Paris, the city of bikes!
 

As a Parisian Bicycle addict, I recommend you to visit the city of lights with Velo libre recently launched in Paris. Thousands of bicycles available at one of 750 rental locations which dot the city at intervals of 300 meters. Price is 1 € per day if you do not exceed half hour per journey.
http://www.parisvoice.com/index.php?...iew&id=221
http://travel.latimes.com/articles/l...erental22jul22

I read that Americans can't use the bikes because the machines that sell the tokens (or tickets?) only take European smart chip credit cards.

Is that true? I've been trying to find a way around it for my upcoming trip to Paris, but I'm not having much luck. None of my banks offer chip cards and NAVIGO is only for residents, right?

Here's the article I mentioned about Americans not being able to use the bikes (please ignore the depressing pro/anti-US debate that follows the article... no one complains about US bank card problems in Japan, yet I've had more there than in Europe):

http://current.newsweek.com/budgettr...arisian_b.html

When you have the annual pass, you can track your usage (along with Big Brother) moment by moment. You can get it off the Vélib website or read it on the screen at any bike station.

An example:

29/07/2007 MARX DORMOY -> ETIENNE MARCEL 0h 16min 0,00 €
29/07/2007 QUAI DE LA LOIRE -> MARX DORMOY 0h 13min 0,00 €
28/07/2007 SEINE FLANDRE -> QUAI DE LA LOIRE 0h 31min 1,00 €
28/07/2007 MARX DORMOY -> SEINE FLANDRE 0h 8min 0,00 €
28/07/2007 QUAI DE LA LOIRE -> MARX DORMOY 0h 8min 0,00 €
28/07/2007 MARX DORMOY -> SEINE FLANDRE 0h 6min 0,00 €
28/07/2007 DOUDEAUVILLE STEPHENSON -> MARX DORMOY 0h 3min 0,00 €

As you can probably figure out, my home station is Marx Dormoy, less than 50 meters from my front door.

I was studying the Vélib website in depth, and it would appear that currently the only way for 'non-chip' tourists to be able to use the bikes would be to get a one year subscription (by mail, with a 2-week handling time). Then you would receive an official Vélib chip card valid for 365 calendar days. If you need to credit your account for rentals over 30 minutes, that can be done by telephone or internet, so no chip is needed for that.

I am just speculating, but I would say that the city is not at all recruiting tourist use of the Vélib system yet because it is only half in place and only started two weeks ago. It would seem logical that, when they're ready, there will be places for non-chip tourists (tourist offices, designated shops, maybe even the metro stations) to have their magnetic strips swiped for the 150€ guarantee and to pay for their 1-day or 1-week subscription.

thanks for the infos Kerouac, I did not know about all of these restrictions. Received my pass last week and tried it for the first time. Hope they improve their system for tourists as for me by bike or on foot is the best way to visit Paris!

That's too bad... I'm spending a month in Paris through mid-September and would've loved access to such a wonderful program.

Thanks for researching this kerouac - I hadn't seen the Vélib site. :-)