Melbourne: World’s Friendliest Cycling City?

So far in our ‘cycle to’ series we have been Cycling in Adelaide, we’ve ridden through Stromlo Forest Park in Canberra and we have also peddled in Perth, both in the city and along the Fremantle Track.

This week we are…

Cycling in Melbourne

Melbourne has a bike share scheme, it’s called, yes, you’ve guessed it, Melbourne Bike Share.

Melbourne bike shareHow does that work then?

I’m glad you asked…

It gets even better, there are over 50 “Stations” around Melbourne where you can pick up and drop off your bike. According to their website, they now have free helmets, not sure how that works but it sounds pretty good.

Pricing is in two parts though, currently fees are:

  1. $56 for an annual subscription so you can ride any bike at any time of the day or night. There’s also pricing for daily ($2.80) and weekly subscriptions ($8.00).
  2. You then pay for how long you have that bike for. The first 30 minutes are free, then it seems to go up quite sharply; $2 for 60 minutes, $7 for 90 minutes, $17 for up to 2 hours and then another $10.00 for each additional half-hour after that.

Clearly the trick is to keep returning the bikes to the next station and limiting your rides to under 30 minutes. On that basis, these bikes are pretty cheap.

For full details, visit Melbournebikeshare.

World’s most cycling friendly city?

But is Melbourne really the world’s friendliest cycling city? Yes, according to this article in ninemsn.

It’s not the only ‘world’s friendliest cycling city survey’ though and others I looked at seem to mostly favour Amsterdam or Copenhagen, so no surprises there.

SR Kristiawan and his friends appear to be having a great time cycling around Melbourne though…

Yes, I think it’s fair to say that Melbourne is pretty good for cycling, more than anything because it’s quite flat. Okay, time to hit the Beach Road Trail…

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{ 4 comments… add one }
  • Dr Paula Barrett June 29, 2014, 8:47 am |

    I am so impressed at the amount of time and resource put together to bring
    this useful and informative piece on this blog . Guess cycling is gonna be more easier
    lol 🙂

    • BobinOz June 30, 2014, 3:54 pm |

      Thanks, glad you like my website. Cycling may be easier here but you still have to peddle 🙂

  • Ivan June 28, 2014, 1:33 am |

    Great video Bob with the cycle track following the former railway line now converted to trams, aka light rail. Here in Brisbane the bike share scheme really hasn’t taken off due I think to the compulsory helmet regulations, likewise in Melbourne. Of the 300 bike share schemes worldwide Melbourne and Brisbane are the only ones to mandate helmets. Newly introduced to new York, bike share has really taken off. (source of information from Google). I recently wanted to get from Fortitude Valley to the city but didn’t have a helmet and couldn’t see any near the bikes so I took the train. Pity our city fathers are so dogmatic and blinkered. Why can’t they have a six month trial of helmet free bike share, where they would see the usage figures soar and I don’t believe the sky would fall in. It hasn’t happened in Amsterdam. Worth a try don’t you think?

    • BobinOz June 29, 2014, 1:29 am |

      I couldn’t agree more, I think the helmet thing is a typical example of living in a nanny state and clearly they have the same problem in Melbourne.

      When I was a kid, helmets weren’t even invented for bikes, everybody rode around with the wind blowing through their hair. I’m sure bike rentals would soar if they dropped the helmet rule, and after all we are adults, we know the risks, surely it’s not too much to ask to be able to ride a bike without a crash helmet?

      It’s madness.

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