March in Brno is usually when the weather allows us to get the bicycle out again after the winter. But for those who don’t have their own, it will again be possible, starting this Friday, to rent a bike from one of the various bike sharing companies operating in the city, and ride for free for one hour a day, thanks to the support from the City of Brno.
The city has allocated CZK 2.4 million to fund two free 30-minute rides per day for each user. To access the service, just register with the providers, Rekola or nextbike, and your free ride is loaded automatically when you rent a bike. The scheme starts on 1 March and will continue until funds are exhausted, estimated to be in November.
The city has been supporting bike sharing in this way since 2022. In the pilot year of the project, 100,000 rides were funded from the city budget, and the average rental duration was 16 minutes. To browse more data about the shared mobility scheme, you can check out the online storymap here, showing which are the most popular days (Wednesday) and months (June and September), as well as where and how long people ride (the longest route was from Olympia to the Brno Dam, but the average is two kilometres).
Municipal specialists will try to get more data from a survey, available from 4 March to 5 May on the website damenavas.cz. “We want bicycle transport in Brno to be accessible to everyone,” explained cycling coordinator Petr Gelnar. “And while we are working to improve cycling conditions now, it is important to have a new plan for how the city should approach this development going forward. The responses to the survey will thus help us with a detailed analysis of the current situation, which will be a springboard for the design part of the new plan.”
During March and April, the cycling public can register for the Do práce na kole challenge, held annually by the AutoMat association. The idea is to promote self-propulsion (cycling or skating, walking, running, etc.) as a mode of transport beneficial for human health and the environment in cities. Participants in the challenge can form teams, record their journeys to and from work throughout May, and enter a prize draw.
