Bike Rental in Paris

http://us.franceguide.com/article.ht...&EditoID=88863

In article ,
Red Cloud writes:

http://us.franceguide.com/article.ht...&EditoID=88863

What else is new?

Anyways, bikes -- even /good/ bikes, are so relatively
inexpensive and available, I really don't see any need
to rent them out. I myself am up to my armpits in
good, servicable bikes that people threw away or
just gave to me.

Bike rental schemes are just politics, for certain
politicians to be "seen" to be Greenishly/
sustainabilityishly/environmentallyishly inclined.
Smoke & mirrors. It's just a bunch of razmattazz.
Those of us who will ride, will own our own bikes,
thank you very much.

If politicians really cared about the furtherance
of cycling as a viable transportational option,
they'd endorse pedicab jitneys, with a laissez-faire
attitude about them.


cheers,
Tom

--
Nothing is safe from me.
I'm really at:
tkeats curlicue vcn dot bc dot ca

On Nov 9, 2:42*am, (Tom Keats) wrote:
In article ,
* * * * Red Cloud writes:



*http://us.franceguide.com/article.ht...&EditoID=88863

What else is new?

Anyways, bikes -- even /good/ bikes, are so relatively
inexpensive and available, I really don't see any need
to rent them out. *I myself am up to my armpits in
good, servicable bikes that people threw away or
just gave to me.

Do you always take your bike when you go to Paris?
Lot's of people own cars yet taxicabs still exist.
There are likely lots of reasons why people would rent a bicycle. For
Parisiens it could be a storage problem -- Paris has a high apartment
occupancy rate vs detached houses. Visitors will rent bikes.

John Kane Kingston ON Canada

In article ,
John Kane writes:
On Nov 9, 2:42*am, (Tom Keats) wrote:
In article ,
* * * * Red Cloud writes:



*http://us.franceguide.com/article.ht...&EditoID=88863

What else is new?

Anyways, bikes -- even /good/ bikes, are so relatively
inexpensive and available, I really don't see any need
to rent them out. *I myself am up to my armpits in
good, servicable bikes that people threw away or
just gave to me.
Do you always take your bike when you go to Paris?

Yes.

My feet get a little wet, but oh well.

My main bike is as familiar to me as I am to it.
If anyone else rode it, something would no doubt break
under the stress of somebody else's "touch."

Lot's of people own cars yet taxicabs still exist.
There are likely lots of reasons why people would rent a bicycle. For
Parisiens it could be a storage problem -- Paris has a high apartment
occupancy rate vs detached houses. Visitors will rent bikes.

Visitors will buy maps, seek out bilingual companions,
and avoid asking directions en francais.

I'm sure there's plenty of room for privately owned bicycles
in Paris. Even more so than privately owned motor vehicles.
Bicycles don't take up a lot of space. Certainly not as
much space as a Citroen.

Sure, bike rental schemes like Velib "look" good. At least,
they make some politicians look good to some people.

Here in Vancouver BC we had a bike /trailer/ rental scheme.
Y'know what happened? They're now looking for where all
the trailers went, and would be most grateful for their return.
I suspect homeless bottle collectors/dumpster divers now
have 'em. In which case, they'd be putting them to better use
than anybody else.


cheers,
Tom

--
Nothing is safe from me.
I'm really at:
tkeats curlicue vcn dot bc dot ca

On Nov 9, 10:04 am, John Kane wrote:
On Nov 9, 2:42 am, (Tom Keats) wrote:

In article ,
Red Cloud writes:

http://us.franceguide.com/article.ht...&EditoID=88863

What else is new?

Anyways, bikes -- even /good/ bikes, are so relatively
inexpensive and available, I really don't see any need
to rent them out. I myself am up to my armpits in
good, servicable bikes that people threw away or
just gave to me.

Do you always take your bike when you go to Paris?
Lot's of people own cars yet taxicabs still exist.
There are likely lots of reasons why people would rent a bicycle. For
Parisiens it could be a storage problem -- Paris has a high apartment
occupancy rate vs detached houses. Visitors will rent bikes.

John Kane Kingston ON Canada


Oh you bet mostly visitor will rent bikes. Paris is the first
city to adopt bike rental system. Two german citie followed it. We
will see more European cities then

In article ,
Red Cloud writes:
On Nov 9, 10:04 am, John Kane wrote:
On Nov 9, 2:42 am, (Tom Keats) wrote:

In article ,
Red Cloud writes:

http://us.franceguide.com/article.ht...&EditoID=88863

What else is new?

Anyways, bikes -- even /good/ bikes, are so relatively
inexpensive and available, I really don't see any need
to rent them out. I myself am up to my armpits in
good, servicable bikes that people threw away or
just gave to me.

Do you always take your bike when you go to Paris?
Lot's of people own cars yet taxicabs still exist.
There are likely lots of reasons why people would rent a bicycle. For
Parisiens it could be a storage problem -- Paris has a high apartment
occupancy rate vs detached houses. Visitors will rent bikes.

John Kane Kingston ON Canada


Oh you bet mostly visitor will rent bikes. Paris is the first
city to adopt bike rental system.

Oh, bulll****:

http://www.trekdev.lbs.ubc.ca/progra...ing/index.html

Two german citie followed it. We
will see more European cities then

We'll also hear a lot of political yack
about "alternative" energy sources.

Lots of talk, not so much walk.


--
Nothing is safe from me.
I'm really at:
tkeats curlicue vcn dot bc dot ca

In article ,
(Tom Keats) wrote:

In article
,
Red Cloud writes:
On Nov 9, 10:04 am, John Kane wrote:
On Nov 9, 2:42 am, (Tom Keats) wrote:

In article
,
Red Cloud writes:

http://us.franceguide.com/article.ht...&EditoID=88863

What else is new?

Anyways, bikes -- even /good/ bikes, are so relatively
inexpensive and available, I really don't see any need
to rent them out. I myself am up to my armpits in
good, servicable bikes that people threw away or
just gave to me.

Do you always take your bike when you go to Paris?
Lot's of people own cars yet taxicabs still exist.
There are likely lots of reasons why people would rent a bicycle. For
Parisiens it could be a storage problem -- Paris has a high apartment
occupancy rate vs detached houses. Visitors will rent bikes.

John Kane Kingston ON Canada


Oh you bet mostly visitor will rent bikes. Paris is the first
city to adopt bike rental system.

Oh, bulll****:

http://www.trekdev.lbs.ubc.ca/progra...ing/index.html

Two german citie followed it. We
will see more European cities then

We'll also hear a lot of political yack
about "alternative" energy sources.

Lots of talk, not so much walk.

I have a friend whose work often consists of assessing the viability of
alternative or green power production facilities.

The short version is this: the problems are hard, green systems often
show interesting numbers but do awful things like generate really
variable levels of power, or worse yet, sometimes even generate power
almost countercyclically to demand (ie they generate the least power
when demand is highest). Plus, astoundingly enough, you can still
encounter high levels of NIMBY-ism.

Most power companies would love to get a nice, friendly form of power
online that met their generation needs and didn't entangle them in years
of gruesome hearings and protests. There is no such source.

Power generation and transmission is one of those things that a small
group of fools is quite willing to oppose right up to the point of
self-induced rolling blackouts.

--
Ryan Cousineau http://www.wiredcola.com/
"In other newsgroups, they killfile trolls."
"In rec.bicycles.racing, we coach them."

In article ],
Ryan Cousineau writes:
In article ,
(Tom Keats) wrote:

In article
,
Red Cloud writes:
On Nov 9, 10:04 am, John Kane wrote:
On Nov 9, 2:42 am, (Tom Keats) wrote:

In article
,
Red Cloud writes:

http://us.franceguide.com/article.ht...&EditoID=88863

What else is new?

Anyways, bikes -- even /good/ bikes, are so relatively
inexpensive and available, I really don't see any need
to rent them out. I myself am up to my armpits in
good, servicable bikes that people threw away or
just gave to me.

Do you always take your bike when you go to Paris?
Lot's of people own cars yet taxicabs still exist.
There are likely lots of reasons why people would rent a bicycle. For
Parisiens it could be a storage problem -- Paris has a high apartment
occupancy rate vs detached houses. Visitors will rent bikes.

John Kane Kingston ON Canada


Oh you bet mostly visitor will rent bikes. Paris is the first
city to adopt bike rental system.

Oh, bulll****:

http://www.trekdev.lbs.ubc.ca/progra...ing/index.html

Two german citie followed it. We
will see more European cities then

We'll also hear a lot of political yack
about "alternative" energy sources.

Lots of talk, not so much walk.

I have a friend whose work often consists of assessing the viability of
alternative or green power production facilities.

The short version is this: the problems are hard, green systems often
show interesting numbers but do awful things like generate really
variable levels of power, or worse yet, sometimes even generate power
almost countercyclically to demand (ie they generate the least power
when demand is highest). Plus, astoundingly enough, you can still
encounter high levels of NIMBY-ism.

Most power companies would love to get a nice, friendly form of power
online that met their generation needs and didn't entangle them in years
of gruesome hearings and protests. There is no such source.

Power generation and transmission is one of those things that a small
group of fools is quite willing to oppose right up to the point of
self-induced rolling blackouts.

Heh. I'm reminded of the disputed "run-of-river" hydroelectric
proposals. The current provincial (and I mean /provincial/)
gov't would just love to stick their Public-Private-Partnership
thumb into that pie, and pull out a plum or two, and remark
about what good boys they are.

WAC Bennett must be doing rpms in his grave.


cheers,
Tom

--
Nothing is safe from me.
I'm really at:
tkeats curlicue vcn dot bc dot ca

On Nov 9, 12:27 pm, (Tom Keats) wrote:
In article ,
Red Cloud writes:



On Nov 9, 10:04 am, John Kane wrote:
On Nov 9, 2:42 am, (Tom Keats) wrote:

In article ,
Red Cloud writes:

http://us.franceguide.com/article.ht...&EditoID=88863

What else is new?

Anyways, bikes -- even /good/ bikes, are so relatively
inexpensive and available, I really don't see any need
to rent them out. I myself am up to my armpits in
good, servicable bikes that people threw away or
just gave to me.

Do you always take your bike when you go to Paris?
Lot's of people own cars yet taxicabs still exist.
There are likely lots of reasons why people would rent a bicycle. For
Parisiens it could be a storage problem -- Paris has a high apartment
occupancy rate vs detached houses. Visitors will rent bikes.

John Kane Kingston ON Canada

Oh you bet mostly visitor will rent bikes. Paris is the first
city to adopt bike rental system.

Oh, bulll****:

http://www.trekdev.lbs.ubc.ca/progra...ing/index.html


That is not city, idiot. Paris is the first rental bike city, not
first rental bike college.

Two german citie followed it. We
will see more European cities then

We'll also hear a lot of political yack
about "alternative" energy sources.

Lots of talk, not so much walk.


Why canadian complain? First thing you Canadian guy says to American
is:
We are not American!".



--
Nothing is safe from me.
I'm really at:
tkeats curlicue vcn dot bc dot ca

In article ,
Zoot Katz writes:
On Sun, 9 Nov 2008 20:32:30 -0800 (PST), Red Cloud
wrote:

That is not city, idiot. Paris is the first rental bike city, not
first rental bike college.

Go back and research the Provos "White Bike Plan" in Amsterdam.

All yellow bike and rental bike efforts since that time can trace
their roots back to 1967 at least in Amsterdam.

Today, bikes painted white and left as memorials, refer back to the
Provo "White Victim Plan" of the same period.

You could rent bicycles in the 1890's. They were quite popular then
too. The problem with Paris' otherwise successful Velo libre program
is that nobody wants to ride the bikes back to the top of hills so
they must be redistributed by trucks.

You've been able to rent bicycles in Vancouver ever since I can
remember. There's even some local cruiser frames built in the fifties
still kicking around. Dude built his bikes in the winter and rented
them to tourists for joy riding around Stanley Park in the summer.

Considering today's oversize baggage charges for bicycles on
airlines, buying and then re selling a bike in Europe or Asia might
be more economical than transporting your own.
Ride what the locals ride to get a real flavour of the place.

When an individual entrepreneur rents bikes out, it's
a public service, with opportunities for the entrepreneur
to garner revenue and hopefully profit, and the public to
enjoy the service provided, for a fee they deem fair enough
to gladly pay.

When a government rents bikes out, there's some political
agendum going on. But AIUI, Velib isn't so much a /rental/
scheme -- users make a gesture of good faith by paying a
returnable deposit on the bike they "borrow", the deposit
being returned when the bike is parked & locked at a
designated parking station. It boils down to coin-op bicycle
locks, a la supermarket shopping carts. I seem to recall
Amsterdam trying a similar scheme about a decade or so ago.
Nobody talks about how that worked out.

Some politicians (or wannabe politicians) will use bicycles
without actually riding them. They're just kibbitzers.
Or worse.

I just don't like bicycling being made a pawn in political games.


cheers,
Tom

--
Nothing is safe from me.
I'm really at:
tkeats curlicue vcn dot bc dot ca