persistence

Cycling in Bordeau, September 2024

My husband and I are avid cyclists. Not the spandex-wearing, sleek and lightweight road bikes kind — not that there’s anything wrong with that — but the kind who hop on our bikes to get around town to run errands. We also go on trail rides and sometimes we take them on vacation. In other words, we are not fast, nor would we ever hold our own in a racing peloton.

We enjoy getting bikes when we travel so that we can explore a place on two wheels, so when we were in France earlier this fall, we rented a couple of city bikes at one of the many hop-on, hop-off stands around Bordeaux. Actually, we rented *several* in rapid-ish succession. Let me explain:

#1 We picked up two e-bikes at a stand near our Airbnb. He immediately zoomed off and I followed but my bike felt a little sluggish. We crossed a bridge, at which point I realized that my bike was not charged. Once on the other side of the river, we looked at the app to find the next closest bike stand.

#2 We went to the next bike stand and I swapped bikes. Almost immediately, I realized that I had accidentally gotten an “analog” bike and not an e-bike. That bike stand didn’t have any charged e-bikes, so we once again looked at the app to find a nearby stand.

#3 At the third stand, I swapped bikes once again, this time making sure I grabbed an e-bike. I started riding and realized I had once again gotten a bike that was not charged. Back to the bike stand we went.

#4 This time I actually managed to grab a fully charged e-bike and off we went. WOO HOO!

We rode along the river on both sides and had an excellent time.

Later in the trip, we were in Rennes in Brittany and wanted to rent bikes for an hour or so. Every bike stand we went to rejected our credit cards, which were otherwise working as expected. We went to the main bike office and talked to someone there, who told us that the bike kiosks only accept European credit cards. We found that odd and possibly also dubious in its veracity but also recognized it was also possible the person just didn’t feel like dealing with two Americans that day. I mean, I find listening to myself speak French painful, so I can understand why a French person would not enjoy it either.

And then in Paris, we were able to rent bikes again, which was both fun and exhilarating, as in “riding bikes in Paris for the first time during rush hour on a Friday afternoon.” Paris has terrific bike infrastructure, but there are some places on narrow streets where there are no bike lanes. Still, it was awesome. We picked up the e-bikes on the Île de la Cité and rode them back to where we were staying in Montmartre and, hoo boy, if ever there was a time and place to have e-bikes, going up that hill was it.

So yeah, biking in France was as fun as expected and we will totally do it again the next time we’re there.

Are you a fan of bikes? What kind do you ride and where?