BiciMAD a public rental electric bicycle service

BiciMAD, public rental electric bicycle service

A couple of years ago, the mayor of Madrid created BiciMAD a public rental electric bicycle service. The service is call BiciMAD and counts with 1560 electrical bikes all over Madrid centre.

The price for the service is 2€ for the first 60 minutes and 4€ for the next 60 minutes that will follow.

I will explain you how it works. Once you are in the station, you need to go to the kiosk, select your language and chose the renting time. The system will hold (no debit) a placement of 150€ as a warranty, if you return the bicycle it will not be debited from your account.

Before paying, you have to choose the placement number for the bike that you want to rent, you can only select placement with a green light and check that the bicycle is in good condition before you selected.  If there is not light that means that it does work, choose another one.

When you had finished, chose a placement with a red light, if there is no light or blue light do not use it. It is important to follow the guidelines concerning the lights to avoid problems later on.

You will have a map with all the stations here.

In Madrid, there are some streets with bicycle lines but not everywhere, pay attention to traffic because sometime car drivers forget that they are not alone.

Last Thursday of every month there is an event call bicicritica that groups hundreds of cycles for a night ride. The meeting point is Cibeles square at 20h. To be informed of the movement here is the twitter account @labicicritica

Remember that the service is billed by hour, so if you are going to stop for lunch, visiting or rest in your hotel, is better and safer to return the bicycle and to take another after.