Photo Essay: Joie de Vivre With Vélo Libre - The Birth of Parisian Bike Culture

Normally bicycle culture is associated with Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany, among other European countries. In Copenhagen and Amsterdam 40% of the population ride their bike each day and in many other cities in Europe, bike usage is high – from chilly Västerås in Sweden to hilly Berne in Switzerland.

Paris, on the other hand, has traditionally been a witches cauldron of automotive hell. Until now. In ten short months the urban landscape of the city has been transformed. The reason? The introduction of the Vélib' bike share programme.

I blog about Copenhagen's chic bike culture on my Copenhagen Cycle Chic blog and my Copenhagenize.com blog so I was looking forward to seeing the Vélib' in action in a city that I know so well and love even more.

In short, I was astounded. In under a year since the Vélib' was thrust upon Parisians the Vélib' has already become an iconic addition to a city hardly lacking icons.

The Vélib' Revolution has spawned bike culture. Vélib bikes are everywhere, of course. There are 20,000 of them in the city. But what amazed me was seeing so many normal bikes, as well. I've read that bike sales have increased since the beginning of 2008, so it seems that Parisians have tried the Vélib and now many are investing in their own bikes.

What is fantastic is that there is no one demographic group cycling on the streets. It's men and women, young and old. Couples, families, you name it. The key to any successful bike culture is to get women onto bikes. They are the group that is most likely to ride and yet least likely to actually do it, especially in urban settings. But the Parisiennes are out in force. Vélib' is short for Vélo Libre and Vélo Liberté - Free bike and bike freedom. The perfect name.

My wife and I promptly hopped aboard a Vélib' and never looked back. It takes three minutes on the machine at any bike rack to set up a subscription for one day, seven days or one year. All you need is a credit card with a chip in it, but when even the Chinese have chips in their credit cards, that's hardly an issue anymore. We took the one day subscription and were issued a card with a number. Each time we wanted to take a bike we went to a machine, typed in the number and selected a bike. In under a minute we were cycling away.

It's even easier with an annual subscription. You get a permanent card and you just wave it in front of the card reader next to each bike and the bike is unlocked.

The key is to making bike culture possible is segregated bike infrastructure. Implementing bike lanes like the ones in Copenhagen – thus the urban planning phrase 'Copenhagenizing' a city. Many cities are in the process of investing in bike infrastructure, New York and Portland in the States, Melbourne in Australia and dozens of European cities.

In Paris you cycle, by and large, along existing bus lanes, although there are many dedicated and segregated bike lanes around the city.

The most fascinating thing is that motorists have already figured out how to deal with all the bikes. The cars watch for bikes and the cyclists take it easy and watch for vehicles. This karmic co-existence is remarkable, especially so soon after the introduction of the Vélib'.

I've driven in Paris many a time and it used to be a witches cauldron of automotive chaos. You get used to it, but it was always a nervy experience and it makes American cities look like parking lots. Paris is second only to Roma for driving strees, in my experience. No more.
Riding through the city on a Vélib is no great feat. It is liberating, glorious and it is easy.

If chaotic Paris can adapt to the sudden appearance of 20,000 Vélib bikes and thousands of normal bikes, then it should be no problem for other cities. Bike share programmes, segregated bike lanes, ease-of-use. Off you go.

The mentality of Parisians and the French in general is a big plus, but Paris is now the yardstick that all other cities itching for bike culture have to measure themselves by.

Riding Vélib bikes - shouldn't we just call it Vélib'ing? - around Paris is a breeze. Busses in Paris have frequent stops so you can usually stay ahead of them in the bike/bus lanes. If you find yourself next to one at a light, they provide ample room for cyclists and, most importantly, they know the cyclists are there. My wife and I were overtaken by busses a few times, but they drove slowly and gave us a wide berth.

Taxis in Paris use the bus/bike lanes, too, but even on speedier stretches along the Seine or Rue du Rivoli, taxis slow when overtaking bikes. Brilliant.

There is a sincere sense of 'joie de vivre' present in Paris these days, thanks to the bicycles. The system itself is so easy to use and the massive number of bike racks means that you're always within spitting distance of a Vélib.

One thing that we noticed was that with the Vélib you get to see parts of Paris you would normally zip past on a Metro deep underground. One evening we rode up to Sacre Coeur. It's a long climb up the mountain, especially the last stretch, with all the cobblestones of Paris-Roubaix combined with a Haute Categorie climb in the Pyranees. The Vélib bikes have three gears, like most normal bikes in European cities, and while getting up the mountain required a bit of muscle, it was no problem. The real hell was all the tourists up at Sacre Coeur, but we were the only ones on Vélibs, which was quite cool.

We didn't fancy running the gauntlet of tourists to get back down so we merely followed the road that cars take, down the backside of the mountain. We realised that neither of us had ever been on the other side. Who has? Millions of tourists climb up the front and back down again, like so many camera-toting Dukes of York. We discovered a hidden corner of Paris that we would never have visited without the Vélib.

The whole time we rode down streets we've never seen before, discovered cool shops previously unknown to us and generally experienced a whole new Paris.

Joie de vivre, indeed.