After a year and a half hiatus the blue bikes (or at least 500 of them) will be back on the streets of New Orleans on September 1st. What does this mean for a bicycle rental company like Flambeaux?

First of all, more bikes on the street is always good news, and 500 at once is significant! The more people that ride, the safer it is for all of us. Drivers become more accustomed to sharing the road with bicyclist and it creates an extra push for bike infrastructure (protected bike lanes, bicycle parking, etc.)…which benefits cyclist wether they are riding Blue Bikes or not!

With its monthly plan, the Blue Krewe (local nonprofit that operates and manages the blue bikes) targets locals who don’t own a bike, or want to take advantage of riding an electric bike whenever they need, and also tourists. This will certainly start a virtuous cycle, incite people to ride more and buy their own bikes which in the end is beneficial for the bike communities and ecosystem in New Orleans.

But isn’t this a threat to Flambeaux’s business of renting bikes? In some ways it is, but we feel like we cater to different riders. We often have people wanting to ride for a short period of time or showing up at 5pm just when we’re about to close the shop, and we’ll be happy to advise them to rent a Blue Bike.

For people wanting a bike for more than two hours the pricing of the Blue Bikes (1$ to unlock then 15cts/min) can be very dissuasive very quickly and way more expensive than our own rates : $25 for up to 4 hours or $30 for the full day (9am-5pm). On a blue bike this would respectively cost $37 and $73! When renting with us, our customers also like to hear about our recommendations and insider tips, there’s no hassle about returning a bike to a blue bike kiosk, or worries about going to a neighborhood where the service hasn’t been deployed yet!

We’ll definitely keep an eye on the deployment of this new generation of blue bikes, hoping for a significant impact on the infrastructure and dreaming of one day joining the list of the most bike friendly cities in the USA!

As far as rentals go, we offer you a couple things the Blue Bikes won’t: in-advance online booking to secure your rental before your trip and an interaction with a real human being living in New Orleans who’s eager to share their passion for biking in the Crescent City!

-Pierre