Tips 1 - 10 of 26 Paris General Tips
|
|
 |
General Tips: A week on the Velib' bikes
|
Tip Rating:  |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
Favorite Thing: In the summer of 2008 I took out a seven-day subscription (for a mere five Euros) to the fantastic Velib' system of short-term spontaneous bicycle rentals and spent the week touring Paris on these sturdy and nearly-free machines.
I didn't keep track of exactly how often I checked out a bike, but looking back I would estimate that I took seven to twelve separate rides per day. Since the first half hour of each ride is free, i.e. included in the subscription price, I usually returned my bike to one of the 1,450 Velib' stations before the half hour was up, and then immediately took another one (or the same one again) if I wanted to go further. Please have a look at my tip How Velib' works for more details on the pricing system.
Update: When my credit card statement arrived the following month, it turned out that Velib' had billed me for all of seven Euros, from which I conclude that only two of my many cycling trips lasted longer than half an hour. (A seven-day subscription costs five Euros, and if a trip lasts more than 30 minutes then one additional Euro is charged for the second half hour.) Only seven Euros for a week of cycling! That has to be one of the world's greatest bargains. The first photo shows Velib' station 10001 aka 10-01 (first station in the tenth district or arrondissement) at Place Johann Strauss, a block from my hotel, where I often started out in the morning.
Additional photos: Here are just a few of the many thousands of Velib' riders on the streets of Paris. According to city officials there are 120,000 trips on an average day, which works out to about 27.5 million trips during the first year of operation.
http://www.velib.paris.fr/
Leave a Comment
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Visiting Paris? Read reviews about Paris Hotels Real Reviews from Real VirtualTourist Members.
|
|
|
General Tips: Getting a one- or seven-day subscription
|
Tip Rating: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Favorite Thing: People who use the Velib' bikes more than five weeks a year are better off getting a yearly subscription for 29 Euros, which 198,913 people have done in the first year of operation. These are mostly people who live in Paris or the nearby suburbs, and they have the option of adding the Velib' function to their Navigo cards, so they can use the same card for renting bikes that they use for riding trains, buses or trams.
The rest of us can take out one- or seven-day subscriptions at the computer terminal which is found at most Velib' stations. You need a bank card or a credit card for this, preferably a European card with a chip in it. There have been problems with chipless American cards, but I have just downloaded the General Terms and Conditions from the Velib' website, and it says in Article 5.2 (3) that they accept AMEX and JCB cards.
It takes a few minutes to go through the procedure in which you agree, among other things, that they can take up to 150 Euros from your account if you fail to return a bike.
The young Portuguese ladies in this photo are taking out one-day subscriptions at Velib' station 10011 (or 10-11, the eleventh station in the tenth arrondissement) on rue du Château d'eau near Place de la République. I was happy to show them how to find the English-language menus and to answer the one question they had about the procedure. When it asked for a secret four-digit PIN number, they didn't realize that they were supposed to choose this number themselves, any four digits that they could easily remember.
According to the official statistics there were 277,193 seven-day subscribers and 3,683,714 one-day subscribers during the first year of Velib' operation, from July 2007 to July 2008.
Second photo: There are two sides to each computer terminal, and to subscribe to need to use this side that has a slit for your credit card and another slit where your Velib' ticket comes out when you have successfully completed the subscription procedure. Caution: it spits out your ticket very vigorously, so hold your hand by the slit to catch it, or look for your ticket on the ground nearby.
http://www.velib.paris.fr/
Leave a Comment
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
General Tips: Checking out a Velib' bike
|
Tip Rating: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Favorite Thing: For those fortunate people who live in Paris and have annual Velib' subscriptions, checking out a bike is quick and easy. They don't even have to use the computer terminal, they just find a bike they want, swipe their card briefly on the card reader (where it says Posez votre carte d'abonné sur le lecteur), push the button and off they go.
For the rest of us, with one- or seven-day subscriptions, it's a bit more complicated (but still easier than the German Call-a-Bike system, for example).
When we have found a bike we want, we have to go to the computer terminal, press 1 to confirm that we have a short-term subscription, press 1 again to confirm that we want to borrow a bike, enter our seven-digit subscriber number and press V to validate, enter our secret four-digit PIN number that we have defined ourselves and again press V to validate, again press V to confirm that we are responsible for the bike we will be using, then enter the two-digit number of the bike we want and again press V to confirm. The computer checks to see that that bike really is available and then tells us to go get it.
I know that sounds complicated, but after you've done it a few times it goes really fast, so please don't be intimidated, okay?
Before taking a bike, always check first that the tires are pumped up, the chain is in place and the handbrakes work. Experienced Velib' users often pick up the bike by the back of the seat and give the back wheel a spin to make sure it isn't bent out of shape. Again, this all goes very quickly after you've done it a few times.
Second photo: Here's a nice Velib' user at station 16023 aka 16-23 (twenty-third station in the 16th arrondissement) at 1 rue de Passy, trying to locate her seven-digit subscriber number so she can type it into the computer terminal.
Third photo: To check out a bike you have to use this side of the terminal, the side with a map of the immediate vicinity. This map shows the location of other nearby Velib' stations, so if no bikes are available here you will know where else you can try. Theoretically the computer terminal can also tell you how many bikes are available at which other stations, but I have so far never succeeded in making it do that. (Not that I ever really put my mind to it. I think the trick is that you have to enter the station number in its five-digit form without the hyphen, e.g. 16023 rather than 16-23 as it says on the terminal.)
http://www.en.velib.paris.fr/trouver_une_station
Leave a Comment
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
General Tips: Returning your Velib' bike
|
Tip Rating: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Favorite Thing: To return your bike you first have to find a Velib' station with a free docking stand that has a green light on it.
In this photo the young couple on the right has arrived at station 5009 (the ninth station in the 5th arrondissement) on rue du Fouarre, behind the church St. Julien-le-Pauvre, hoping to return their bikes there.
No docking stands are free (I have just taken the last one, actually), but the other couple on the left has just started entering their numbers to borrow two bikes, so two docking stands will be free in just a minute. (This often happens at busy stations with lots of coming and going.)
On the right side of the bike there is a metal tongue which you slide -- or ram! -- into the slit on the docking stand. If you've made contact the light will turn yellow, then green and there will be two beeps to confirm that your bike has been returned. But if you fail to get the tongue all the way in the light will blink yellow and there will be lots of rapid beeps as a warning, so you have to try again, using brute force if necessary.
If by any chance the light should turn red (which happened to me once), then the return of your bike has not been registered. In this case you MUST ring the Velib' people and tell them what happened, otherwise your account will be blocked and you might even be charged for the missing bike. You can make voice contact through the built-in phone in the computer terminal (using the i for information function on the front side of the terminal), which in my experience works perfectly well unless you are at a busy intersection with very loud traffic noise, or you can phone them at 01 30 79 79 30.
Second photo: These ladies have just returned their bikes with no difficulties to Velib' station 12010 on Avenue Daumesnil in the 12th arrondissement. (I took one of their bikes a minute later.)
http://www.en.velib.paris.fr/trouver_une_station
Leave a Comment
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
General Tips: Velib' at night
|
Tip Rating: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Favorite Thing: The Velib' bikes are available 24 hours a day, around the clock, and they all have front and rear lights that go on automatically, day or night, when you start to ride.
Thanks to Velib' lots of people have discovered how exhilarating it is to ride around Paris at night. Public transport schedules get thinned out in the late evening anyway, so by taking a bike you can avoid having long waits for the next train or bus to come.
They say about 25 % of all Velib' rides are taken between 8:00 p.m. and 3:00 a.m.
Between 1:00 and 4:00 a.m. the trains and buses stop running altogether, so to get home you have to take a bike or a taxi. (A bike is much more fun, and cheaper.)
Second photo: Here some people are checking out and returning bicycles at night at the Place de la Madeleine.
GPS 48°52'9.73" North; 2°19'26.14" East
Leave a Comment
|
|
|
|
|
|
Visiting Paris? Read reviews about Paris Hotels Real Reviews from Real VirtualTourist Members.
|
|
|
General Tips: Damage and repairs
|
Tip Rating: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Favorite Thing: Here at Velib' station 7025 on Avenue Octave Creard, just behind the Eiffel Tower, an employee of the JCDecaux company is checking the bikes and noting down which ones need repairs. Small repairs are often made on the spot, but for larger problems the bikes are taken on electric trucks to a floating repair shop which cruises the Seine River collecting bikes from various districts of the city.
JCDecaux is a big outdoor advertising company which runs the Velib' program (and also sets up shelters at bus stops, for instance) in return for city advertising space. They also run similar programs in cities like Lyon (very successfully) and Brussels (not so successfully). Their main competitor, Clear Channel, lost out in the bidding for the Paris program, but runs similar programs in other cities such as Barcelona.
The French papers lately have been running stories saying that repairs, theft and vandalism of Velib' bikes have been costing JCDecaux considerably more money than expected. But so far there are no signs of either JCDecaux or the city of Paris losing their nerve, which is good because Velib' has been a rousing success so far, and nobody is willing to let a small group of vandals dictate a return to stone-age transportation policies.
http://www.jcdecaux.org/
Leave a Comment
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
General Tips: Velib' Plus at higher altitudes
|
Tip Rating: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Favorite Thing: Most of Paris is reasonably flat, but there are some hilly places in the north (Montmartre) and northeast (Buttes Chaumont, Belleville) parts of the city.
This has proved to be something of a problem for Velib', since more people ride downhill than up, so the stations at higher altitudes quickly lose all their bikes and don't get as many back.
One thing they do about this is to have electric trucks circulating to redistribute the bikes, but another thing is that all stations at an altitude of 60 meters or higher have been declared "Velib' Plus" stations, and the software has been amended to award an extra free fifteen minutes ("indivisible") to anyone to returns a bike to one of these stations.
So I seem to have earned an extra fifteen minutes simply by riding up to the top of this hill in Belleville (not a very challenging hill, frankly) and docking it here at station 20113 on Rue Piat at the top end of Belleville Park.
Those extra fifteen minutes came in handy the next day when I went to Passy, where I had never been before so I had to keep stopping to look at the map.
Second photo: You can tell which stations are "Velib' Plus" because they have a special logo with a white plus sign in a red circle, at the top of the computer terminal.
Third photo: Here's the same terminal from the other side, also with the "Plus" logo.
Leave a Comment
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
General Tips: Get a good cycling map
|
Tip Rating: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Favorite Thing: Velib' has been such a huge success in Paris that dozens of publishing companies have come out with maps and guidebooks purporting to be guides to the system.
After looking at most of these and trying out several, I feel confident in recommending this map called "Paris Voies Cyclables" by Media Cartes.
It costs two Euros more than its similar-looking competitors (EUR 4.95 instead of 2.95) but it much more detailed and accurate, showing exactly where there are separate bicycle lanes, which bus lanes are open for cyclists, which direction the one-way streets go and which (few) one-way streets are open to cyclists going the other direction.
And it shows exactly where all the Velib' stations are located, with no mistakes that I have found so far.
One of the other maps indicated a Velib' station on Ile Saint-Louis, for example, where none exists, and it showed no Velib' stations near the Musée d'Orsay, where in fact there is a big one with 64 docking stands right by the museum.
The Media Cartes map also has the advantage of being printed on un-tearable paper (indéchirable) -- at least it hasn't torn yet, and I've used it quite a bit already.
Second photo: Velib' station 7007 by the Musée d'Orsay on Rue de Lille, which was shown on the Media Cartes map but not on one of the others I tried out. This station tends to be full of bikes during the day, when the museum is open, but all 64 bikes disappear very quickly when people start leaving the museum at closing time.
http://www.media-cartes.fr/edition/ed_parisvelo.html
Leave a Comment
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
General Tips: Helmets and bicycle safety
|
Tip Rating: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Favorite Thing: Hardly anyone in Paris wears a bicycle helmet, except me and this lady in the photo.
As I have mentioned on some of my other pages, I consider bicycle helmets to be a sensible precaution especially for children and for us elderly folks, but I am not in favor of compulsory helmet laws because they dissuade people from cycling, and the damage caused by not cycling far outweighs any slight increase in safety that a helmet might provide.
I have discussed this in more detail in a tip on my Amsterdam page called Why the Dutch don't wear bicycle helmets.
Also I have written a tip called Why I still wear a bicycle helmet even though the Dutch don't.
In any case, there are other precautions that are MUCH more important than wearing a helmet, and the main one is:
Don't try to pass motor vehicles on the inside!
Five Velib' riders have been killed in Paris since the system went into operation in July 2007, and in all five cases the situation was the same. The cyclist tried to pass a truck or bus on the right, got into that vehicle's blind spot and was crushed to death when the truck or bus made a right turn.
Wearing a helmet would not have prevented any of these deaths.
For more on how to prevent this kind of accident, see "Collision Type #3" on the website bicyclesafe.com, which is all about "How to Not Get Hit by Cars".
These five Velib' deaths were front-page news in the Paris papers, unlike the traffic deaths of pedestrians, motorists, motorcyclists or non-Velib' cyclists, which are barely mentioned.
In fact, bicycle safety has improved considerably since the beginning of Velib', simply because there is safety in numbers. The more cyclists there are on the streets, the safer we are.
I noticed this particularly the other day at the tricky intersection by the Hotel de Ville where Rue de Rivoli, Rue du Renard and Rue de la Coutellerie all come together. I used to get off and walk this one, but now I was in a group of about a dozen cyclists all going the same direction, so it was no problem to ride through the intersection together.
Statistically, bicycle use has gone up by 24%, but injuries only by 7%.
http://bicyclesafe.com/
Leave a Comment
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
General Tips: Velib' and the bicycle shops
|
Tip Rating: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Favorite Thing: At first the owners of bicycle shops were opposed to Velib' because they thought it would cut into their business, but now the opposite seems to be happening.
Velib' has made cycling such a chic and fashionable thing to do in Paris that more people are also buying bikes of their own, or getting their old ones repaired.
According to the website BIKE Europe the strongest growth segment in French bicycle sales in 2007 was city bikes with an increase of 39%, which they say was "maybe influenced by the huge popularity of the rental systems like Velib in Paris."
Second photo: Riding her own bike on Boulevard du Palais.
Leave a Comment
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Join a Discussion Paris Party spot New Years!
(2 replies, Saturday, Nov 7, 2009, 8:33 AM UTC) CDG airport to Ibis Hotel in Rue Cambronne, 15éme - 75015
(5 replies, Friday, Nov 6, 2009, 6:54 AM UTC) Christmas in Paris
(4 replies, Friday, Nov 6, 2009, 9:48 AM UTC) Be the first to reply to these questions Fireworks in Disney Paris in November are they different than the other fireworks they do??
(no replies yet, Friday, Oct 9, 2009, 6:03 PM UTC) Paris Visite and Navigo
(no replies yet, Thursday, Aug 27, 2009, 11:25 PM UTC) Ecstatic dance in Paris
(no replies yet, Monday, Jun 8, 2009, 1:35 PM UTC) » All Paris Posts
» Ask about Paris Destinations near Paris- Île de la Cité, 1.22 km / 0.76 miles
- Clichy, 4.43 km / 2.75 miles
- Levallois-Perret, 5.2 km / 3.23 miles
- Neuilly-sur-Seine, 5.21 km / 3.24 miles
- Asnières, 6.64 km / 4.13 miles
- Courbevoie, 7.12 km / 4.42 miles
- Boulogne-Billancourt, 7.12 km / 4.42 miles
- Suresnes, 7.3 km / 4.54 miles
- Puteaux, 7.3 km / 4.54 miles
- Issy-les-Moulineaux, 7.39 km / 4.59 miles
» See all locations nearby» Popular Île-de-France locations» Popular France locations» Popular Europe locations |
 Comments for Nemorino about Paris | | | | |
jumpingnorman Sun Oct 25, 2009 01:12 UTC
Hi Don - the Saint Chapelle looks like a really awesome place for concerts and your paris tips continue to amaze me with regards to detail - but yes, those catacombs were interesting and a bit spooky....Norman :) | grado Tue Sep 29, 2009 04:09 UTC
Your info on the Velib was fantastic! Do you know anything about the Paris Pass? I couldn't find anything on VT. Thanks again for terrific info! Jan Gradowitz sjgrado@yahoo.com | risse73 Tue Sep 22, 2009 22:15 UTC
Read the customs, nightlife, warning, shopping & hotel tips. Love the riverside dancing scene, the "fnac" ticket info, the charming hotels, but hate the anti-immigrant sentiment. Thanks for visiting my general Peru page! -Marissa- | joiwatani Sun Aug 9, 2009 21:36 UTC
I was here early this year but didn't have enough time to explore it! Might be back next time when time and money allow. |
|
|
email me
add as friend
