Vienna’s Woeful Bicycle Share

Vienna is not without its bicycle enthusiasts, it just seems that that were it begins and ends. There are the ultra cool, ultra alternative types that do critical mass, fix their bike at The Bike Kitchen and buy their fixies at FixDich, everyone else takes the car.

Vienna has bicycle lanes, bicycle signs and bicycle parking a plenty, but it seems to be all talk and no action because I hardly saw anyone using it.

When I hit town I do a lot of walking and I walked the whole city and I even rode the Danube only to find a couple of leisure cyclists.

It puzzled me as to how a city could spend so much on good bicycle infrastructure (we’re talking separated bicycle lanes, bicycle traffic lights and 30km zones), but the population take no notice.

I had to get to the bottom of this, so I hired a Vienna City Bike – their very colourful bike share scheme – and set out on a bicycle fact-finding mission.

First stop was the Critical Mass ride. Critical Mass bicycle rides started in San Francisco and have spread around the world as one evening a month where bicycles, in their hundreds and sometimes thousands, take up the streets.

Vienna’s Critical Mass is rather impressive, not only the number of people on the ride, but the distance they travel.

After about 3 hours, I found myself on the out skirts of Vienna, with the sun going down and not knowing how to get home.

Luckily Vienna has a good Metro system that allows the transportation of bicycles and I found my way back via a couple of trains.

It was however, a very informative event. Riding for just 5 mins on one of Vienna’s City Bikes would have been long enough to give me a clue as to one of the reasons the Viennese have not take enthusiastically to the bike, but 3 hours, well that said it all.

Vienna’s City Bikes are the most hideous piece of bicycle engineering I’ve ever encountered.

They are heavy. Not normal heavy, but if you lose your balance you’re going down no matter what, heavy.

They are slow. Not simply slower than a racing bike, but you would be forgiven for mistaking it for a stationary bicycle at the gym, kind of slow.

And they are hard work. Not harder work than sitting behind a the wheel of a car, but heave your way through each pedal revolution and sweat like a horse while doing it, hard work.

Bicycle share schemes are considered, in fact counted on by those who install them, to give people a pleasant and inviting taste of urban commuter bicycling.

Given the novelty and prominent invitation they present, they also end up being the first bicycle people ride after not having ridden since childhood.

The intended result of this invitation and the taste test, is that people experience the ease, speed and efficiency of using a bicycle, and will be inclined to either use it again, instead of their car, or even invest in bicycle of their own and replace the car for urban commutes.

That is the theory of bicycle share schemes. The reality of the Vienna City Bike, and many other bicycle share schemes around the world, including Melbourne, Berlin and Paris, is the opposite.

Nothing does the job of turning people off bicycles better than a poorly designed, slow, heavy bicycle.

Most people who never ride are under the impression that bicycle are like cars, and despite a BMW being beautifully engineered, a Toyota stills gets your there in pretty much the same fashion and ultimately, in an urban environment where every is doing the same speed, the driver feels no difference.

I suspect whoever is purchasing bicycles for city share schemes is either an avid car driver or simply a half wit, because this is not the case for bicycles.

Every inch of engineering that goes into a bicycle changes the ease, speed and comfort for the rider. A good bicycle will get you there no sweat, and a bad bicycle, well you probably won’t get there.

No one in Vienna using a City Bike will ever be enticed to ride one again, let alone give up there car for the bicycle, that I know for sure.

What I don’t yet know is, after 100 years of bicycle building and hundreds companies manufacturing excellent specimens, who on earth is manufacturing such hideous contraptions, and who in Vienna had the bright idea of paying good money for a batch of bicycle lemons?

I want to know because getting bicycle share schemes right, might just be the secret to bringing the bicycle back!