Biking Paris

Velib stations are everywhere. They light up bright green in the night with a few red lights here and there. Velib is a public bike rental service. People pay for a membership in periods of a single day, a week, a month, or a year and in return receive rentals of bicycles at these stations. Trips that 30min or less are free after that the costs start at 1€for a 1 hour 3€ for 1.5hrs and so on.



The system is simple. The membership holder types in their account# with their pin# and selects to unlock a bike. Once the the bike is unlocked they are free to ride it anywhere. Each bike is equipped with a 3 gears, a light, basket, locking device and flat metal fob that inserts into the bike station during check in. Once the bike is inserted into the station the light turns green and a single transaction is finished.

These stations require a credit card with a chip in order to purchase memberships so at first I was unable to get one. However my friend Dan was able to get a week membership for me for 5€. With this pass we were able to station hop in 30minute intervals to our destination. In reality it is very rare that one would need more than 30minutes to get from point a to point b in Paris.

There are some precautions to take before selecting a bike to check out. Dan gave me the checklist of things to look for. 1. Make sure the front and rear tires are inflated and not flat. 2. Make sure the chain is on the bike and actually rotates the wheel. 4. Check brakes. Even with these tips, I still got a few lemons, for example a bike that was stuck in one gear or a bike with a seat that didn't lock in place.

I did have a problem with my week pass though. I used the pass without incident the first 3 days or so. I went a day without using it. Then on the 5th day tried to rent a bike to get to the local train station to pick up tickets to Nice and ran into some complications. It said that I had already a bike checked out. My last check out was almost 2 days ago. According to the contract any bike that is lost is subject to a full 150€ charge. The problem with this situation is that I don't speak French, my card is registered under Dan's account meaning that he would be charged that amount. I immediately contacted and him and luckily the next he was able to confirm that there was an error in the system. None the less that was quite a scare to think that I just lost 150€ on a 5€ service.