Paris by Bike

Bonjour, Ya'll!
After living here for almost 10 months, you start to realize that public transportation can be "iffy" at times...here in Paris, there are many protests, so your bus may not show up.  Or, waiting for the train to Saint Cloud (where my girls' school is located), there was some sort of accident, (or protest) and no train ever comes.  So, you have to be ready and willing to try other forms of transportation--in fact, most days, I use the bus, metro (subway), walk,  and now I'm riding a bike.
YIKES!!!!  But, no, it's a great way to get around and so far, I haven't hit a car or wrecked.

Velib is the fantastic program introduced in Paris to make it easy (& cheap!) to bike all over the city.  Here's a brief explanation of how it works from Eleanor Beardsley of NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14429468

We live about a 15 minute walk from the closest metro station at Pont de Neuilly, so the bike is a great option to get to the metro quickly.  The Parisians are more aware of bikes and pedestrians, so I don't feel as nervous to ride my bike as I did in Houston.  Paris also has many dedicated bike lanes, so it's a nice way to get around and see the city.  Not to say it's not a bit nerve-racking--I haven't yet ridden on the busiest streets and not yet around the Arc de Triomphe!  That would be pretty scary!!

You use the Velib app on your smartphone to find a bike, then use it again to park the bike.  You have 30-45 minutes to ride each time you check a bike out.  There are hundreds of Velibs all over the city, so it's easy to plan where to find a bike for your journey, then a place to park it when you are finished.  You just swipe your card to take or leave a bike after setting up an account online. You can also purchase a ticket at the kiosk without an account, so the service is available for anyone to use--great for tourists, too!

So long as we're talking bikes here, a really fun thing to do is the Fat Bike Tour.  Even for those of you who haven't ridden a bike for a while, it's easy riding and you have an English-speaking tour guide.  We have taken the night-time ride that begins at the Eiffel Tower around 7:00 and ends close to midnight.  It doesn't get dark here until around 10:00 in the summer (right now, it's getting dark about 9:00), so the last hour or so of the bike tour is in the dark, but no worries, your bike has a light & you wear a safety vest to be more visible.

There are Fat Bike Tours offered at Versailles, Monet's Garden in Normandy and around Paris during the day.  Here's the link for Fat Bike Tour if you are planning to visit:  http://www.fattirebiketours.com/
Until next time, au revoir, ya'll!!

Paul & I rode home from the symphony a few nights ago...yes, in high heels!