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

luckily , Ms. Caddick’s hotel, ME Barcelona, had several cycles 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,’ expounded Ms. Caddick, a sportswear merchandiser from Liverpool, Britain. She and her mother each paid twenty EU Bucks, or $26.40 at $1.32 to the Euro Buck, to hire the bikes for four 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 city from a more local point of view.’

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

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

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

The Hotel Gates in Berlin, which introduced 12 red bikes last May, making them available to guests without charge, has just ordered four more bikes for the high season

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

Astrid Boh, a management consultant from Frankfurt who scheduled 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 happy she had taken a taxi from the airfield instead of renting avehicle.Torre Agbar.

‘Parking is a challenge in Berlin,’ said 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 organize with nearby cycle shops to have bikes available for guests. A day’s use of a bike is included in the Green, Greener, Berlin package at the Mvenpick Hotel Berlin, which hires the bikes from a local company. The package also includes bath salts, possibly for calming sore muscles after an arduous outing.

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

In Aug, Le Meurice, a Parisian hotel that occupies an 1835 palace across from the Tuileries, displayed 5 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 logo. Yank and Brit guests in their 30s tend to be the most ardent customers, according to the hotel ; Le Meurice’s sister hotel, the piazza Athne, opted for zippy red bikes with panniers.

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

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

‘We always like to be on the fringe of technology,’ related Pete Zudyk, VP for brand creativity and communication for Sol Meli.

naturally, some hostels have supplied bikes for many 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, that has special tiny traffic lights for bike riders and obviously marked cycling lanes, bicycles have long been a standard hotel offering.

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