Renting or Riding a Bike in Vienna

Vienna is truly a cyclist friendly city. With over 800 kilometers of bicycle routes, it’s easy to rent a bike, take it for a spin along the many Danube paths and then lock it up (usually free of charge) at your hotel, guest house or pension. In fact, some hotels even offer bicycle repair facilities! Guided tours of the city also take place from May 1 to September 30 (daily at 10am). Taking in the Prater/Giant Ferris Wheel, Hundertwasser House, the Ring boulevard, Stadtpark (City Park), Vienna State Opera, Karlsplatz, Imperial Palace and St. Stephen’s Cathedral, it’s a must for anyone with a few hours to spare. Visit www.pedalpower.at for further details or, for alternative guided tours www.bikeandguide.com.

Rental shops are easily found all over Vienna, although in previous years their presence was almost made redundant by the now defunct (but excellent) Viennabike scheme. Basically you got free use of an advertising clad "T-Mobile" or "Nokia" cycle for the day, and then, once you were done, simply returned it to one of the many drop-off points around town. Unfortunately though, as large numbers of bikes were either stolen, vandalised, or thrown into the Danube, an updated scheme called Citybike (run by Gewista) has been introduced.

Booking a bike now involves using electronic touch-screens to enter your credit card details. Then, after the first hour’s use (which is free) you’ll be levied by the hour for the rest of the day’s hire. Apparently a thousand bicycles will be made available, although only time will tell whether the scheme is as popular as Viennabike.

Another good initiative is "Bike and Ride" which provides over 14,000 spaces for users switching from their bicycles to public transport i.e. metro/railway. Obviously you need to lock your bike up but otherwise parking is completely free.

For many more details about cycling in Vienna, download the following Word document from the excellent wien.info website.