Call A Bike

I was going to blog about the new Gucci bike but in my attempt to ask the question:

"What does it mean when the likes of Chanel, Gucci and Paul Frank are designing bikes to sell lifestyle? but I found this article a lot more interesting. (stay tuned for my blog entry about pop fashion co-opting the bicycle)

In today's Le Monde, Jaque Fortier reports that politicians in Strasbourg, France are vying for the cyclist vote. Where 7-10% of trips are made by bicycle,the cyclist vote is one that could make the difference, so every politician is rolling out its bicycle program....Barak, Hillary....what are your bicycle programs?

One program that they are looking at implementing is one that is already in place in Berlin, Frankfurt, Cologne, Munich, Stuttgart and Karlsruhe. "Call A Bike" a service where you can call the service hotline to be given the code to unlock a bike If you want to hang out at the park...simply lock the bike and unlock it with the same code you used to unlock it the first time. Finally when you are done with your bike you can simply lock it to a traffic sign or bike stand at the next major intersection, lock the bike, choose "yes" to "are you returning your bike" on the bike's touchscreen and then call in the return code.

Standard rates:
EUR 0.08 per minute of cycling time
Maximum charges EUR 15 for 24 hours