Renting a Bike in Mexico City – 2024
There are about a half dozen options for renting bikes in Mexico City. In my opinion, Ecobici is the absolute best choice!
Does Mexico City Have a BikeShare System?
Yes. The Bikeshare system is called Ecobici. It is city wide, very inexpensive, they offer weekly and yearly plans and the website is in English. They recently did a huge system overhaul and the bikes are new as of 2023.
1. Ecobici – Mexico City Bike Rental
Ecobici is the city wide bike sharing network. This network is being renovated with new bikes in wonderful condition. The prices are low and it works great. There is a smart phone app that you will use for everything. The system allows you to check out a bike for 45 minutes and return it to any other station in the city. You can access a map of docking stations on the iPhone app.
Price: This system is a real bargain. they Charge $25US per year, $5US per day, and $20US per week.
You can register, and pay, for this system online. This link is to the English website. Payment is up front for all time periods. Once you pay for your selected time period, you will be able to download the smart phone app and check out a bike.
2. Bicigratis – Free Mexico City Bike Rental
Bicigratis translates to Free Bikes. This is a service that has a dozen Kiosks set up around the popular areas of Mexico City. The system is simple and offline. You give your ID (they prefer passport, but I have heard they may accept drivers licenses too), and they lend you a bike for two hours.
Find the locations by googling ‘Bicigratis.’
Personally I think BiciGratis is way less useful than EcoBici. EcoBici is useful daily no matter where you are in the city. Bicigratis is free, but there are very few points of distribution. It’s great for riding your bike along Reforma on a Sunday, but not much else.
Bike Culture Mexico City
Biking in Mexico City is huge and there is a big community of Biciclistas (Bicyclists) who do cool things all over the city.
Night Time Bicycle Rides Mexico City
Mexico City has 2 Paseo Nocturnos per year. One is for day of the dead, and the other is usually around March. The summertime is rainy season in Mexico City, so these events are only held in the Spring and Fall.
Every Sunday, there is a paseo dominical, where thousands of Mexicans ride their bikes on closed dedicated streets on a route that includes the entire city.
You can participate using EcoBici on any of these routes. You will want to check the details online becasue the details and routes always change each time they do it.
