Another Look at Bike Sharing

This is old news for most Europeans cities. We've had it in Valencia for almost 2 years. The old saying "the greatest thing since sliced bread" will soon be replaced with "the greatest thing since bike sharing." It is what urban planners call "transformational" meaning it will change an entire city's attitude about public transportation. I have two bikes but I still use our system every day. I am shockingly lazy when it comes to walking and will avoid laughably short trips on foot in favor or taking one of these cool bikes. I pay 18€ per year.

Another Day, Another Bike Wreck

I was cruising through Turia Park the other day on a Valenbisi bike and pumping my guts out. There is a little dip as the path goes under one of the bridges. As I was grinding up the other side, rounding the corner the chain broke. I was standing up on the pedals at the time and I started to fly over the handlebars. I was able to stop myself but I was going down and going down hard. My Professor at my old jiu-jitsu school would have been very proud of my break fall as we call it in marital arts. I was able to kick the bike away from me and slap my left arm down to help break my fall as I instinctively tucked my chin to protect my head. The scrapes I have on my left arm, leg, and butt cheek are evidence that I did everything according to plan as the wipe-out occurred (to me it was like in slow motion as I have practiced falling so many times).

The lesson I should take from this is to stop treating the Valenbisi bikes like rented Porsches and try to take it easy. With that said I’d also like to point out that this isn’t the first chain that I have broken on these bikes. In my cycling life I have only snapped two chains on my mountain bike and that was when I was climbing two gruelingly steep hills.  Chains shouldn’t be so easy to break.

More Valenbisi Propaganda

I just passed the one year mark with Valenbisi, Valencia’s great bike share system. The system itself began in June of 2010 but wasn’t really completely operational until last December or so. There are still some proposed new stations but it is all pretty much in place and working well. About the only complaint anyone could have against the program is that it is too popular. There needs to be more stations in the city center in order to accommodate just how wildly successful the system is right now. There are somewhere around 135,000 subscribers thus far which represents a bit over 10% of the population—not nearly as popular as the Vélib’ system in Paris after which our system here is based.

I was a hardcore cyclist long before the idea of bike sharing but Valenbisi has made my life much better. No matter where I am in the city I have a bike available to me. I go everywhere around town by bike. Almost everywhere because last night I was so tired after a great workout ride in the morning to the southern beaches I decided to take the bus home from my French class. I stepped out of the door from class, walked a half a block, hopped on the #19 bus, and got off two doors from my apartment. As easy as the metro and buses are in Valencia I rarely use them because the bike, for me, is the perfect urban transportation solution. I suppose that public transportation is a nice option when the weather is crappy but that isn’t the case very often here. Besides, I don’t mind riding in the rain.

Torres de Serrano Station

There definitely seems to be more cyclists on the road now than there were only one year ago. There needs to be a lot more, but I think that will happen. There is still the major problem of brutish drivers and the overall lack of respect given to cyclists here in Valencia. The bike path network is growing every day so it’s not like the city itself isn’t committed to making bicycling a viable option in Valencia.  I think that I speak for many citizens here when I say that I’d like to see Valencia become a first-rate city for bicycles sooner rather than later. 

Tour de Valencia: Read It and Weep.

18/07/2011 35_C/ DUQUE DE CALABRIA -> 171_CALLE GRAN CANARIA 0h 20min

This is from my Valenbisi account and it means that I went from the station near my house, Duque de Calabria, to the station on the other end of Valencia on Calle Gran Canaria and I did it in 20 freaking minutes. A new personal best and I doubt that even Lance Armstrong or Alberto Contador could do it in much less. Granted, I know the streets of Valencia as well as any cyclist and I also made a total mockery of any existing traffic laws, but still.

I think that there should be a web site where people can post their station-to-station times for Valenbisi.  Since the bike share system is already tracking everyone’s time we may as well do something with this information.

Free Sundays

Free is one of the best words in any language and Sundays are free at museums in Valencia.  Even if you don’t care for the art on the inside many of the museums are worth a visit just to see the buildings that house all of the junk. A good example is the National Museum of Ceramics in the picture above. Who cares about ceramics? Not me, that’s for sure. However, the former renaissance palace is a splendid work of art in itself. The IVAM, or El Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno has revolving exhibits and you will feel smarter just walking around the place. And did we mention that it’s free on Sunday?

It’s free but don’t forget your wallet at home. For one thing, Sundays are a perfect day to grab a Valenbisi bike to explore one of the city’s dozens of fine museums.  It is hard to spit and not hit a museum in the center of town, although polite museum guards will ask you not to spit.  After you have pretended to care about art and history you may want to stop off for tapas and a beer. You have to spend all of that money you just saved on museums somewhere; it may as well be in a bar. 

Un Paseo en Bici

I was feeling a little cooped up yesterday so I took a Valenbisí bike out for a spin. Actually, I think I took four bikes out as I rode for about an hour and a half. You can only keep the bike for 30 minutes so I had to dock the bike and then take it out again at various stations around town.  I came across this nice deli over by the football stadium. Had I been driving a car I would have never even noticed this quaint little store as I was stopped at a light. Because I was on a bike it was easy for me to stop and take a picture.

After humping around the Jardin Reales I started to make my way home and noticed a new bakery on the corner of Joaquin Costa and Calle Conde de Altea where I bought a focaccia (1.90€). It wasn't too good but it inspired me to make focaccia at home.

Further Embellishments on the Definition of Lazy

I needed to go to the supermarket this morning. It’s about four blocks from my house; way too far for me to walk. Instead of taking my bike which requires opening up the storeroom downstairs, unlocking two chains, and then opening up the two big doors on the street I thought I’d take a Valenbisi bike. We have two stations in opposite directions that are about a block from my door. My first choice of stations didn’t have any bikes so I had to walk to the other for a total of three blocks walked. I rode the four blocks to the store and parked at a station about a half a block away. I had a coffee and read some French. I did my shopping and returned by bike but instead of leaving the bike at the station where I got it I rode a few blocks out of the way so that I could leave it at the first station that still didn’t have any bikes. I did my good Valenbisi deed for the day but I ended up walking about as far as I would have without a bike. It sounds stupid, I know, but I like riding bikes.

Valenbisi Update

I must have set some sort of Valenbisi speed record just now coming back from my French class in Cabanyal. 19 minutes! Read it and weep, wheel suckers. Granted, I made a total mockery of Spanish traffic laws but this still goes down in the record books.

Urban Solutions

I finally got my www.Valenbisi.es card to work. There was nothing wrong with the card or with the system and if you do it correctly the access is immediate. You first need a Mobilís card for the Valencia bus and metro system which you can buy at any tobacco shop. Next you log on to the web site and follow the instructions (Spanish, Valenciano, and English are offered). It costs 18€ for a year’s subscription and after charging your credit card you will receive a PDF receipt with all of your information. Next you need to verify your PIN number online by responding to an email. Next you take the card and your receipt to any Valenbisí station and register your card by punching in a few required numbers on the station keypad.

Once your card has been activated you just need to scan it at the station, enter your PIN, and press #1 which tells you to select a bike. It will show all of the available bikes at that station and you enter the number of the post of the bike you want to take. At the bike post you press a button and the bike is released. From this moment you have 30 minutes to ride the bike and then you must dock it at another station or pay a tariff. The system is designed for short trips of less than 30 minutes which is why rides under 30 minutes are free. You could make 100 trips a day of less than 30 minutes and not pay anything more than your annual fee of 18€.

If I have one problem with the Valencia system it’s the name, Valenbisí. It doesn’t really roll off the tongue like the Paris system called Vélib or the one in Barcelona called Bicing and in Lyon it’s called Vélov—very cool.  I know it’s not a big deal but I talked about this with some Spanish friends and they agreed with me. I’m pretty thrilled that the program has started so I’ll learn to live with the clunky name. The goal in Valencia is to have 275 stations with 2750 bikes available. I don’t know how close they are to this so far but it looks like they are working full steam ahead to finish all the proposed stations. I have two stations within a block from my apartment.

The system was inaugurated back in June and it looks to be quite a success already. Valencia is perfect for this type of program for many reasons: distances around town are quite short, Valencia has no hills, the weather is perfect for cycling almost all year, and there already exists an extensive network of bike paths. I predict that the city will look completely different in as little as six months from now. The culture of bikes is being thrust upon Valencia. I have noticed the Valenbisi bikes all over the place, especially near the University on Blasco Ibañez (a major boulevard with bike paths on either side of the street).

I saw a comment on a forum discussing bike share programs and someone asked, “Why don’t people just buy their own bikes?” There are a lot of reasons why people like bike sharing so I’ll just list a few. For one thing, many people who live in cities don’t have a place to keep a bicycle.  If you live on the third floor of an apartment building and you don’t have an elevator, a bicycle can be very inconvenient. If you are leaving town you probably wouldn’t want to leave your bike at the train station.  If you are commuting across town by bus or metro you may still be rather far away from your destination and bike sharing can take your that extra kilometer. You don’t have to worry about maintenance or theft.

One intangible item in this formula is the Valenbisi bikes are just cool. I know this cool factor will wear off with time but there is no denying it now while we are in the initial phases of the project. By being a member and using the bikes you can’t help but think that you are involved in making the city a better place for everyone.  Whenever I ride these bikes I feel that I am advertising for a more sustainable transit system and cleaner air. And what could be cooler or more hip than riding a bike downtown to visit and art exhibit on a Sunday afternoon?   I was patting myself on the back so hard today that I almost lost control of my bike.Besides, everyone knows that bikes are a lot of fun.

I heard one planning engineer describe the more successful bike share programs as “transformational” meaning that they actually transform the city. I believe this will happen in Valencia, a city without much of a bike culture. The more bikes people see on the streets of Valencia the more they will start considering cycling as a transportation option.  Not only will more and more people start participating in Valenbisi (there are already about 25,000 members) but more people will begin riding the bikes that they own and haven’t used much. The program in Paris has caused an increase of 20% in new bike sales.  Increased ridership increases safety for cyclists and with increased safety you will see even more people using the bike as a transportation tool.

There are times when the program is too popular, like this empty station in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento. This station often is without bikes even though it has 30 posts. It is also a station that accepts credit cards (not all do) which means out-of-towners can get bikes here (only residents are allowed to use Barcelona's system). Fortunately, there was another station a few hundred meters away that had bikes.

Valenbisí

Vélib’ from Streetfilms on Vimeo.

A Valenbisí station beneath the spectacular Torre de Serranos.

Metro and bike sharing: a perfect integration of public transportation. I'm excited to subscribe to Valencia's new bike share program called Valenbisí which is patterned after the system in Paris. I have three bikes and I still think that it will be cool to be able to pick up a bike almost anywhere in the city. There will be two stations within a block of my apartment. Very convenient. I am hoping that Valencia will become another haven for cycling like Amsterdam and Copenhagen.