Comment 47344

By mikeyj (registered) | Posted September 08, 2010 at 11:22:26

After going to Paris and Lyon this summer on trip through Europe, I have to say I was pretty disappointed with their bike-shares.

Our first attempt in Paris wasn't too aggravating, we thought we were set with a Velib depot around the corner from our apartment, but were disappointed that they didn't except foreign credit cards after being redirected a second depot.

In Lyon, the Velo'V was much worse, we were able to get a day card with my credit card, but it was extremely difficult to release the bikes from the rack. Trying to tap your card, enter your pin and run to a random bike and pull before someone else did the same, nobody knowing who tapped first. Several locals attempted to help us and told us we need to press the brake as you pull it off, all to no avail because by then all the functioning bikes were gone. After walking to our third depot we gave up the dream after realizing all of the bikes on working racks were in severe disrepair anyways.

So from a traveller's standpoint and as more of a note to Canadians who read about these Bike-Shares and expect to be able to easily use them: We recommend using rental shops for better maintained bikes and far less hassle (especially if you're in Beaune, France with their beautiful Veloroute through the hill towns and vineyards of Burgundy).

I hope our bike-shares (if we got them) would be more inclusive to travellers than Paris' Velib's and kept in a better state than what I witnessed in Lyon. Both the demo systems seem to have a far simpler way of releasing the bikes than the Velo'V's, which was disappointingly clumsy and non-intuitive.

Permalink | Context

Events Calendar

There are no upcoming events right now.
Why not post one?

Recent Articles

Article Archives

Blog Archives

Site Tools

Feeds