More efficient energy storage has been a difficult issue for scientists to crack. It is a major issue preventing more widespread use of renewable energy, and solar energy in particular.

Is this project, one funded by a true oil giant, the one that will make it happen?

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From bicycle lovers to lovers on bikes, bike art to art on bikes, the largest bicycle sharing program in the world to some of the smallest bikers, enjoy this bicycle city photo tour of Paris, France!

Paris doesn’t have a long history as one of the best bicycle cities, but with the introduction of the largest bicycle sharing program in the world, bicycling in Paris has boomed and the city is becoming commonly associated with the bicycle now. Its whole culture is changing due to the bicycle’s increasing relevance in the city’s daily life.

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A century ago the Seine, which flows from the north of France, through Paris to the English Channel, hosted a large flourishing population of Atlantic salmon. The salmon migrated from the sea to their freshwater birth place to reproduce from December to June every year.

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Batucada is a hot new brand offering eco-plastic jewelry from Paris. “Neither rubber nor silicone, the silkier, more durable formulation is eco-friendly certified, manufactured accordingly and packaged in recycled in paper. Go from the morning surf to afternoon spin class to an evening out– and never do away with jewelry. Wear it tight against the skin for a tattoo effect.” ~aplusrstore.com

These lovely eco accessories are designed to connect two bracelets to form a choker or to strap one around your ankle.

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In Avenue des Champs-Élysées, the most prestigious avenue in Paris, France, famous for its cinemas, cafés, and luxury specialty shops, cigarette butts sit at the streets. When the authorities here banned smoking inside cafes, little did they know they were creating another hazard: the wanton disposal of cigarette butts, propelled mainly by the absence of public ashtrays.

When smokers toss away cigarette butts onto street pavements or out into the open landscape, little do they know how much damage that can inflict onto the environment. Apart from harm to the environment, many minors tend to experiment with smoking on cigarette butts which makes it all the more important to dispose them away properly.

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A new Parisian company called Verture would like you to take a green turn away from your standard taxi service. If you’re tired of uncourteous service, an invasive musical environment, torn seats and an overwhelming sense of guilt for the 3.5 minutes you just stood still in bumper-to-bumper traffic, then Venture is for you.

Venture’s fleet of all black hybrid electric/gas Toyota Prius offer similar prices to regular taxi fare, without the regular hassles. Flat screens, TV’s, DVD players, IPod hook-ups, a laptop with Internet access, a baby seat and a universal battery for recharging your must-haves are just a few of the accoutrements that Venture has to offer. And how ’bout those carbon neutral journeys? The Toyota Prius emits 1/2 the carbon dioxide of a regular car, and Venture works with Climat Mundi to offset the miniscule amounts of carbon dioxide that do manage to slip out to fund international eco-projects. 

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Have you ever rolled around in dew-kissed blades of grass in a haute couture ballgown made out of organic muslin with the prince, or princess, of your most intimate dreams? Well, I haven’t either- but I plan to, and when I do, I will be wearing a perfume by Honoré des Prés. Composed of five different scents, each one more evocative than the next, Honoré des Prés is the first 100% natural, organic French perfume to hit the American market.

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I used to have a yoga bag that I was pretty proud of. It was shaped like a hot dog, with a drawstring opening and a comfy shoulder strap and it made me look like a hunter with a bouquet of arrows on my back. The problem was, I couldn’t find a darn thing in it. Everything sunk to the bottom- my sweatband, my wallet, my cherished tube of Kiehl’s lip balm that has an eternal lifespan and still hasn’t run out despite the fact I swiped it from a hotel room four years hence.

And then there was Lumi. Lumi stands for “Love you, mean it”, and let me tell you, they really mean it. These courageously affordable bags are designed to help you carry things in style- including your better self. Each handmade bag comes with a cell phone pocket (but only if you promise to keep it on silent), a section for your water bottle and a homemade eye pillow coordinated with each bag.

Lumi’s are green-made in Paris from leftover swaths of fabric from the creator’s interior-decorating dad. (Are you feeling the love yet, or what?) Plus, toting your Lumi bag is a charitable act. 5 euros from every sale goes to benefit the Ãdhãra-Shakti collective: a grassroots organization that helps serious yoga students participate in yoga retreats at the divine YogAriege, even if they are seriously broke.

Don’t live in France? Pas de problème! Chantal, the multitasking wunderkind behind the Lumi bags, will send you one by mail. The bags are 29 euros within Europe, and 37 dollars to the United States. Want something special? Ask for a custom order! Lumi loves you back. 

Photo credit: All photos used by permission by Chantal Tacoronte-Perez.

Largest Bike Sharing Program in the World — Vélib’

Vélib’ started on July 15, 2007. Initially, it included 10,000 bikes and 750 stations. By the beginning of 2008, it had about 20,000 bicycles at about 1,500 stations. In the first 100 days, the program had 10 million rentals, an average of about 100,000 rentals a day! Each bike would turn over about 5-15 times a day. In about 6 months, the number of bicyclists in Paris nearly doubled!

You can use a bike for less than half an hour for free, or, after that, it costs €1 for another half-hour before rising more steeply. I love the first half-hour being free because many trips aren’t that long and it encourages more people who wouldn’t bike to try the program.

With about 25 million rentals in one year, replacing 10% of car traffic alone, an amazing transformation of the transportation system in one of the world’s most famous global cities has occurred. The British newspaper The Independent reports: “Describing Vélib’ as a ‘form of utopia’, Libération newspaper said that the presence of thousands of slow-moving, stately bikes has also had a soothing effect on Paris’ frenetic pace. ‘At the speed of a bicycle, an idea is gaining ground: one of a less arrogant and more human city,’ it said.”

I saw someone at a rail/transit conference in Miami make the point that the program creates a sort of individualized public transit — I thought that was a novel and very accurate description of the program. And, actually, a person gets a “smartcard” to use the program when they sign up for a transit card. This smartcard accounted for about 60% of the rentals in the first 100 days. You can also get yearly (€29), weekly (€5), or daily (€1) memberships in order to be able to check out the bikes.

With the great health benefits of cycling, I have heard another person say that Paris is creating “a city of athletes” with this bicycle sharing program. Maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but many people are benefiting from cycling around Paris and the health benefits are countless, for sure.

How popular is the program? After 1 year, 94% of Parisians support the program.

If you want to see more about the other best bike sharing program in the world or read a brief history of different bike-sharing programs, check out page 2 of the Barcelona bicycle city photo tour.

As The Independent reports, and hopefully you got a little flavor of it from the pictures below: “In the space of one year the vélib’ has become a Parisian institution, giving the streets and boulevards of the French capital a vague air of Amsterdam or Cambridge.”

On the flickr page of this last photo, there are notes showing how to check out and return a vélib’ bicycle.

For an amazing video on vélib’, visit Streetfilms.org

Image Credit 1: carlosfpardo via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: Feuillu via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 3: the noggin_nogged via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 4: austinevan via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 5: [phil h] via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 6: Marcia_Salviato via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 7: reinn via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 8: Feuillu via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 9: Feuillu via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 10: austinevan via flickr under a CC license

Street Artists Transport Pictures on Bikes

Other Street Artists Stand on Bikes

Street Art Can Include Bikes

Image Credit 1: franck94 via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: franck94 via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 3: °•●Mr Ro●•° via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 4: c-reel.com via flickr under a CC license

Biking for All Ages & All Styles

The bicycle is just as good company as most husbands and, when it gets old and shabby, a woman can dispose of it and get a new one without shocking the entire community. ~Ann Strong

The hardest part of raising a child is teaching them to ride bicycles. A shaky child on a bicycle for the first time needs both support and freedom. The realization that this is what the child will always need can hit hard. ~Sloan Wilson

Hope you got a good glimpse of kids on bikes here. For pictures of babies on bikes, visit the Groningen photo tour

.

Image Credit 1: iulian nistea via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: iulian nistea via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 3: [auro] via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 4: Feuillu via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 5: Abdou.W via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 6: [phil h_] via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 7: broken glass via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 8: THEfunkyman via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 9: Vinvin F via flickr under a CC license

Biking is for Friends & Lovers

Melancholy is incompatible with bicycling. ~James E. Starrs

Image Credit 1: Alain Bachellier via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: Joe Shlabotnik via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 3: Feuillu via flickr under CC license
Image Credit 4: Julien Hery via flickr under a CC license

Hope He Wasn’t Riding that Bike

(The guy on the right, that is. The guy on the left is using a Vélib’ bike.)

Image Credit: iulian nistea via flickr under a Creative Commons license

Bike Taxis

As in Barcelona and Berlin, you can find these cool bicycle taxis in Paris.

If you missed the others, check out the #10 Basel, #9 Bogota, #8 Barcelona, #7 Berlin, and #6 Groningen great bicycle city photo tours.

To keep yourself updated on the next four photo tours, keep your eye on EcoWorldly or even subscribe to its feed or email list. Have something extra to add? Comment below!

Image Credit: Mohsan via flickr under a Creative Commons license

  

 Traveler, painter, and a mean hand with a sewing machine, Chantal began practicing Yoga in Miami and went on to study Iyengar yoga with Vladimir Ferrerio Gonzalez while she lived in Havana as the Hampshire College Cuba Program Coordinator. She is currently teaching yoga at the Centre de Yoga du Marais in Paris, while continuing her studies under Rod Stryker in the Tantric Hatha lineage to complete her Para Yoga certification.

Here, Chantal talks with us about the difference between Miami and Parisian mindsets, the eternal debate over audible sighs, and how to get your hubby to come to a yoga class. 

How did you come to teach yoga? What else might you be doing if you weren’t a yoga teacher?

I  worked at the front desk of Prana Yoga in Miami off and on between college and traveling/working in Cuba. I had just come back from Cuba and my cousin was leading the teacher training at Prana Yoga. I had always wanted to do it, and it just seemed like the next step.

If I weren’t teaching yoga, I would be teaching something else. Probably painting or working with disabled children and teens. I always knew that I wanted to be a teacher, but “yoga teacher” was not always the image I conjured up as I played “teacher” with my imaginary students. My make-believe took place in the form of detention with forms and grades, not straps, blankets or blocks.

Did you always follow a vegetarian diet, or did you go veggie when you discovered yoga?

When I was younger, my mom didn’t eat any red meat or anything with bones in it except for fish, which I never liked.  I learned first about veganism, then vegetarianism while I was in college learning about the planet and how much waste goes into the whole “raising of animals for human consumption” thing. It just seemed that it was more logical to eat closer to the earth.

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If you’ve been to Paris in the last year and a half and you didn’t spend your entire visit slugging back Côtes du Rhône and camembert, you might remember having seen a whole lot of bikes. Like, loads and loads of them. Huge, industrial looking, cumbersome, with standard metal baskets? These curious contraptions belong to a new form of transportation known as the Vélib. A combination of “vélo” (bike), and “liberté”, (freedom), the Vélib offers tourists and locals just that: bikes and freedom. 

The Green Way to see Paris

As long as you have a credit card or an ATM card (is anyone still using traveler’s checks these days?) you can rent a bike for a day, a week, even for a year! The way it works is this:  

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Speaking at the Paris Motor Show, President Nicolas Sarkozy said the investment is destined “exclusively for the research and development of non-polluting vehicles.” His comments follow earlier announcements from French carmakers Renault SA and PSA Peugeot Citroen of separate agreements with energy company Electricite de France (EdF) to develop and market green vehicles.

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Unique, clever and straight-forward engineering has resulted in three Volvo models ready for the road.

These fuel-sipping marvels feature a 1.6 litre diesel engine along with aerodynamicly reduced air resistance, new Michelin tires that lower rolling resistance, and the new European cyclGearbox with altered ratios for third, fourth and fifth gears.  Volvo says the new gearbox configuration alone results in a 1.5% reduction in fuel consumption without affecting the driveability of the car.

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Peugeot has announced plans to debut an all-new performance hybrid concept at the Paris motor show in October. According to the French manufacturer, the car, known for now as the RC Clubs, (but whose final name will be confirmed at the show), will be a four-door, four seat GT Coupe with “highly innovative hybrid architecture.”

Peugeot claim that the car boasts 313bhp, with combined CO2 emissions of 109g/km. If true, this would make the RC Clubs easily the most powerful model in production by the French outfit, yet also one of the greenest. Moreover, when running at low speeds, the RC will be powered solely by an electric motor, meaning zero emissions at source, much the same as the Toyota Prius and the Honda Civic Hybrid.

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Over the past week rumors and rumblings about a climate plan underway in the current and fading Whitehouse have emerged. Thankfully, it all seems a bit “disappointing.”

Seventeen nations have come together in Paris for two days in the latest round of climate warming talks, under the heading of the Major Emitters Meeting. The South African delegation was the one to label Bush’s proposals – to halt a rise in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 – as disappointing. “There is no way whatever that we can agree to what the U.S. is proposing,” South African Environmental Affairs Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk said in a statement.

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The stage was in the presidential palace in the heart of Paris. The speaker was the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy. And he couldn’t have chosen more illustrious guests for the occasion: José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, Wangari Maathai, winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize and, the winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, Mr Al Gore himself. After Sarkozy outlined the results of four months of negotiations on the environment, Al Gore spoke. "I want to offer my congratulations to the French people. This is the beginning of an historic process," he said. "We need a ‘Grenelle mondial,’ a Worldwide Grenelle."

In May 1968, a time of great social upheaval in France, members of opposing camps met to discuss possible solutions to the crisis. Government representatives, employers and union leaders gathered to negotiate on labor terms and conditions. The agreements signed at the outcome were later called the "Grenelle accords" after the place where the meeting was held, in the Ministry of Labor building on Grenelle street in Paris. Sarkozy launched the environmental Grenelle last Spring, using the name of the labor agreements to emphasize the multilateral democratic nature of the process.

The Grenelle, or "environmental New Deal" as it has also been called, was organized in three phases. During the first phase, six heterogeneous working groups drafted plans of action to tackle major environmental issues, including climate change and energy needs, the loss of biodiversity, and unsustainable modes of production and consumption. During the second phase the general public was invited to join in by commenting on the groups’ reports either on an Internet forum hosted by the official site, or by attending regional meetings. I wrote about the Grenelle here on Green Options, once at the beginning of the process, and a second time at the opening of the public debate.

The phase of public debate came to an end on October 14, and last week at the presidential palace Sarkozy presented the synthesis of four months of talks. But what were the results of these "unprecedented negotiations?" There were irreconcilable differences on a number of issues, but happily, agreements were reached on others. About a dozen measures will be voted on by the French parliament in early 2008. It seems as though the greatest strides were made in two areas, transportation and building. These two areas are, needless to say, chief contributors to air pollution and climate change.

For example, Sarkozy announced that the construction of new highways in France will be slowed considerably, almost ceasing altogether, while in contrast the railway network will be expanded considerably. 2000 kilometers, or around 1250 miles, of tracks will be laid, benefiting both passenger and cargo trains, and thereby eliminating around 2 million trucks from French highways by 2020.

By 2012 all new constructions in France will conform to norms of "low consumption," and by 2020 all new buildings will be net producers of energy. Regarding household electrical equipment such as televisions, stereos and kitchen appliances, as soon as alternatives are made available, the old generation inefficient models will be banned. A deadline is already set for 2010 when incandescent light bulbs and single-paned windows will be prohibited.

Sarkozy also promised that the State will lead the way by greening public buildings and government transports. So, for example, starting in 2008, all public buildings will have to increase their energy efficiency by 20%, and by 2009 all vehicles used by the state will run on cleaner energy. Those two measures may not sound very impressive, but when placed in context, they take on greater significance. Indeed, mocked by the French themselves and scorned abroad, the French administration is infamous for its unwieldy size and relentless inefficiency. But, given such dimensions, just think of what a positive impact those otherwise modest goals for energy efficiency and clean vehicles will have by reducing CO2 emissions and air pollution. Why at this rate, Paris will be on its way to becoming the cleanest capital city in the world!

Certain issues discussed during the Grenelle talks were inevitably highly controversial and often the cause of tension between the various delegates. In my next post, I’ll be taking a look at some of those hot topics. So tune in to Green Options again early next week for Part 2 on the Sarko Eco-Show.

Official Grenelle Website

President Nicolas Sarkozy

Le Monde

Largest Bike Sharing Program in the World — Vélib’

Vélib’ started on July 15, 2007. Initially, it included 10,000 bikes and 750 stations. By the beginning of 2008, it had about 20,000 bicycles at about 1,500 stations. In the first 100 days, the program had 10 million rentals, an average of about 100,000 rentals a day! Each bike would turn over about 5-15 times a day. In about 6 months, the number of bicyclists in Paris nearly doubled!

You can use a bike for less than half an hour for free, or, after that, it costs €1 for another half-hour before rising more steeply. I love the first half-hour being free because many trips aren’t that long and it encourages more people who wouldn’t bike to try the program.

With about 25 million rentals in one year, replacing 10% of car traffic alone, an amazing transformation of the transportation system in one of the world’s most famous global cities has occurred. The British newspaper The Independent reports: “Describing Vélib’ as a ‘form of utopia’, Libération newspaper said that the presence of thousands of slow-moving, stately bikes has also had a soothing effect on Paris’ frenetic pace. ‘At the speed of a bicycle, an idea is gaining ground: one of a less arrogant and more human city,’ it said.”

I saw someone at a rail/transit conference in Miami make the point that the program creates a sort of individualized public transit — I thought that was a novel and very accurate description of the program. And, actually, a person gets a “smartcard” to use the program when they sign up for a transit card. This smartcard accounted for about 60% of the rentals in the first 100 days. You can also get yearly (€29), weekly (€5), or daily (€1) memberships in order to be able to check out the bikes.

With the great health benefits of cycling, I have heard another person say that Paris is creating “a city of athletes” with this bicycle sharing program. Maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but many people are benefiting from cycling around Paris and the health benefits are countless, for sure.

How popular is the program? After 1 year, 94% of Parisians support the program.

If you want to see more about the other best bike sharing program in the world or read a brief history of different bike-sharing programs, check out page 2 of the Barcelona bicycle city photo tour.

As The Independent reports, and hopefully you got a little flavor of it from the pictures below: “In the space of one year the vélib’ has become a Parisian institution, giving the streets and boulevards of the French capital a vague air of Amsterdam or Cambridge.”

On the flickr page of this last photo, there are notes showing how to check out and return a vélib’ bicycle.

For an amazing video on vélib’, visit Streetfilms.org

Image Credit 1: carlosfpardo via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: Feuillu via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 3: the noggin_nogged via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 4: austinevan via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 5: [phil h] via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 6: Marcia_Salviato via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 7: reinn via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 8: Feuillu via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 9: Feuillu via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 10: austinevan via flickr under a CC license

Street Artists Transport Pictures on Bikes

Other Street Artists Stand on Bikes

Street Art Can Include Bikes

Image Credit 1: franck94 via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: franck94 via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 3: °•●Mr Ro●•° via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 4: c-reel.com via flickr under a CC license

Biking for All Ages & All Styles

The bicycle is just as good company as most husbands and, when it gets old and shabby, a woman can dispose of it and get a new one without shocking the entire community. ~Ann Strong

The hardest part of raising a child is teaching them to ride bicycles. A shaky child on a bicycle for the first time needs both support and freedom. The realization that this is what the child will always need can hit hard. ~Sloan Wilson

Hope you got a good glimpse of kids on bikes here. For pictures of babies on bikes, visit the Groningen photo tour

.

Image Credit 1: iulian nistea via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: iulian nistea via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 3: [auro] via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 4: Feuillu via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 5: Abdou.W via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 6: [phil h_] via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 7: broken glass via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 8: THEfunkyman via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 9: Vinvin F via flickr under a CC license

Biking is for Friends & Lovers

Melancholy is incompatible with bicycling. ~James E. Starrs

Image Credit 1: Alain Bachellier via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: Joe Shlabotnik via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 3: Feuillu via flickr under CC license
Image Credit 4: Julien Hery via flickr under a CC license

Hope He Wasn’t Riding that Bike

(The guy on the right, that is. The guy on the left is using a Vélib’ bike.)

Image Credit: iulian nistea via flickr under a Creative Commons license

Bike Taxis

As in Barcelona and Berlin, you can find these cool bicycle taxis in Paris.

If you missed the others, check out the #10 Basel, #9 Bogota, #8 Barcelona, #7 Berlin, and #6 Groningen great bicycle city photo tours.

To keep yourself updated on the next four photo tours, keep your eye on EcoWorldly or even subscribe to its feed or email list. Have something extra to add? Comment below!

Image Credit: Mohsan via flickr under a Creative Commons license

La Poste will phase in the electric vehicles over a five year period and will get their first shipment of 500 in 2008. They've been testing eight electric models in Paris and in Bordeaux since 2005 (which must have gone really well considering the order). Manufacturers expected to bid on the request include French transport groups SVE and Bollore.

There's no word as to how many of the 60,000 non-electric vehicles in the French fleet will be replaced, but government officials are hoping the prominent visibility of these new delivery vehicles will encourage the public to begin to phase out their dirty modes of transport as well.

Although they're going to have to work a little harder if they want to catch up to the United States Postal Service. The USPS already has 37,000 alternative fuel vehicles and they're continually conducting research on new ways to make delivery state-side more enviro-friendly. Afterall, the mail must go through. "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night" … nor global warming!

Via WBCSD

Largest Bike Sharing Program in the World — Vélib’

Vélib’ started on July 15, 2007. Initially, it included 10,000 bikes and 750 stations. By the beginning of 2008, it had about 20,000 bicycles at about 1,500 stations. In the first 100 days, the program had 10 million rentals, an average of about 100,000 rentals a day! Each bike would turn over about 5-15 times a day. In about 6 months, the number of bicyclists in Paris nearly doubled!

You can use a bike for less than half an hour for free, or, after that, it costs €1 for another half-hour before rising more steeply. I love the first half-hour being free because many trips aren’t that long and it encourages more people who wouldn’t bike to try the program.

With about 25 million rentals in one year, replacing 10% of car traffic alone, an amazing transformation of the transportation system in one of the world’s most famous global cities has occurred. The British newspaper The Independent reports: “Describing Vélib’ as a ‘form of utopia’, Libération newspaper said that the presence of thousands of slow-moving, stately bikes has also had a soothing effect on Paris’ frenetic pace. ‘At the speed of a bicycle, an idea is gaining ground: one of a less arrogant and more human city,’ it said.”

I saw someone at a rail/transit conference in Miami make the point that the program creates a sort of individualized public transit — I thought that was a novel and very accurate description of the program. And, actually, a person gets a “smartcard” to use the program when they sign up for a transit card. This smartcard accounted for about 60% of the rentals in the first 100 days. You can also get yearly (€29), weekly (€5), or daily (€1) memberships in order to be able to check out the bikes.

With the great health benefits of cycling, I have heard another person say that Paris is creating “a city of athletes” with this bicycle sharing program. Maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but many people are benefiting from cycling around Paris and the health benefits are countless, for sure.

How popular is the program? After 1 year, 94% of Parisians support the program.

If you want to see more about the other best bike sharing program in the world or read a brief history of different bike-sharing programs, check out page 2 of the Barcelona bicycle city photo tour.

As The Independent reports, and hopefully you got a little flavor of it from the pictures below: “In the space of one year the vélib’ has become a Parisian institution, giving the streets and boulevards of the French capital a vague air of Amsterdam or Cambridge.”

On the flickr page of this last photo, there are notes showing how to check out and return a vélib’ bicycle.

For an amazing video on vélib’, visit Streetfilms.org

Image Credit 1: carlosfpardo via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: Feuillu via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 3: the noggin_nogged via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 4: austinevan via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 5: [phil h] via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 6: Marcia_Salviato via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 7: reinn via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 8: Feuillu via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 9: Feuillu via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 10: austinevan via flickr under a CC license

Street Artists Transport Pictures on Bikes

Other Street Artists Stand on Bikes

Street Art Can Include Bikes

Image Credit 1: franck94 via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: franck94 via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 3: °•●Mr Ro●•° via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 4: c-reel.com via flickr under a CC license

Biking for All Ages & All Styles

The bicycle is just as good company as most husbands and, when it gets old and shabby, a woman can dispose of it and get a new one without shocking the entire community. ~Ann Strong

The hardest part of raising a child is teaching them to ride bicycles. A shaky child on a bicycle for the first time needs both support and freedom. The realization that this is what the child will always need can hit hard. ~Sloan Wilson

Hope you got a good glimpse of kids on bikes here. For pictures of babies on bikes, visit the Groningen photo tour

.

Image Credit 1: iulian nistea via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: iulian nistea via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 3: [auro] via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 4: Feuillu via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 5: Abdou.W via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 6: [phil h_] via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 7: broken glass via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 8: THEfunkyman via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 9: Vinvin F via flickr under a CC license

Biking is for Friends & Lovers

Melancholy is incompatible with bicycling. ~James E. Starrs

Image Credit 1: Alain Bachellier via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: Joe Shlabotnik via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 3: Feuillu via flickr under CC license
Image Credit 4: Julien Hery via flickr under a CC license

Hope He Wasn’t Riding that Bike

(The guy on the right, that is. The guy on the left is using a Vélib’ bike.)

Image Credit: iulian nistea via flickr under a Creative Commons license

Bike Taxis

As in Barcelona and Berlin, you can find these cool bicycle taxis in Paris.

If you missed the others, check out the #10 Basel, #9 Bogota, #8 Barcelona, #7 Berlin, and #6 Groningen great bicycle city photo tours.

To keep yourself updated on the next four photo tours, keep your eye on EcoWorldly or even subscribe to its feed or email list. Have something extra to add? Comment below!

Image Credit: Mohsan via flickr under a Creative Commons license