Bikes in Grenoble

Nikita Gusarov

Lately, I’ve taken a break from the technical publications about R and informatics in general. This is mostly because I was distracted by a more immediate problems: the choice of a bike for this academic year. My contract with the Metrovelo, the most popular bike-rental company in Grenoble, has expired around 10-th september, pushing me to reconsider my travel choices.

In Grenoble, as in many other european towns, the transportation choices are more versatile than in Moscow, or any northern cities in general. So what are the alternatives?

  • Your legs
  • Public transport
  • Bike (or any other personal transport, which does not require a driving licence)
  • Car (or any other personal motorised transport)

The first two alternatives do not provide enough flexibility. Even though the public transport is well developed in Grenoble, there are still some drawbacks: (1) long commutes usually take to many time, (2) the route and destination choices are rather limited and (3) for people over 25 years the prices are exorbitant. The last one does not suit me as well, because I still don’t have any type of driving permit and will not be able to acquire one fast enough. This goes without saying that driving in city centre is literally impossible in Grenoble.

As you can understand, leaving in Grenoble, the bike becomes one of the most optimal commute choices for short trips inside the city. Moreover, having your own bike allows you to travel outside into the beautiful alpine countryside. What is more, the market of bikes shows great diversity in terms of prices, quality and equipment. Here are some of the most popular choices when choosing to use a bike:

  • Short term rental with Poney or other company (if they will enter the local market)
  • Long term rental with Metrovelo
  • Buying a new bike
  • Acquisition of a second hand bike

Let’s consider these alternatives one by one.

Short term rental

This alternative assumes that you use some sort of bike-sharing implementation. Usually it’s used in association with some web application on your mobile device. The bikes are usually in great condition, which may not be true in some years but it is for now. What is more, the bikes are usually represented by some advanced models, including electro-bikes and even electro-scooters.

Among the major drawbacks I may name: (1) the availability of the bikes might be poor, depending on the district and time; (2) the prices are quite hight for everyday use, being around 0,34€ for bike de-blocking with 0,07€/min afterwards (for scooter the price increases to 1€ and 0,19€/min respectively as described here). Just for example, it takes me from 15 to 30 minutes to reach the University, which means spending around 20€ each week, with assumption of using only bike all 5 days a week. Theoretically, it’s even more costly than using public transport (with one hour ticket being around 1,64€, resulting in only 16 and a half euros per week).

Long term rental

This alternative is more appealing for me, because it offers a constant accessibility. There is no need to search for the bike when you need one, it’ll always be where you’ve left it. Speaking about tarification, the service is relatively cheap: starting from 3€ a day (which is already cheaper than short-term rental) and going up to 132€ per year. The prices indicated here are given without any discounts, more about pricing policy may be found on metrovelo website.

Previously, I used Metrovelo services several times, renting a bike for 3 or 6 month in spring/summer period. However, now I’ve decided to find some substitute because of several reasons: (1) provided bikes are bulky and cannot be taken far away from the city; (2) the tarification becomes less attractive once you reach 25.

Buying a new bike

As you can see, the bike rental options have some disadvantages. The easiest way to bypass them is to buy a personal bike. This is a rather expensive procedure, because prices for city bikes start at 120€ for the cheapest intersport bikes and settling at around 300-500€ for some middle class solutions. Evidently there is never an upper limit, but it’s quite hard to find anything worthy below 300€ point.

Effectively this alternative creates some new complications. One of them is the theft: no one ever touches yellow Metrovélo bikes here because of their design (it’s quite difficult to steal parts), but the situation with other bikes is different. The cases of bike theft are quite frequent, as well as simple vandalism. I believe no one wants to loose a brand new bike because of ill luck.

Buying a second hand bike

As an alternative to new bikes, there is always the second hand market. The offer may be roughly divided into two categories: (1) refurbished and (2) non-refurbished bikes.

The refurbished segment regroups mostly bikes reconstructed by resellers. This results in sometimes better quality and definitively a greater price. Usually the starting point for these models are around 100€ and up, with the prices slightly lower compared to the new models.

The non-refurbished group encompasses practically everything else: the offers on ebay, leboncoin.fr or troc-velo.fr. The prices for some old models may be around 50-100€ for good average condition and go down to 10-40€ for for-parts.

Before summing everything up, for the last two categories we need to add some safeguard devices to the list. This means another 10-30€ in the final bill. As well as some parts for maintenance or repair, which can inflate total price even further.

Final words

The resulting solution for me was to buy a 25€ near-dead bike. With the repair cost of around 35€ and an anti-theft chain for 30€ the result was still better than renting from Metrovelo. It’s worth pointing out, that the choice of such vehicle was the lower chances for theft of something so old. It remains to see whether or not his choice will be justified in a year.