I hate driving around Dublin. The Luas never brings me where I want to go. And I can never figure out the bus routes. So when I had to be in Dublin for 3 days this week, and I thought I’d end up walking everywhere.
Then I remembered Dublin Bikes. It was launched back in September 2009, just after I left for Vietnam. I’d heard rave reviews about the scheme, so decided to give it a go. So…
– I bought a 3 day pass for a bargain 2 Euro subscription at a credit card enabled station.
– Every bike ride I took under 30 minutes was free. (Pricing can be found here)
– There are 44 stations around city centre, so plenty of places to take and drop bikes.
– And there are now plans for Dublin Bikes to treble in size, from 500 to 1500 bikes throughout 100 stations.
The only important point to remember is to know where the bike stations are found. So I was glad I downloaded and printed a station map before I arrived in the capital.
Though Dublin Bikes are only meant for riding in and around city centre, that didn’t stop Richie Oakley from the Sunday Times cycling 200km around hilly Wicklow on the 23kg bike. He did it all for charity.
Overall, great scheme and dirt-cheap compared to car parking, luas, taxi, and bus fares. And never a bad thing to be promoting smog-free, healthy-lifestyle biking in and around a capital city.
Dublin Bikes are brilliant! I am really looking forward to the project’s expansion!