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CYCLING IN PARIS

Five great Vélib tips

Thursday 11 October 2007, by Jim Pollard

Five actually pretty obvious tips collated here for no other reason than to give you an idea of the sort of thing that could go in this section of the site.


1. Check the bike beforehand - punctures and buckled wheels are not uncommon - since once you’ve hired your bike, sluggish software means it’s difficult to put it back and get another one.

2. If you are going to use the panier, make sure it is functional. A completely unscientific spot check at Place de Clichy found 3 out of 4 useless paniers.

3. Get an annual abonnement - that way you don’t have to go to the machine, you just waggle your card in the general direction of the purple panel beside each bike (a la Oyster or whatever they call it here) and hey presto. Very useful for queue jumping.

4. Cycle uphill - better for you and better for Vélib’s distribution.

5. The ’built-in’ locks are pretty hopeless.

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2 Forum messages

  • 6 December 2007 01:21, by Alison Culliford

    Don’t use Vélib to go to areas with a popular bar culture. I spent 50 minutes cycling round the Ledru Rollin area looking for a spare borne and had to park miles from the bar my friends were waiting in.

    Also don’t count on finding one near your home after 2am (bar closing time). You may end up having to leave it locked to a gatepost all night, which would incur a cost of about €70 (it’s €4 the half hour after the first half hour). It’s Russian roulette with your credit card.

    My advice is to try Vélib to see if you think cycling in Paris is for you, then buy a second hand bike, bash it up a bit, always put a disgusting plastic bag over the seat that looks a bit like a condom (particularly repellent to thieves), get a nice big bell and lights and always lock it to something solid but not in a place where cars can run into it. I’ve had my bike in Paris now for 6 years and the worst thing that happened was the someone stole the brake cables.

    Best bike repair shop in Paris: Preya Cycles in the Marais run by Sri Lankans. They never try to charge you for stuff you don’t need.

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  • 17 January 2008 09:49, by Peter

    Do you know about the unofficial "backward saddle" code?

    Frequent vélibbers turn the saddle backwards on faulty bikes, so that others don’t take them by mistake.

    If you find a bike with the saddle pointing backwards, don’t just turn it round again: check it out! It’s probably broken in some way.

    If you borrow a bike and it turns out to be faulty, spin the saddle round when you return it (by releasing the same lever that you use to set the height) to warn others. (If - as is often the case - I have a block of Post-Its with me, I’ll stick one on the handlebars describing less obvious problems so that the technicians will know what to look for: it seems that they, too, know the saddle code...)

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