Mexico City has a bit of a nasty image, criminally wise. Or at least it use to have one. I was a bit cautious when I just arrived over there, but after a week in town I figured a lot of neighbourhoods (La Condesa, Roma Norte, Polanco – only to name a few ) are pretty safe. We were even able to walk around at night in our part of La Condesa. Heck, we can’t even do that at home in Costa Rica!
Although hopping around by metro in general is safe as well, we preferred to see the city on a bike. The true Dutch way indeed :). I thought it was way more fun cycling around rather than using public transportation, plus it was a tad cheaper too.
There are several sharing bike platforms in Mexico City, which is absolutely great. Our Airbnb host seemed to be most enthusiastic about Mobike. Perhaps because a lot of the Mobike bikes are around in La Condesa.
You can easily recognize them as their bikes are brightly orange. Our host used them every day to commute to work. At some point there was even one bike that she was using for such a long time – faithfully waiting for her every morning – that she almost saw it as her own bike.
Anyone with a smartphone can create an account. It’s fairly easy. You just download the Mobike app, fill in the details et voilà, you’re good to go!
It would be the easiest to create an account with a local SIM-card. Both my hubby and I created an account, but since I’m still using a Dutch SIM-card I had to pay unfortunately a monthly fee (€10,-) on top of every individual ride (which was only something like a dollar per ride). This monthly fee was cashed because they thought I’d use the bikes in Holland. I didn’t even knew the bike sharing system existed over there :).
In the end Mobike reimbursed this monthly fee, after I complained about it. But anyway, just get a local SIM which is convenient when you’re travelling abroad anyway. Regarding the app this’ll mean less money, mo bike!
Once you have your account set, you open the map on the app to find the nearest bike (the location of the bikes is very accurate), unlock the locker of the bike with the code and that’s it.
Note that there’s a one-hour time limit. Which means you HAVE to check out, but you can still use the same bike again afterwards. Just log in again. Also plan in advance where you want to park the bike. Often you can’t leave it in the bigger parks for example.
On your marks, get set go!
