Vienna Bike Rental System

CityBikes lined up near the Vienna Opera House.

On our last day in Vienna, we got up early and went into the city to try out the CityBike rental system. It was early enough that we could park the car on the street in the Altstadt, and parking was free for the weekend.

The CityBike system runs out of a series of kiosks around Vienna. There are over 50 within the city. You can pick up a map at the tourist office that shows the locations of the various kiosks, or you can download an iPhone app that will show you the locations along with the availability of bicycles and parking spaces at each one.

Dad taking the first stab at registering.

We walked to the kiosk near the Vienna Opera house, conveniently located next to an entrance/exit to the subway system, and a big parking garage. There was a machine there, and about 20 posts to park bikes at. There were 5 or 6 bikes there when we arrived.

The machine let us choose a language (German, English, French, or Spanish), and had a button to look at a map of the kiosks. We then selected our method of payment--credit card, Austrian bank card, or Tourist Card. With a credit or bank card, you can only check out one bicycle at a time per card. You can purchase a Tourist Card at the Tourist Office that allows you to take two bikes out of the system. Having the machine work in English was nice, but the instructions on the card reader remained in German, and we struggled to understand what it was asking at times.

Struggling with the machine.

Dad put his credit card into the machine, and it prompted us to register because we were new users. The touch-screen was rather difficult to use, and Dad gave up after a few minutes because his fingers hurt. The screen liked me better, so I gave it a shot. It timed us out once because we were trying to take too many pictures, and then I messed up and had to start over, but we eventually got Dad registered. You create a password when you sign up that you use to access the system later.

Once we got through the registration process, it gave us the option to start renting bikes. We were shown a diagram of which of the numbered posts at the kiosk had bikes available to rent and we could select one. We looked over the bikes that were there and made our selection, and the computer freed that bike from its post and we could pull it out.

We then repeated the process on my card to create an account for me, and checked out a second bike. All of the bikes were equipped with baskets, but the baskets were plastered with flapping advertisements that screamed "I'm a tourist, and this is a rental!" They also had mechanisms to lock the front wheel, but had no lights.

Just as we got on our bikes and started to ride, the sky opened up and it began pouring rain. We ducked into a cafe to hide, and watched our newly rented bikes get wet through the window while we had coffee and wrote postcards home. When it started to let up, we got back on the bikes and rode through the old city for a bit. Without consulting the map, we guessed that there would probably be another kiosk near St. Stephan's cathedral (there is one near just about every major landmark in the city, along with many other locations) so we set off for the church. We had to walk our bikes when we got close, because the plaza was thick with pedestrians.

When we found the second kiosk, it was simple to turn the bikes in. You just have to slide a bar on the frame into a slot on a free kiosk post, and then a light turns green and you're done. Well, it's simple unless you're us, I suppose. It took us several tries to get the bar all the way into the slot, and was a rather finicky process. Finesse is required over force, and a little patience, but it would be frustrating if you watched the bus you wanted to be on drive away as you were still struggling to turn the bike in.

If you stop for coffee or lunch and there isn't a kiosk nearby, you can lock your bike's wheel so it's not easily portable. You rotate the front wheel 90 degrees, turn a key in its slot near the front wheel, and push the metal flap down so it fits around an arm of the fork on the front wheel. Then remove the key, and the bike is locked. It will only go in circles, unless the front of the rather heavy bike is carried. To unlock it, you simply put the key back in and turn it, and the flap pops back up.

Once you're registered, checking out bikes is fast and easy. You just insert the card you registered with, type in your password, and select a bike.

The system is designed to encourage short rentals, and discourage people from checking out a bike all day long. When you pull a bike out of a kiosk, the first hour is free. That means if you ride from St. Stephan's to Schoenbrunn Palace, which is less than an hour, and turn the bike back in to the kiosk at Schoenbrunn when you get there, you don't pay. Then you can tour the palace for as long as you like, and when you come out check out another bike. You then start another free hour of riding time, and so on. If you keep the bike out for more than an hour, the price rises steeply. Two hours is 1 Euro for each commenced hour. Three hours is 2 Euros for each commenced hour. So in one hour, your rental fee jumps from 2 Euros to 6. 4 to 120 hours is 4 Euros for each commenced hour, and beyond that you pay a flat rate of 600 Euros--the same price charged for a lost bicycle.

We did find out that the system thwarts people trying to 'hopscotch' bikes across the city by just checking in and out at each kiosk along the way so they always stay under the one hour mark. At St. Stephan's when we tried to check out another set of bikes just to see how the system worked once we were registered, we encountered a ten-minute waiting period before our rental time would reset to 0.

The bikes appeared to be well maintained, for the most part. When we looked at the bikes on Friday, one of the cycles in the kiosk had a flat tire. By the time we came back the next morning, it had been either taken for repair, or fixed on the spot.

Vienna's CityBike system, similar to Munich's DeutscheBahn system that we explored earlier, was an absolutely wonderful system for tourists exploring the city or residents commuting across town. It's not a viable option for larger tour groups, though, because the odds of finding 20 bikes at a single kiosk are low and the time involved in registering 20 separate credit cards would make the whole endeavor a nightmare. But for a casual user taking short trips, it's absolutely free.