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You may have noticed that the pitch of my voice changed significantly after the white wine and oyster stop. Go figure. I’m not sure that Velib wants a white-wined idiot cruising around Paris on one of their bikes and then reviewing their service on his blog, but who cares. Here goes:
First of all, the bikes are awesome. They are really nice three-speed bikes, looking a bit like something that should be called iBike or iVélo or something. They’re slick and user friendly. And they have one of those little dinger thingies so that you can scare people as they walk along the sidewalk, causing them to fear for their lives and jump out of the way. Having never owned a bike with a little dinger thingy, I used mine liberally.
The way it works is that you can get a short-term rental for your stay in Paris, but only if you have a bank card or a credit card with one of those chip things in it. That means, essentially, a card issued in Europe. Perhaps American banks are starting to to do the chip thing as well, I have no idea. But if you ain’t got no chip, you ain’t got no bike. So that’s a bummer.
You put your card in, punch a few little buttons, and then you get a code that is good for either 1 or 7 days, depending on how long you’ll be there. After that, you can just go around the city, taking and leaving bikes as you please. Rates and other info can be found here.
So the bikes are great and the system works well and is very hi-tech-ish. So what could be wrong? Two things:
1. On busy days and during busy times, it can be tough to find a spot to put your bike back. And, since you’ve put a 150 Euro deposit on each bike, it’s not something that you just leave leaning up against a wall somewhere. So on one occasion Ellen and I were stuck with four bikes (there were four of us to begin with but Cody and Jessica had to run off to catch a plane) and no empty “docking stations” to park them in. After maybe 30-45 minutes, we finally managed to have them all docked, but only after riding around a bit to find the empties. I understand that there is some sort of Velib team that goes around with trucks and moves bicycles in and out of congested areas, but it’s obviously difficult to keep up. So that was a little annoying.
2. Nowhere on the terminals where you swipe your card does it say that Velib will hold or “lock” your deposit funds for 7 to 9 days. You have to call them afterwards, when you’re wondering where the hell your money is, to get that information. Since I was the only one with a chipped card, we used my card for all four bikes. I made the mistake of using a bank/ATM card instead of a credit card, which meant that a whopping 600 Euros was theirs for 7 to 9 days, and I was not able to access those funds until I got back and called my bank here in Sweden. I don’t know what that’s all about, but I was pretty frustrated with them at the time. (I’m over it now. I think.) I sent an email to Velib to voice my frustrations (in English), but I am sure that that one ended up in the “English” inbox, an inbox that is generally laughed at and ashed on.
All in all, even considering the fact that they stole my deposit money for 7 days and went to Vegas, it was a great experience with the Velib thing. With a good map of the city, these things will save you loads of time getting around. The first half hour of each trip is free, and the cost that you pay goes up as you use them, illustrating the idea that they want you to use them for short trips, not for cruising high schools. But if you watch the clock, and follow someone who knows where they’re going, you can do most trips around Paris in less than half an hour.
In a nutshell, I give Velib a stern shaking index finger for their 7-9 day deposit policy, but then invite them out of the time-out corner and happily give them two ooh-là-làs and a bonjour mademoiselle.Tags:
* comedy * humor * funny * silly * entertainment * pop culture * Velib * Paris * bicycles * bikes * bike rental Paris * oysters * white wine * idiot
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So, so good! That was a blast!
Comment by Ted 6 November 2007 @ 9:14 am[...] since I’ve told you about the important stuff, like my haircuts or my Christmas tree or my bike rides, so it’s high time I do so. So here we [...]
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