Dublin Bikes are Great

I hadn't cycled in years, the previous journey had me up on somebody's bonnet were I proceeded to get lacerated on my fall onto my totaled bike. That's a bad way to open up an endorsement for a bicycle service but the thing is, this is what it took to get me back on my bike.

Dublin Bikes, you sign up for a little card, put down a ten euro deposit and suddenly you have a new form of transport. Walk up to any Dublin Bike station, swipe your card and grab a bike. As long as your journey is under thirty minutes the trip is free, beautiful.

The bikes themselves are competent three-gear roadsters that get the job done of taking you through the city really well and while in my month or so of using the service twice a day I have come across the odd lemon I have always been able to complete my journey without incident due to the status of the bike.

The biggest thing that Dublin Bikes brings to the table is convenience of course, you don't need to think of where you're going to store your bike at work where it won't be messed with, you can get a lift into work in the morning and cycle back if you like, it's no biggy. It's a bicycle in your pocket.

And I think the greatest thing about it is the implementation, it's just so smooth and painless. It's a really slick job and assuming the similar Go Car scheme works the same way I can see massive changes being made to how we make our way around the city.  These services represent the greatest solution to the public transportation problem. They enable us to move around on shared vehicles while not limiting us to a time table or the whims of another driver.

 Of course, there are issues in that the network of Dublin Bike stations isn't too wide and cycle lanes are a mixed bag.  I'm lucky in that there's a pretty bicycle friendly route from Baggott street bridge to Christchurch but a day doesn't go by that there isn't a joker parked in the bicycle lane, the further south you go it seems the less respected the bicycle lanes get and I've seen entire lanes full of parked cars.  It's something that really needs to be rectified if they want to expand the service down that way.

Finally, it's great to get something out of a social scheme!  Every day I make my journey back and forth to work on property my taxes paid for.  Thanks for giving something back fat cats!