Vélo´v

I think most will agree that Vélo´v, Lyon´s bicycle rental service, are a raving success. All around town you can see people of all sizes and ages riding identical red-and silver bikes.
And it´s a bargain. You can take a bike from one station and if you return it to another Vélo´v station within a half hour it is completely free. After the first half hour the rates are pretty low, like 0,5 - 1€ an hour or so, but in fact they say that around 90% of the trips made by the bikes are under a half an hour, which means the they are practically free for the riders!
In order to get a bike you must buy either a short term card (1€) or a long term card (5€) and the bikes have to be returned within a maximum of 24 hours or you have to pay a 150€ fine. But you shouldn´t have to have problems finding stations since there are 340 of them all around town.

Equally handy for the tourists and non-french speakers, both the website and the Vélo´v stations have instructions in English. However you may find that the machines are a bit choosy on which cards they accept. We know that you must have public liability insurance in order to use Vélo´v, so our theory at this point is that if you are from a country within the EU you might be able to use your credit card, otherwise you must use french one... but we may be wrong about this and if there is anyone who knows this for sure we would be grateful if you would comment on this.

Of course, as happens with public bikes everywhere, it is highly likely that you will at one point or another get a bike that is in pretty bad shape. Some are quite impossible to ride and this can be very frustrating. Also, some people say they find it confusing riding a bike in the traffic in Lyon. This will probably depend on where you come from and what you are used to. People from Scandinavia, accustomed to extensive bike paths and abiding strict traffic regulations, may find bicycling in Lyon a bit random while people used to riding bikes in China may find find it quite orderly. I think most would agree that it isn´t that difficult and that it doesn´t take long to feel comfortable in the traffic.

Vélo´v is definitely an economical, healthy and environmentally friendly form of transportation, ideal in a semi-small city as Lyon. We highly recommend it and take our hats of to the city managers for providing such a great service. I would like to see bike rental services like Vélo´v in every major city, It´s high time we did something about polution and global warming.

You can find more information on Vélo´v on their website.