number listed on the bike to Zagster, which responds with a code for a lockbox on the bike itself. Inside is a key to open the Kryptonite lock securing the Breezer frame.

Riders can use the code throughout their rental to lock and unlock the bike anywhere along their trip. Once the bike is returned to a Zagster location, they simply text the word "end," releasing the bike for the next rider.

Cleveland's new bike share opens with five stations in Ohio City and one at the Superior Viaduct.

The bikes have sturdy baskets, fenders with mudguards, a chain guard to keep your trousers or skirt clean and an oversized carrying rack. They have seven gears and come in one frame size with a height-adjustable seat.

Fees are $3 an hour with a maximum charge of $24 for 24 hours. Riders expecting to take frequent trips can pay $15 a month or $75 a year to get unlimited rides for an hour, with the regular fee schedule kicking in for any time over that.

Along with the Market Garden site, there are rental stations at Platform Beer, 4125 Lorain Ave.; 2220 Superior Viaduct; Ohio City Firehouse at West 29th Street and Church Avenue; Merwin's Wharf, 1785 Merwin Avenue in the Flats; and Ohio City Inc., 2525 Market Avenue.

Zagster branches out from business and campus clients

The Cleveland system is an experiment for Zagster as well as Cleveland. It's the bike sharing company's first fully public rental system, after catering to property managers, hotels, businesses, and universities that make bike sharing available to tenants, employees, guests and students.

Businessman Dan Gilbert's Rock Ventures/Quicken Loans network of firms, for example, began offering Zagster bikes at no cost to some of its 12,500 downtown Detroit employees in June 2013.

By the end of the 2013 summer, more than 2,600 employees were enrolled and the program was getting enough use to average two rentals per bicycle per day. The success convinced Rock Ventures to leave some of its racks up over the winter, making bike sharing available year-round.

"People have come to rely on the bikes as a fun, active alternate way to get around downtown," RJ Wolney, Rock Ventures' director of business development, said this week. "Other Detroit area companies are looking at Zagster, and it's great to see Zagster launching in the Cleveland area as well."

Other Zagster clients include Forest City, Huntington Bank and, in a transit-linked operation in Portland, Maine, the Amtrak Downeaster. General Motors recently announced it's partnering with Zagster to set up bikes around its 330-acre campus in Warren, Mich.

Zagster CEO Tim Ericson said the flexibility that untethers Zagster bikes from having to park at specific docks -- so riders aren't limited by the station-to-station nature of other U.S. bike shares -- is a fit for urban areas that may not support a complicated and expensive bike sharing setup.

"Everybody's been struggling in the industry to figure out a model that makes sense," the 28-year-old, carless Zagster co-founder said.

"We've taken out the large kiosks and large infrastructure and put that technology on the bike. The early players were going after the big fish -- New York, Boston. I think we'll become the standard for bike sharing in smaller communities. I think this will put Cleveland on the map."

'A laundry list' of benefits

Bike sharing is on the rise in the U.S., doubling last year to more than 18,000 shared bikes nationwide, and set to double again by the end of 2014, to 37,000 publicly shared bikes, according to the Earth Policy Institute.

Councilman Joe Cimperman, a fan of biking generally, said he's impressed with the public health benefits and economic development potential of bike sharing.

In a recent trip to Indianapolis, which has 250 bikes at 25 stations along the Indianapolis Cultural Trail, Cimperman said city officials named four new housing projects directly spurred by proximity to the urban bike and pedestrian path.

Ellie Blue, author of Bikenomics, a book analyzing the economics of cycling. said cities grappling with how to pay for bike sharing are over-focused on whether they can be profitable.

According to Blue, there's a "laundry list of benefits" that should be in the calculation -- how bicycling encourages physical activity, increases access to non-auto transit, and reduces pollution, noise and traffic congestion.

"I think we need to look at the cost of not doing it, honestly," she said.

Bike Cleveland Executive Director Jacob VanSickle said Zagster's smart-bike model is exciting because it can be set up so quickly and cheaply. The infrastructure cost for kiosk-dependent bike sharing drives the per-bike launch of those systems to $5,000 or more.

Cleveland's pilot will give the city a taste of how bike sharing can make a community more bicycle friendly, VanSickle said, while generating data on customer demand that can guide plans for a broader bike share network.

The city of Cleveland in an initial study of bike sharing released in January said the city could support 770 to 1,400 rental bikes based at between 77 and 140 stations in five neighborhoods.

Researchers suggested a dual-core setup with hubs in downtown Cleveland and University Circle, followed by an expansion of stations into Midtown, Ohio City and Tremont - neighborhoods expected to offer the highest potential demand.