Every Traveler Bikes Through These 7 Cities

Blast your calories with these city bikes.

Here is a list of cities that provide you with bikes to rent as you tour around town.

Most big cities you want to visit have one very terrible thing in common: traffic. There’s nothing worse than trying to get somewhere that’s only a few miles away but takes you an excessive amount of time to get there (ahem, Bay Bridge in SF)—especially when you are only in the city for a short while! So what can you do instead? Feel the wind in your hair, the sun/rain/snow on your cheeks, and the burn in your thighs… from biking around the town that is! Cities today realize that biking is both an economical and environmentally friendly way to get around.

1. Paris, France

Paris calls their bike system “Velibs”. You can rent a bike for a day or week at a time for a fee, and just return it to any Velib station when you’re done!

2. San Francisco, CA, USA

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition was finally successful in launching their city bike program called Bikeshare, in which you sign up for an annual, monthly, or daily membership in order to be able to use the city’s program. Bike rides under 30 minutes are generally free!

3. New York City, NY, USA

Citi Bike, operated by NYC Bike Share, likes to keep their process to three simple words: unlock, ride, return. It’s as easy as 1-2-3!

4. Taipei, Taiwan

You can also rent a bicycle YouBike to cruise around the capital of Taiwan. There is even a group discount of 20% off when you travel in a pack of 30!

taipei bike share — UNSPLASH Winston Chen

5. Hangzhou, China

This bike share program is the second largest in the world, with over 2,400 stations to rent and return your bikes. Talk about not needing to look far for a bike!

6. Grand Lyon, France

Grand Lyon’s program, Velo’v, provides enough public transportation to have 1 bike per 121 residents. Who needs a car when you have the convenience of a bike on your street side?

7. Barcelona, Spain

“Bicing” is a pretty easy name to understand for Barcelona’s biking program, and if you’re there for an extended period of time, it’s only 4 Euros per month!

Across the world, there are a total of about 535 bike share programs, so the next time you travel, look for the fun way to self-guide your own tour… on a public bike!

Article written by Sarah Graham.