As I’ve mentioned the coming-soon London cycle hire scheme before (and here) I’d thought I’d mention another scheme I’ve seen.
In Nice, South of France, they introduced a cycle hire scheme in 2009 called velo bleu (my pre-O level French translates that to blue bike) and they’ve deployed groups of the bikes all over the sun drenched city by the sea. As you can see from my holiday photo the bikes do live up to their name! Actually, I think there’s a bit of a hat-tip to the history of Nice going on here – the Promenade des Anglais at Nice was famous for having hundreds of free blue deckchairs (they’ve gone now for whatever reason) and the bikes are the exact same shade of blue.
If your French is better than mine then you might be able to work out what it says on this pay station. I can work out that there is a free hire period but I think there’s a registration fee.
You’re able to off-hire your bike at many of the bike stations around the city. I did spot a van moving the blue bikes around quite a bit, though I can’t be sure if that’s just because they were putting more bikes out on the streets. When we were there last year it’s probably fair to say that there were plenty of spare bikes!
If your French is up to it then visit the velo bleu site for more information.
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