Paris ‘Velib’ Bike Hire
Cycling is a great way to see more of Paris - and since July 2007 the ambitious ‘Velib‘ scheme allows anyone to hire a bike straight off the city’s street corners.
The scheme has made some 20,000 bicycles available for general hire from more than a thousand road-side bike stations, which are located as little as 300 metres apart on streets throughout Paris’ twenty arrondissements. Velib, which takes it’s name from the French words Velo (for ‘bike’) and liberte (for ‘ freedom’) has been a huge success, and is as good excuse as any to swap the darkness of the metro with the fresh air of the boulevards.
To use the system you first need to pay a small subscription fee. It costs 1 euro to sign up for the day, and 5 euros for the week, and you can register with a credit card at the terminal found at all of the bike stations. Alternatively, you can register online for an annual membership costing 29 euros - and receive a prepaid card allowing you the freedom to grab a bike from one of the pickup points whenever you feel inclined.
Once subscribed, you’re charged additionally for each journey you make - there’s no fee for the first 30 minutes of each hire period, meaning quick trips across the city are all included in your subscription. If you want to keep possession of your bike for a little longer, your card will be charged on a sliding scale - 1 euro if you keep it for an hour, 3 euros for an hour and a half, and an additional 4 euros for every half hour after that. This pricing scale means you’d be cheaper to rent from a bike shop if it’s a long, leisurely days cycling you’re after - but with bike stations now situated on almost every street corner, there’s no reason why you’ll need to hang on to the same bike for very long if you’re just using it to hop between the sights.
French law doesn’t require you to wear a cycling helmet (and they aren’t provided at the velib stations) but it’s always a good idea to bring your own if you can. Of course to keep the system running smoothly there are also fines - fail to return your bike to one of the terminals within a 24 hour period and you’ll become liable for a 150 euro charge, which will be deducted from whatever method you used to subscribe.
Paris boasts around 200 miles of cycle paths for you to enjoy - and cycling on a Sunday is particuarly enjoyable, when the city centre’s main riverside boulevards, normally fast and busy highways, become pedestrian roads and cycle paths (part of the Paris Respire initiative). Check out the official Velib website if you’d like to know more…
