That’s a limited area, and one that’s very well served already by public transport.įinancially, the marketing has been unhelpful at best. Finally, there’s the zoning – Caracas/autopista to the mountains Candelaria up to around 140. There’s a big sign on the stem that says the bike is your responsibility when using it – which may make some people nervous.
Then there’s insurance, both for collisions and for theft. One is about helmets – we spoke to a couple of bike cops that said they wouldn’t hassle anyone for not using a helmet, but that’s far from official. While we had a good experience using the system, there are some large questions that may turn off some users. As long as you’re not turned off by the initial registration, it’s pretty seamless to use. At peak times for short hops, this scheme is perfect, and it will likely also work well for connecting some of the places that public transport doesn’t easily reach. It made a slightly irritatingly long walk into a quick journey, without any of the faff of getting on a transmi. The real test of course is, would we use it again? Both of us agree that we would. Bogotá’s new bike system isn’t perfect, but we’d use it again We get the same situation on arrival at Lourdes – forced down to the other side of Caracas, two blocks away from the transmi and on the wrong side of the tracks. While a fair few docks are handily situated next to a bike lane or transmi station, it’s certainly not always the case. After freeing our steeds, we have to cross roads and make left turns to get to a bike lane.
There are built-in dynamo lights and the seat has a whopping nine inches of flexibility in height – at six foot tall I was comfortable enough.Īnother of the minor niggles in the system is the placement of the docks. My feet remained bone dry despite riding through the aftermath of a Bogotá downpour. I went out of my way to go over potholes and puddles and hardly felt a bump. They do their job, though, spectacularly well. That’s to deter people from stealing them and make sure that people get them back into docks for other users. The bikes themselves aren’t what you might be used to – they’re designed to be underpowered and could be annoying for long-distance routes. While it confirmed our rides, the times didn’t match up and critically, the final cost of the pay-as-you-go ride wasn’t given. The app tracks you – I bought a day pass for 10 mil while the editor tried out the pay-as-you-go function. That’s probably a good idea – you won’t always want to be getting your phone out.
Census cautious thumbsup code#
We used our phones to unlock the bikes via scanning a QR code on the handlebars, but there’s a way to register TuLlave Transmi cards if you have a regular plan set up. There’s a map on the app with the dock sites, so you know roughly where to go. Once it’s all sorted, the system clicks into gear and gets easier. It also seems to flit between English, Spanish, and Portuguese at random.
The app is pretty insistent with reminders to get started and it’s not clear how much data it harvests. Cédulas Extranjerías are not accepted, strangely, and it rejects the number if you enter six digits in the CC field. It’s a long process and requires your passport number and country code. We strongly recommend doing this well before taking a bike.
Census cautious thumbsup how to#
The next dock along, though, has a sticker explaining how to download the Tembici app. The first dock we find has no guide to the system and it’s not intuitive. It’s fiddly and annoying to get started, to say the least. With two together at Calle 53, we were in luck! In total, we could see under 10% available. That’s important because the system wasn’t showing many of those 3,300 bikes as available. There are also three docking points close together. That’s a 20 min or so walk, so just about worth using a bike. With the aid of the BP editor, Emma Newbery, we decided to test out the system on a relatively easy jaunt from Calle 53 to Lourdes. The eye test shows most docks are often empty, so it’s either already popular or some bikes are being held back. Which way will Bogotá go? We thought we’d try the system for ourselves. They’ve struggled in other places though, with famous pictures of abandoned Chinese bikes. These schemes have been wildly popular in Europe, most famously Paris, Barcelona, and London. Well, not all across Bogotá, but more on that later. There are some 3,300 of them in more than 300 locations across Bogotá. It’s the start of a new scheme by Brazilian company Tembici to finally bring a bikeshare service to the Colombian capital. You might have seen rows of brightly decorated granny bikes in Bogotá recently.
We took Bogota’s new Tembici bikes for a spin. Bogotá has a brand new shiny bike hire scheme, but what’s it like to use? We go for a spin on the new wheels.
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