A bicycle rental company charges $16 for the first hour and $7.00 for each additional hour. Determine the maximum number of hours you can rent a bike if you only have $93.

Answer 1

Hello, Nadia,

From the table below, we establish what we know and then set the unknown, hours rented, to x. X will be the maximum number of hours we can rent the bike if we have $93 to spend.

Set an equation that represents the total cost of rental. That would be the $16 for the 1st hour and then $7/hr after that. The equation for total cost would thus be:

Cost = 16 + 7(x-1)

We must subtract 1 hour from the total, since we've already paid for the first hour with the $16 initial fee.

We then set the cost to $93, assuming we want to spend it all, or at least know the maximum number of hours we can ride without going over our $93 total life savings.

Solve the equation for x. We can ride the bike for no more than 10 hours.

Bob