Another Velib' Update

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It’s time to count our Velib’ blessings.  It’s been almost seven years since the mayor's office set up this low-cost rent-a-bike program, and today those funky looking bikes are part of the cityscape.  Similar systems have been set up are in cities all around France. 

For years, the futuristic city cycles were almost entirely out of reach of your average North American tourist, as they required a chip-enabled credit card, preferably of European origin.  Now there are options:  you can either buy your 1-day or 7-day subscription on line, or you can use a refillable cash card, like Travelex.  You an also find out how it works on the extensive English-language page on the Velib’ website, and even call an English-speaking customer service person.

So let’s say you actually got yourself a bike and are ready to take off into traffic.  Here are a few do’s and don’ts:

1)   Check your bike before you check it out.  Are the tires flat? Do the brakes work? Is a pedal missing?  (I once tried to pedal away and to my surprise…)

2)   Wear a helmet.  If you don’t want to bring one, you get a casque (helmet) for 10€ at a Decathalon store .  Once you take to the streets, you will understand why.

3)   Get a map, preferably a handy-dandy “Paris par Arrondissement” that lists Velib’ stations, so you won’t go nuts trying to find one when you want to check in.  For the smartphone inclined, there is also an app that you can download from thewebsite.

4)   Take a deep breath.  What you are about to do requires courage, patience and a certain amount of derring-do.

Actually, while the traffic looks crazy, it’s not as bad as it looks.  As long as you pay attention, most drivers will pay attention to you.  There are also an increasing number of dedicated bike lanes (though they often abandon you just when you were starting to relax).  The bike lanes should be on those maps I mentioned, but don’t count on it.  Look for the theoretically bike-friendly bus lanes (and then look out for buses and taxis).  Watch out for motor scooters—whose drivers seem to have little regard for human life, including their own—and other cyclists, some of whom appear to be trying out for the Evil Knievel Award for Stupidest Death-Defying Risk. 

Now that I’ve made you nervous, I’d like to point out that riding around on a Velib’ is a truly delightful way to see the city. As long as you stay off the big boulevards, you can glide around with relative ease, humming the theme to the movie “Amélie” as you take in Mansart-roofed vistas and quaint neighborhoods you never knew existed. You’ll cover plenty of territory in a short distance (this is a relatively small city, after all) and avoid plunging into the Métro on a nice sunny day.  If it’s not a nice day, well that’s another matter.  It’s up to you how much cold, rain and wind you can handle.  And remember, while you are having fun on your bike, you’ll be working off all those pastries and croissants—and making room for more.

Velib' Update

I’m hardly a Velib’ expert. Living in the burbs, I don’t get to use Paris’ way-cool rent-a-bike program as often as I’d like. There are thousands of Parisians out there who have thoroughly integrated Velib’ into their lives and can test tire pressure, adjust the seat, check out their bike and sail into traffic while I am still pulling my Velib’ card out of my wallet. That said, I’ve gotten used to the system and it seems way less baffling than before.

And less scary. As time has passed, I have been forced to acknowledge that despite the psychotic look of Parisian traffic, you don’t see cyclists being bumped off at every corner, nor is there a steady stream of ambulances rushing mangled Velib-ists to city hospitals. Of course, there are plenty of accidents, and you should worry, but you should also know that there are a lot of cyclists doing dumb things on their bikes, too.

I think it was my old roommate who finally made me see the folly of my ways. She thinks nothing of sailing out into the middle of place de la Bastille on two wheels. In fact, she does it almost every day. Since she has to eventually turn left, she actually gets herself into the center of it, near the mighty column that celebrates Les Trois Glorieuses (that’s the revolution of 1830, by the way, one of the several other revolutions that Paris witnessed on the rocky road to becoming a republic). “Are you nuts?” I asked, dumbfounded. The traffic that careens around the place de la Bastille is so bad I won’t even go near it in a car. Imagine a giant roundabout the size of a (round) football field with cars whizzing around at the speed of light.

That said, I am forced to admit that cars get around it without pile ups every five minutes. Maybe there is some kindly god like the winged Spirit of Liberty on top of the column that hovers over the place de la Bastille and protects drivers and cyclists from the law of probability. My roommate responded that she gets around just fine, and that car drivers are much more aware of cyclists these days. I decided it was time to stop worrying so much and start appreciating the joys of Paris on two wheels.

Besides, it’s my civic duty. If cyclists don’t take to the streets in numbers, Paris will never complete the transition to becoming a bike-friendly city. And perhaps it is fitting that the bicycle revolution should take on the place de la Bastille, birthplace of the first French Revolution. Aux armes, citoyens! Though I still won’t ride through it like my roommate. I’m not crazy. I wear a helmet.

Velib' and the Bike Lane Conundrum

Speaking of health and well being, I took another spin on Velib’ the other day. While bike lanes are still few and far between in Paris, there are more of them than before, and I thought why not take advantage of the ample bus lane configuration on Boulevard Montparnasse. I set out from Gobelins on a bus/bike lane that runs in two directions in a parallel universe on one side of Boulevard de Port Royal. It’s like a separate street with two-lane traffic that just happens to run right next to another one. At this point in my travels, the bus/bike lane was on the left (to me) side. Once I got over my disorientation, I was a happy camper, because there was barely any traffic and I felt relatively safe, even if I did have to look over my shoulder from time to time to see if a bus was creeping up on me.

Then, as I crossed Avenue Denfert Rocherau, I saw a labyrinth of markings on the pavement and suddenly the two-way bus/bike lane switched to the other side of the street! “This is too much for me,” I gasped, as I ducked over to the crosswalk and walked my bike across the street, as I tend to do when I lack the courage to cross interminable Parisian intersections with angry cars snorting on every side. As my heart rate returned to normal, I got back on my bike and continued down the bus/bike lane thinking that now the way was clear all the way to Montparnasse.

It was then that I came up on what my map tells me is Place Picasso, but my heart calls The Nightmare. This time, the markings on the road were clear: when the light changes, follow the white lines across the intersection and rejoin the bus lane on the other side. I looked over to the other side. It looked doable. It looked like a clear and simple procedure. It even seemed logical. So when the light changed, I crossed. I was the only bike on what felt like a freeway onramp, or a train turntable, or some other place where a bike just shouldn’t be. I pedaled across for what seemed like several kilometers, all alone, with about 14,000 cars staring me down from 12 different directions, all poised to come charging out of their starting blocks the second the light changed. What if I didn’t make it to the other side before that happened? “I’m going to die!” I shrieked as I crossed, my heart jumping into my throat, my body covered in a cold sweat.

To my amazement, I made it across. It took a good fifteen minutes for my heart to stop pounding. I know I’m a cowardly weenie, but could someone please build decent bike lanes in this city? Please? I understand that bus lanes make handy bike lanes too, but a bike is not a bus...

Velib—One Year Later

It’s been about a year now since I took my first spin on a Velib bike (see Velib Liberates Paris, and Velib–the Sequel), and during that time, the groovy rent-a-bike program has become an integral part of the Parisian landscape. According to the official Velib website, usage goes up as high as 100,000 rentals per day, and in the month of September, total rentals reached somewhere around 2,830,000. There are close to 1,000 stands sprinkled throughout the city, and the site of someone cruising down a major boulevard on a futuristic bike that looks like it escaped from the film Metropolis, is simply no big deal anymore. It is still a great way to get around the city, provided you maneuver well through Parisian traffic and have learned how to avoid those major boulevards (not enough of which have bus or bike lanes).

There are now two types of people in Paris: those who are willing to risk life and limb to whizz around the city on two wheels, and those who think that those in the first category need to have their heads examined. The former, many of whom would never have dreamed of biking through the capital before those wacky-looking Velibs showed up, have thrown themselves into the thick of urban traffic with reckless abandon, or at least what feels like reckless abandon, because after all, simply surviving rush hour gives you a rush. It may be foolhardy, but it feels like freedom. And as some people have pointed out to me, it’s actually safer to be on a bike in Paris than in a lot of other large cities, like say, New York. There are more and more bike lanes, occasional equipped with cement dividers that keep motor traffic out, and there are many bus lanes where you only have to contend with buses, taxis, and drivers on the verge of a nervous breakdown who simply can’t resist the temptation to fly down the relatively uncluttered bus lanes.

Being a parent, and feeling a moral responsibility to return home alive, I have taken to doing something that makes me look like a total nerd, and thus something that hardly any real Parisians ever do: I wear a helmet. I bring it in my backpack just in case I get the urge to Velib. I’m not sure how high this actually raises my safety quotient, but it does make me feel a lot better.

There are things you gotta know to Velib effectively. Among other things:

• always take a map of the city showing where the stands are. Spontaneity is all very well and good, but without a map you risk much cursing and frothing of the mouth when you can’t find a stand to park your bike.

•plan ahead. Look at said map (which hopefully has one-way streets indicated) and figure out the best way to get from point A to B before you get on the bike.

•look at the bike before you hop on and realize the chain is dragging on the ground and the front tire is flat.

And now we get to the $64,000-dollar question: can tourists use the damn thing? While in theory, any credit card with a chip in it will work, in practice people have written to me that they have trouble getting Visas and MasterCards to work, with chip or not. But several bike fans have reported that for some mysterious reason, American Express does work, especially American Express Blue. I’ve even been told that chip-less American Express cards work, though I can’t imagine how. So don’t leave home with out it.

If like me, you’ve never managed to get an American Express card and you don’t have another card that works, don’t despair. Though it’s not as groovy, and you don’t get to use the high-tech stands, there are several places in Paris where you can rent bikes by the hour, 1/2 day or whole day. Try Roue Libre, Paris à Vélo C'est Sympa, or French Connection Bike Tours. The last two also offer nice bike tours.

Velib'—the Sequel

I’m still a big fan of Velib’, the city's virtually-free bike program (see my previous post, Velib' Liberates Paris), even if it seems like I’ve encountered just about every problem you can have with them during my infrequent usage. Being spontaneous on Velib’ requires thinking ahead. First, after an unfortunate incident with a faulty derailleur, I learned that you should make sure your bike works before you unhook it. Then, after circling the 6th arrondissement for a good 20 minutes, I learned that you should buy yourself a map showing all the stations before you try to find a place to park it once your done with your ride. Then, after discovering two hours after I thought I had returned my bike that my account was still open, I learned that you should make sure the bike stand is in working order before you check in your bike. It’s a long learning curve, but I still appreciate the practicality and usability of the program. It’s the perfect thing for short trips that would be a pain by public transportation or a shlep to walk. And it’s fun, provided you don’t find yourself on boulevard Haussmann at rush hour. It will be even more fun once the city has put in real bike lanes with cement barriers, like the one on avenue Daumesnil (the only one I’ve found so far).

But I have a question for the cyber-world. I’ve had a lot of people ask me if tourists can use Velib’ and I’m having a hard time coming up with a straight answer. In theory, as long as your debit or credit card has a chip in it, you can stick it in a stand and get a 1 or 7 day ticket. The problem is, most American credit cards don’t have chips. But I’ve also heard rumors that people with American Express cards, even chip-less American Express cards, manage to use Velib’. I’ve contacted the Velib’ office and all they can tell me is that the card has to have a chip. From what I gathered during the conversation, they have not made any real effort to make Velib’ tourist-friendly for fear of riling the bike-rental outfits in the city. So here’s my burning question: has anyone successfully used Velib’ with an American credit card, be it AmEx, or otherwise? Do chip-equipped US cards work? Thank you one and all!