London Bike Share: An American’s Guide

Enjoy London by bike share, even as an American. Even with one of your silly swipe credit cards. I love exploring a city by bike. Any city worth its grid will have a public transit system, but in order to really get a sense of the street life, the pace of the city, and the scale, a bike is the only way to get from place to place. The magic of an underground system is great, but you miss out on everything you can see when you go from point A to Z. And walking just takes too damn long. Trying out my first London bike share! #bikelondon The last time I was in London, I was pleased to learn that the bike share program had finally implemented a "Casual Use" plan, which allows you to use the bikes on a day-to-day basis without purchasing a membership (which requires UK residency). I was even more excited to see that the machines support American-style swipe credit cards as well as the chip and pin cards that are common in Europe. Despite the cold January day, I decided to embark on this adventure to see how hard it was going to be for an American to actually use the Boris Bikes in a casual hire capacity. As it turns out, it's pretty straight forward, with a couple of caveats. The onscreen instructions walk you through every step of the hire process, but here are the things to note, both about the hiring process and the bikes themselves: That's it. Especially as the weather starts warming up, I highly recommend that anyone visiting London take full advantage of the bike share system. It really is a wonderful way to get around town. [gallery columns="3" link="file"]