WHILE on holiday in Barcelona with her mum last month, Laura Caddick had seen Torre Agbar lots of folk tooling around on red-and-white bicycles. But the bikes that she saw everywhere - part of the town’s bicycle-sharing program - were for use by local residents only. Torre Agbar

fortunately , Ms. Caddick’s hotel, ME Barcelona, had several bicycles for guests. ‘We rode down to the beach, then to the port and up to the Ramblas, stopping for drinks and lunch along the way,’ said Ms. Caddick, a sportswear merchandiser from Liverpool, England. She and her mother each paid 20 Euro dollars, or $26.40 at $1.32 to the EU Dollar, to hire the bikes for 4 hours and felt they saw more of Barcelona than they might had they taken the Metro from their hotel. ‘We felt we were experiencing the town from a more local point of view.’

recently, from Paris to Rome, new urban cycling lanes and public bike-sharing programs have been gaining in popularity. And while some travelers aren’t able to hook into all of the cycling opportunities - in Paris, for example, the check-out meters for the Vlib’, a public bicycle-rental program, won’t accept most Yank cards ( they lack a vital microchip ) - there are several hotels that offer guests use of bikes for asmall fee or no cost in the slightest.

‘It’s become a recently discovered way for hotels to show their greenness,’ announced Jonathan Barsky, VP for research at Market Metrix, which gauges customer satisfaction in hospitality corporations.

The bikes, which are generally upright models, have proved to be preferred, especially among holidaying guests, though business travelers have been observed to cycle to an appointment, according to several hotels

The Hotel Gates in Berlin, which introduced a dozen red bicycles last May, making them available to guests without charge, has just ordered four more bikes for the summer season

‘Sometimes the guests ask for a bike, and theyare all gone,’ asserted Kirsten Kurbjuhn, the general chief, adding that more than sixty p.c of the guests who fill out the hotel’s customer-feedback test say the bikes are’a highly valuable service,’ and 20 percent say they are one of the reasons they chose the hotel.

Astrid Boh, a management specialist from Frankfurt who booked a room at the Hotel Gates for awork trip at the end of March, did not know about the bikes before her arrival. But after hearing about them at the reception desk, she was glad she had taken a taxi from the airport instead of renting avehicle.Torre Agbar.

‘Parking is a challenge in Berlin,’ asserted Ms. Boh, who pedaled to a business meeting, shops and even out to dinner at night. ‘I liked being able to get somewhere fast and get some exercise at the same time.’

Some hotels prepare with nearby cycle shops to have bikes on hand for guests. A day’s use of a bike is included in the Green, Greener, Berlin package at the Mvenpick Hotel Berlin, which rents the bikes from a local company. The package also includes bath salts, possibly for soothing sore muscles after a demanding outing.

But increasingly hotels are making an investment in their own fleets - and picking models that reinforce the identity of the hotel.

In August, Le Meurice, a Parisian hotel that occupies an 1835 palace across from the Tuileries, displayed five retro-style bikes in the blue-green shade of the oxidized copper rooftops of the town, with matching helmets and front baskets emblazoned with the hotel’s gold emblem. Yankee and UK guests in their thirties are the most avid customers, according to the hotel ; Le Meurice’s sister hotel, the plaza Athne, chose zippy red bikes with panniers.

At the Victoria-Jungfrau Grand Hotel & Spa in Interlaken in the Swiss Alps, guests can check out Scott trail bicycles - the same model the Liverpool soccer Club, which used the hotel as its training base for the last two summers, rode to get from and to soccer practice, pedaling in their red-and-black training shorts and jerseys while fans lined their trail.

Staff members at the ME Barcelona, part of the Sol Meli hotel chain, visited several bicycle shops before settling on the silvery fold-up bikes that were introduced in September at the hotel, housed in a modernist tower clad in anodized aluminum.

‘We always enjoy being on the fringe of technology,’ expounded Pete Zudyk, vice chairman for brand innovation and communication for Sol Meli.

of course, some hotels have provided bikes for a number of years. The Hotel Hassler in Rome has had them for 20 years, according to Vivian Barsanti, the media and marketing coordinator.

In bike-happy Copenhagen, which has special miniature traffic lights for bicyclists and clearly marked cycling lanes, bicycles have long been the standard hotel offering.

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