Tuesday 14 December 2010

ABC Wednesday - V'eol

Flags volant on vertical poles in the city of Caen in north west of France. Two flags of France and two of Normandy with their two lions.  But enough of this vacillation, on to the main word...
V'eol. The name of the bike loan scheme in the city which was started in March 2008.  There are 350 bikes and 40 stations. Pay an annual subscription of €15 or rent by the half hour, getting the code to unlock (or as they put it the Liberté formula), by wap phone, SMS text or website and even from that old fashioned thing a phone line number. The user card has a radio frequency so it can be used without even leaving your pocket, use the code and voilà the bike or velo is yours to ride and venture around the city.  The biker message boards give it a thumbs up but say the shaft drive mechanism was 'interesting', no idea what that means as we were not in Caen long enough to take advantage of the scheme.  There are quite a few of these loan schemes around the world but wouldn't it be marvellous if more places had them. As you may be able to tell I am a bit of a bike enthusiast so of course when I saw these I was almost as excited by the racks as the Gothic church
they were stood by.  Added value to my day was to see them being towed vaward by a van across the city.
Once used and finished with left at the nearest station so I imagine they may pile up at one destination.
possibly after taking the victuals  out of the basket, leaving the vehicle and paying a visit to a local café.

Vroom across to ABC Wednesday for more words starting with the letter V

7 comments:

mrsnesbitt said...

Ahhh blue skies - we could do with some of these! Apparantly we are due more snow on Thursday and the month is going to be very cold! Brrrrrrrrrrrrr! Better wrap up well then eh?
Thanks so much
Denise
ABC Team

Tumblewords: said...

I loVe this!

Roger Owen Green said...

This is SO civilized! I'd do it in a heartbeat. ROG, ABC Wednesday team

Anonymous said...

Nice concept. And moreover it is environment friendly, reduces pollution and jams and makes the rider healthy by providing good exercise.
-
Snow Leopard

Cheryl said...

Those blue skies really set off these photos from your V collection nicely.

Yoshi said...

Very nice system. I like blue bike, too. So cool. Thanks for sharing.

Jay said...

What a great scheme! I've heard of a similar one with cars, too. Takes courage to start one, I imagine, and I hope people don't take advantage and do treat the bikes well!