Mysterious bike theft in Paris

Photo by: Slimmer Jimmer

Mysterious bike theft in Paris

A while ago I was in Paris. I visited the vertical gardens, sipped ten euro beers (slowly) and dodged Velib hire bikes. Have you seen these things? They’re great.

You pay for a kind of cycle travel card, then pick one of 20,000 bikes from over a thousand parking spots citywide and drop them off when you’re done. The actual bikes are right out of those “Technology of the Futuuuuurrrre” films from the 1950s (with a tad less hovering, obviously).

However, as always, the turd in the daiquiri arrives courtesy of us humans. We tend to hurl bikes into rivers, “borrow” them indefinitely or do things like this. In 18 months, 8,000 Velibs have disappeared and 12,000 were vandalised.

Still, that’s not bad going. Remember the Cambridge bike system in the 90s where all 300 bikes went missing in 24hrs. Great Britannia! Yet the company that runs Velib is giving out worrying signs that they might have to pull the plug.

Anyway, problems aside, there are plans to adopt similar systems in other major cities, including London. Paris may even be set to roll out a fleet of little green hire cars.

Which got me thinking – what else could we hire?

Mopeds

We can do bikes (or at least, the Parisians and the Dutch can) so why not scooters? We could create beautiful green machines and Quadrophenia the arse off London.

Segways

You think the Segway is the least cool cool new idea since the Sinclair C5? Well, if Lembit Opik, (ex-boyfriend of a Cheeky Girl) likes them then they can’t be that bad, right?

Shoes and socks

Okay, hear me out. Shoes are like the original transport aids, right? Enabling us to run longer, faster and with less discomfort. People could swap their dirty socks and shoes at specially designed shoe zones and then…..Okay, you’re right. Scratch that.

Ponies

We’ve already sent them down pits, up mountains and along Blackpool beaches. Let’s train up the next generation of sassy, sexy ‘Urban Poniez’ ™ to navigate the city sprawl. Please note that I have also trademarked the names ‘Urban Elephantz’ and ‘Urban DogSledz’.

Gibberish aside, I love the hire and ride ideas. Any other places you’ve seen with cool schemes?