Europe Trip 2025 - City Bikes and Infrastructure

If possible and safe, riding a bike is a great way to discover a city: faster than walking, more flexible than public transport.

Here's the summary from my recent trip:

Hong Kong, China - similar to Singapore in that footpaths are often too narrow to ride, but also has some really steep streets - a bit like Brisbane, Australia. I'm not sure if there was even a city bike scheme. Singapore is way ahead of Hong Kong in bike riding: more people riding, easy to rent a bike, dedicated bike paths. After reviewing all my photos from Hong Kong, this is the only one with a bike, can you see it?

Vienna, Austria - good path around the historical city centre. First time riding at night, and the light on the bike was not good - I did not see much, plus the path was not lighted brightly. Doable, but not recommended. WienMobil push bike costs 0.75 EUR (3.17 PLN) for 30 minutes. Vienna's Copenhagenize Index 2025 place: 19. The index does not always feel right. For example, from seeing how many people of all ages, and especially moms with kids in the child seat, where riding the quiet, 30 km/h streets of Tokyo, I think Tokyo should be much higher than 72, but then again, maybe that worked only for local trips, and the problem was not being able to get the bike on the train, and ride longer distances on dedicated bike paths.

Ljubljana, Slovenia - two separate schemes/companies - one for push bikes, one for e-bikes, with separate stations and apps. Near my apartment there was only an e-bike station (1.30 EUR or 5.49 PLN for 30 minutes). Apart from that, riding was good. There were lots of bike riders, plenty of bike paths. Second time riding at night, and it was a bit scary, especially the dark underpass near the central railway station. First time saw two bike riders in black clothes, without any lights on their bikes, in a dark underpass, at night. Ljubljana's Copenhagenize Index 2025 place: 24.

Koper, Slovenia - lovely bike paths. The best I saw on this trip:

Budapest - it was dark and raining and I did not have much time, so I did not try it. Budapest's Copenhagenize Index 2025 place: 57.

Zagreb, Croatia - I rented a nextbike, but it was not a good experience - too many cars, too few bike paths, and in the pedestrian areas, not enough space to ride. Walked and took trams the rest of the stay. Zagreb's Copenhagenize Index 2025 place: 90.

Split, Croatia - there was a nextbike scheme, but it rejected two of my nextbike accounts (different phone numbers: Polish and Australian), and I was not sure what else I could do. There were also too many people walking the narrow old town streets and too few bike paths outside to make it make sense - actually, did I see a bike path? Yes, but a very short one, in a newly redeveloped section of the waterfront:

Gdańsk, Poland - the e-bike handles badly. The pricing for casual users copies the per minute e-scooter pricing: 0.15 PLN per minute for push bikes (9 PLN per hour), 0.30 PLN per minute for e-bikes (18 PLN per hour). The good part is cheap monthly and yearly pricing and the coverage. Gdańsk's Copenhagenize Index 2025 place: 63.

Kraków, Poland - this city completely gave up on providing bikes for casual users. There are good programs for car owners and residents though. Car owners can get an e-bike for free at seven Park and Ride facilities. Residents can rent a push bike for a month for 33 PLN. I tried to rent an e-scooter - there are at least three different companies, but the registration process was not working and I gave up. Didn't see anyone using them. In the end, I used my legs and trams. A note about Kraków in the 2025 Copenhagenize Index report: Cities evaluated but not included in the final selection, as five other cities in their country showed higher cycling modal share.  

I did not notice any bike paths when walking, but I saw one from the train window:

Proper bike path (on the left) and crossing in Wesoła Zachód district.

This is a ridiculous number of scooters.
Also, see the bike rider behind the tram - there is no bike path here,
and no level pedestrian crossing either.

A lot of footpath taken for scooters and a missing bike parking.

Missing bike parking.

This hotel is providing its own bike share, because the city failed.

Rare bike parking.

Warsaw, Poland - cheapest rental in Poland? (0 PLN for 20 minutes for both push bikes and e-bikes, then 1 PLN for 21-60 minutes for push bikes, and 6 PLN for e-bikes, then 3 PLN and 14 PLN for 2nd hour), plenty of bike paths, usually wide enough footpaths. Saw a tandem bike to rent! I noticed the bike scheme being neglected a bit. There were too many broken bikes, and one convenient station, that I used before, disappeared. Be careful to pause the ride from the app first, and only then lock the bike, if you are stopping outside a station. I locked it by mistake when I went shopping and got a notification that I was charged 150 PLN for return in a non-authorised zone. Luckily, when I went out and hired the same bike again, it treated that as a pause and did not actually charge my card. Warsaw's Copenhagenize Index 2025 place: 62.

Veturilo bike station

Bike path along the Vistula river.
It looks empty, but there are 5 people on bikes in this photo.

Red crossings are for bikes.
Despite the rain and a very early hour, there is one bike rider in this photo.

Lublin, Poland - two of us failed to rent a bike. The software provided by the city is really bad. We got stuck in the registration/setup/login process at different points. Few people on bikes, no bike paths in sight.

Łódź, Poland - rent after 20 minutes is expensive (first 20 minutes are free, 4 PLN for 21-60 minutes, 6 PLN for 2nd hour, 10 PLN for 3rd hour!), no bike paths. The main street - Piotrkowska is partially closed to cars and is nice to ride. Many more woonerfs are needed. Łódź's Copenhagenize Index 2025 place: 68.

Piotrkowska street

Wrocław, Poland - e-bike pricing is in a scam territory: 0.59 PLN per minute (35 PLN per hour)! The push bikes are priced more reasonably for very short rentals (0 PLN for 20 minutes, 3 PLN for 21-60 minutes, 6 PLN per hour afterwards) and the bike paths were good. Wrocław is the highest ranking Polish city in the Copenhagenize Index 2025, at number 28. There are 5 Polish cities in the top 100. The one I haven't been to yet is Poznań.

Path along a canal

Bike parking near a new estate

Bikes near a kindy - a sign of a healthy city

Katowice - did not rent a bike because it was raining (lightly), and I did not feel like downloading and registering another app. In retrospect, I should have, because the distances were too big for walking. 

Katowice had the most complicated pricelist I saw, with the most ridiculous item: leaving a bike more than 10 km from a nearest station costs 5,000 PLN. Their pricelist is also an exception to how every other bike rental pricelist works: every item is the total, not the increment:

Why???

There were some bike paths, but I only saw one rider - a food delivery person.

Bike station near the main train station.

There is a bike path, but outside the relatively small historic city centre, Katowice is built for cars.

There is a motorway in a trench here.

Are these bike stands around the fountain?

Small Polish cities:

Malbork and Wieliczka - I did not see a city bike scheme.

Grodzisk Mazowiecki (population 35 thousand) - has a seasonal city bike scheme (closed in winter - many/most/all? Polish cities do that) with 100 bikes and 16 stations, and it has lots of bikes with child seats! Their website is not working, but elsewhere I found that the pricing was the same as in Warsaw.

Private bikes near the train station in Grodzisk Mazowiecki, clearly there is a need for better bike parking:

From previous trips:

Vilnius, Lithuania - there was a problem with bike stations not working - could not rent from two. Not a lot of bike paths, but when they are built, they are very good quality. Vilnius's Copenhagenize Index 2025 place: 50.

Singapore - the app was showing bikes that were not there, possibly someone kept them for private use in their backyard or even apartment. The bike itself was a bit too small for me. The paths, when present, were very good. Singapore's Copenhagenize Index 2025 place: 60.

Helsinki - one of the best cities for bike riding. See photos from my 2023 visit. Helsinki's Copenhagenize Index 2025 place: 6.

General comments: 

1. Cobblestone streets are an abomination. There was a reason most of them were asphalted. If a city wants cobblestones, make them smooth. The uneven surface is a problem for bike riders, elderly, people with prams. We struggled with it in Warsaw and Wrocław.

2. In most cities the pricing is needlessly complicated (Katowice!), expensive for rides longer than 60 minutes, and the "fees" for theft, loss or damage can stop me renting a bike: 4,613 PLN for a pushbike and 21,525 PLN for an e-bike in Wrocław!

3. Most of the schemes use customised nextbike bikes and software (website, app), and you could use the nextbike app instead of downloading the city-specific app every time you visit a new city, but you  probably shouldn't, because you may get the default nextbike pricing? (1 EUR for 15 minutes), or other things may not work. I'm really not sure. I was getting notifications about ride costs that did not match what was actually being charged hours later to my card. You also should not scan the bike's QR code from your phone's camera, because it may rent the bike in a wrong app and then you may get a notification that you rented a bike in a different city. It's a mess.

4. Australian cities are as bad as American. The Copenhagenize Index 2025 report has this note about about 5 major Australian cities, including Gold Coast: Cities pre-selected, evaluated but not retained, due to low cycling modal share or insufficient data availability. 

Poland, September 2024

I went to Poland in 2024 for family reasons. It's bloody hard to be a recent immigrant to Australia and not fly. I wish the development of electric planes sped up. If CO2 emissions were priced properly, this would happen faster. Battery energy density per kg of weight must improve substantially for electric planes to be viable. New research shows that 711 Wh/kg is possible. Currently, the typical energy density is about 300 Wh/kg.

Could the long distance trip be a series of 800 km hops? Meanwhile, electric ships don't have the weight constraint of planes. Electric trains are even better: faster than ships, and don't require batteries. A high speed train / fast electric ferry combo could be the Orient Express of the XXI century: connecting Australia with Europe: 16,000 km in 4 days.

Photos from the trip:

Volcanos, probably on Bali

Other volcanos, also on Bali?

The ships waiting to enter the port of Singapore.

I stopped in Singapore for one night. Breaking up a long east-west trip helps with jet lag and general tiredness. Spending a night in a normal bed, taking a shower, getting out of the airport makes the trip from Australia to Europe more bearable. 

Singapore airport waiting area: quiet, comfortable, with real trees.

Art and history of the Changi airfield.

Singapore:

Social advertising

Colour

Beautiful greenery

Obstacles on footpaths

Colour to the power of ten.

Probably the worst footpath design ever.

This is a bus stop. I almost got my ankle twisted here because of the step.

This is legal in Singapore. This tiny truck is allowed to transport up to 24 people in the back.

Ok, I will.

I love these.

This is the bike I rented. It's a bit too small for me. Don't bother trying to pick up the bike from a location that shows only one bicycle. I think I walked to 4 locations like that, and I found only one bicycle, without a seat. Maybe some people treat these AnyWheel bikes as their personal bikes, and hide them on their property when not in use. Also, I had a problem when returning the bike: the GPS did not match the return station. The QR code of the station was also not in an obvious location.

You promised me exciting ventures and now you say this?

Is this the Noah's ark?

Marina barrage

Singapore has some great bike paths

Singapore rooster, living free in a park

MTR station

And now let's jump to Warsaw. Below is a photo from the centre of Warsaw, from the listed, historic MDM district. I would like to show it to those who are outraged by the "vandalism" caused by the ecological protesters spraying washable chalk (Marmaid Statue in Warsaw) or cornflower based paint (Stonehenge). Many historic buildings, bridges and other structures in Warsaw are covered in graffiti by vandals, but the ecological protesters use washable paint, which causes no damage, and therefore is not even vandalism. The "outraged" don't understand the severity of the climate crisis. What is the most important thing? Life. Being alive. The climate crisis may kill hundreds of millions of people. There is no greater danger to us currently, other than a nuclear war. Biodiversity crisis is critical too. There is also microplastics pollution, which may be severely impacting our health... Even if the choice was one life of any child vs the most expensive artwork, the artwork be damned. Only a psychopath would choose an object over a human life. 

It's a similar story with cars. Currently, drivers, city planners and traffic engineers, value drivers' time more than human life. Over a million people die in road crashes every year. Tens of millions get injured. Cars killed more people than Hitler and Stalin. Cars not only kill and maim people directly. They also kill animals: birds, koalas, etc. They spew CO2. One litre of petrol when burned creates about 2.3 kg of CO2 that will be warming the Earth for thousands of years. The real long term cost of that pollution is 100,000 USD per tonne of CO2, so $100 per kg according to the University of Chicago study by Archer, Kite and Lusk. A 5 km drive to the shops by car that burns 10 litres of petrol per 100 km, should cost the driver $115 in carbon tax. Maybe then we would rethink how we design our cities and which modes of transport are best.

Do I blame cars or drivers? Cars. I make a choice here similar to guns in the context of mass shootings and gun violence. I blame guns, not shooters. I blame those who allow proliferation of guns and cars. A car driven by paramedics to help somebody is beneficial to society. A bullet shot by a soldier defending their people is beneficial to the society. A car driven by an employee to get to work, or a parent to bring a child to school? Completely unnecessary. This is harm done to the society. A gun in the hands of most civilians or even police? Completely unnecessary. This is harm done to the society. 

I walked to school alone from age 6. The places where we live should be designed such that nobody needs a car. Tokyo is one of such places. The biggest metropolis in the world, where 40 million people live in quiet neighbourhoods, with shops, schools, workshops, little parks, narrow 30 km/h streets safe for walking and biking, not far from a train station. Many European cities are like that too. Australian and American cities are not, for the most part.

Mass extraction of oil created cheap plastics. Plastic packaging replaced paper, cardboard, wood, glass, steel, aluminium packaging, all recyclable. Plastic packaging is completely unnecessary. In my youth it was almost non-existent. Milk was in glass bottles with aluminium caps. Shops gave you paper bags, or put produce in your bag. Boxes were made of paper, cardboard or wood. A lot of food sold was in metal cans and glass jars with metal lids. As a kid I made pocket money by returning glass bottles for money, and sometimes selling cardboard and metal.

Be outraged about this, and the climate crisis, not about the brave people who are trying to raise alarm.

Hyundai Rotem tram brings a bit of colour to the grey MDM district.

Praga

Praga roofs and walls.

National Stadium and a highway designed for high speeds along Vistula

Right, lower, eastern bank of Vistula

Left, western, higher bank of Vistula

Ochota train station

Near Ochota station - the owner of this shop should fix it up

Legia football club art. 

Legia shield with Warsaw mermaid

Most of the time I stayed in Warsaw. I only went on one very short trip to visit my father-in-law in south-east Poland and to go with him on a trip to Rzeszów:

Rzeszów, population 200k:

The town square with the town hall in an old photo, probably beginning of the XX century.

The town hall under German occupation. Between 1939 and 1944, Rzeszów was called Reichshof, and was part of General Government, which was part of Greater Germany.

Town hall in 2024

Ulma family mural

My father-in-law near the stone marking the location of a XVI century Jewish cemetery, which is now a memorial park.

The plaque on the stone in the earlier photo. It informs about the cemetery, which was destroyed by Germans. This was also the location from which Ghetto inhabitants were transported to deaths camps, woods - to be shot, and work camps..

Monument to Józef Piłsudski

The New Town and Old Town Synagogues after the war.

The inside of the New Town Synagogue, sometime before September 1939.

The re-built New Town Synagogue, now an art gallery.

A monument to Red Army vandalised with red paint. The text says "PRECZ" - go away.

The bike racks in the shape of the flag and coat of arms of the city. The street sign "Square of the Ghetto Victims" also has the Rzeszów coat of arms.

Mural to Irena Sendler

Town hall

German tanks in 1939

German soldiers entering the city in 1939

Public announcement by the Cracow SS leader, in German and Polish: in addition to 38 people shot for the killing of 2 German security policemen, 1 Ukrainian driver and 1 Polish policeman, the listed 22 people were shot for the "assault on the German reconstruction effort". The 1 to 10 was the standard ratio for collective punishment: 10 Poles killed for 1 German. My father-in-law's father was shot in such a reprisal.

Podkarpacka Philharmonic

Residential skyscrapers of Olszynki Park

Lubomirski Castle, now a district court

Lubomirski Palace, now a medical association office

"Thank you for coming by bike!"

Castle moat

The front of the Lubomirski Castle

The inside of a Catholic church

Town square

On the way from Rzeszów we stopped in Leżajsk, population 13k:

Former Ukrainian "Prosvita" society house, now a library and former Orthodox Christian church, now a Catholic church.

City hall and tower

One of multiple guesthouses for Hasidic Jews visiting the grave of Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk