Biketown: city bike share in Portland, OR. Unlike most US cities, you can temporarily lock the bikes around town (not just at a bike return station), and can check them out for more than 30 minutes per ride. Well organized, plentiful stations, though very heavy/clunky bikes even by bike share standards.
48 hours of Stockholm’s Bike Share
According to a few friends, cycling wasn’t previously a major part of Mexico City culture (not totally surprising in a massive, sprawling, 20M-person metro area with thinner 7300′-elevation air, heavy traffic, a good subway system, and moderate air pollution), but in the past five years it’s started to take off. Bike infrastructure (including barrier-separated bike lanes) has gone up around the city, and as of 2010 there’s a major city bike share program in place, EcoBici: ...
Muévete en Bici (Sunday Streets, Mexico City– 40ish km of roads closed to cars including the major 8+ lane Paseo de Reforma– and people of all ages and fitnesses out en masse on bikes)
Madison was a great city to bike around (at least, in the mild summer weather). I was able to get from somewhere about 10 miles South of the city to my friends’ house across the isthmus (and then later to the airport on my bike) almost exclusively on bike paths (Badger Trail -> SW Commuter Trail -> Capitol City Trail -> Starkweather Creek Path). And there was good cycling infrastructure (paths, signage, lanes, even bike tools and stands along the trails), a decent city bike rental system, and apparently low bike theft given the number of nice bikes I saw secured with only a thin cable lock around the top tube (one day I even forgot my keys and left my bike unlocked outside all sorts of businesses outside the city… though I don’t recommend that). ...
After taking the London city bikes for a spin, I had to give the famous Paris Velib that kicked off the recent worldwide expansion of city bike programs a try. I’d heard the terminals only take chip-and-pin credit cards, so I pre-purchased a 1-day Velib membership online (for about $2.50) before my trip. I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked– I entered the numbers from that receipt and my PIN into a terminal, and I was able to quickly/easily check out a Velib for 30 minutes from anywhere in the city. ...
Recently in London, slogging out of the Underground with my backpack after a long flight onto a road busy with construction, I saw someone glide by on a city bike. I had to try it, even if just for the short distance from tube stop to hotel. Fortunately, the Barclay’s city bike system is very tourist-friendly and doesn’t require preregistration or a chip-and-pin card. A swipe of a credit card, a few dollars, and I rented a bike, rode it the short distance to the hotel, and deposited it at another stand. No problem. ...
Off-road mud adventures with boston bike share…
Hubway: Boston bike share. $6 for a day = great deal.
I tried out Bay Area Bike Share. Easy, comfortable bikes (they don’t feel as heavy as they are), you use a keyfob to check a bike out and then have 30 minutes to check it back in at a different station. They’re launching timidly, though, with only a few hundred bikes (1/100th the scale of the successful New York program), so I’m concerned they won’t get enough riders and mindshare. We’ll see…