I ride my bike in Berlin even though I don’t own a bike: And this is how it works
I confess: I am a cyclist. Even though bicycle lanes in Berlin aren’t much better and the behavior of my fellow cyclists (felt!) has become more aggressive, for me the bicycle is the most practical means of transport in the city. Of course, a Berliner has to overcome quite a few challenges if he wants to line up in bicycle traffic without stress.
And by that I don’t necessarily mean the poorly maintained bike lanes, which are sometimes unusable because thick tree roots push their way towards the daylight and become a source of accidents for cyclists. No, I also mean the many thieves who are up to mischief in Berlin at night and make cycling (if you don’t have insurance) an expensive affair.
I can’t even say how many bikes have been stolen from me since I moved to Berlin in 2003. There must have been six or seven, at least enough for me to buy a luxury car with the money today. The statistics prove it: Berlin is the capital of bicycle theft in Germany. In 2020, 27,588 bikes were stolenHamburg came in second with 14,576 bikes and Leipzig in third place with 9,129 bikes. On average, 60 bicycles are stolen in Berlin every day. That’s what I mean when I talk about challenges.
I opted for rental bikes
I lost my last bike last year. That’s meant metaphorically, because it wasn’t stolen from me and I didn’t leave it anywhere, but: I broke it. I am faced with the choice of buying a new, expensive road bike. But then the theft statistics in Berlin came back to me.
Friends with expensive bikes told me how stressful it was for them to go to a concert and go there by bike because during the concert they always had to worry that someone would steal the expensive bike. stress I don’t need. Others told me that they carry their expensive bikes indoors so they don’t get lost at night. Another tactic I don’t want to use.
I put off the decision a bit after finding the right bike (and buying it). But so that I can continue to move around, I looked for an alternative and decided to rent a bike. Last year, the choice fell on Nextbike, a company that has a strong presence in Berlin with its bicycles. The company makes it possible to rent bikes relatively flexibly.
All you need is an app and you can use the screen to search for free bikes in the area. If you come across a parked and available bike on the street, you only have to scan a barcode with your cell phone, unlock the bike and then just start riding. In Berlin there is quite a large and wide rental and storage zone where you can access the bikes and park them easily. Nextbike takes care of the maintenance. The advantage: You are flexible and can cycle to a concert and decide to take a taxi or an Uber for the return journey after the concert. That gives me even more flexibility.
I’m sticking with my bike rental model
I now have a subscription to Nextbike. It costs ten euros per month and includes 30 minutes per rental. Each additional unit of 30 minutes costs one euro, the maximum price for 24 hours is 15 euros per rental. I think that’s fair. Since I live in the city center, it takes me less than 30 minutes to cycle to most places, so I actually only pay the 10 euros per month for the basic rate. If you want to be flexible, choose the Flex tariff and pay one euro for the first 30 minutes.
Since March 2022, the company Nextbike, which started as a Leipzig start-up, has belonged to the e-scooter, e-motor scooter and e-bike sharing company Tier Mobility GmbH. Looking at the last year, the company counts over half a million registrations. In Germany alone, more than half a million new registrations and almost ten million trips were booked throughout the year.
In 2022 this trend will continue unabated. In the first quarter, for example, twice as many loans were booked as in the same period of the previous year. You can also see that bike sharing is trendy.
If it weren’t for the destructiveness of Berliners: rental bike companies complain that many bicycles are damaged. Deutsche Bahn has even decided to limit its offer of Call-a-Bike bikes in Berlin due to vandalism damage. No matter how you do it: cyclists remain a complicated matter in Berlin. As long as the crime statistics of Berliners don’t improve, I’ll stick with my bike rental model anyway (or just under control).
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