From CNTraveler.com
On a sunny afternoon this spring, I rode a bike from Saint-Germain-des-Prés in the sixth arrondissement to Châtelet in the first to meet a friend. The feeling of sliding along the Seine was incredible—wind against my skin, the fresh feeling that comes with breezing past a body of water—until I reached my destination, where I stumbled upon the usual scene: four cyclists struggling to return their rides to a completely full bike rental station. Another biker and I spent 15 minutes finding another station with free spots—and another 15 to walk back to the first station, near where we had to be. We complained, but simply had to laugh. How typical this had become, just another Sunday for the cyclists of Paris.
Short or big, rusty or brand-new, sometimes with a ringing bell that alerts and annoys, bicycles are inescapable in the capital. This epitome of Frenchness, often associated with rather stereotyped Parisian accessories—up there with the baguette, the béret, and the Marinière shirt (that striped pattern, you know the one)—has become indispensable in the City of Light. As the city has been increasing its investment to make Paris more bike-friendly, the use of bikes by Parisians (about 11% of commutes) surpassed the use of cars (about 4%) for the first time in 2023, according to the Institut Paris Région, a research center for urban development in the the Île-de-France region.
Photo by JOHN TOWNER on Unsplash
