We’re proud to announce that there is now a convenient and easily accessible bike rental in Riga and the nearby seaside town Jūrmala. It carries the name of BalticBike and the colours of airBaltic. All you need to rent a bike is a credit card and a phone, and off you go!

Traffic and safety

Riga locals usually refer to their city as cyclist-unfriendly, but don’t be put off by that. If you’re used to Nordic or Dutch style bike traffic, Riga will be a challenge for the survivalist in you. On the other hand, say, madrileños feel quite at home on a bike in the streets of Riga. Plus BalticBikes are clearly marked as city rent bikes and will get you more respect in traffic.

To be safe follow one simple rule – assume that priority in traffic is never yours. That will save you misunderstandings and possibly even accidents. It is also OK to ride on the sidewalk if you don’t disturb pedestrians too much, so use this option if it makes you feel safer.

Right now there are only a few proper bike lanes in Riga, but more are under construction, so check back later for more tips and tricks. In case you’d rather like an unprecedented tour of unfinished bike paths, leave a comment and we’ll write about those as well.

The existing bike lanes are not connected and may start and end abruptly, so for your convenience we’ve provided the most suitable start/end stations for each recommended route below.

Where to go

Considering all of the above you’ll want to head someplace with no vehicle traffic, someplace designed for bikes. While bicycle infrastructure in the centre of the city is poor and everything is in a walking distance anyway, the few bike paths that we have will take you along lovely routes to beautiful destinations.

Jūrmala, the seaside resort
~2 hours one way

This bike trail was built in 1989 to connect Riga and the seaside and renovated in 2002. It runs parallel to the railway for quite a distance, providing a peculiar ambiance.

The bike lane starts on the suspension bridge, right next to Riga castle. Take a bike at Rātslaukums or any other Old Town BalticBike station (map here) or, even better, hotel Islande on the island of Ķīpsala in the middle of the Daugava River and you’re good to go.

Getting out of town will require your full attention, since the bike lane is a bit tricky to follow and the markings have worn out in places. However, the signs are still there, so keep your eyes peeled.

A trick that you might want to know about the Jūrmala bike lane – if instead of following it through a high-rise residential area you’d like to get straight to the point of pedalling along a stretch of railway with greenery all around, take a left where the markings say turn right when you’ve crossed the railway tracks and ridden past a Neste gas station (at 56.952269,24.023516, if your phone or other device tells you GPS coordinates).

The best thing about this trip is that you don’t have to ride all the way back. There are 3 BalticBike stations in Jūrmala (map here), feel free to leave your bike at any of them and take the train back into the city. If you start from Old Riga and go to the farthest BalticBike station in Majori, you’ll cover a distance of 20 km and end up at the liveliest spot in Jūrmala – Jomas iela, a pedestrian street with cafes and all kinds of fun close to the seaside and also the train station.

Mežaparks, the park with the Zoo
Under 1 hour one way

The Mežaparks bike lane is recently finished and provides an easy ride along a beautiful alley to the Zoo (reliable bike locking stands await!) or to the grand park right next to it, complete with its own mountainbiking trail. Take a bike at the Hotel de Rome station in Old Town or at the Radisson Blue, get to Krišjāņa Valdemāra Street, turn right and pedal away – sidewalk recommended until you get to the proper bike lane on your right, marked with red and with a traffic light for cyclists. Keep your wits about you and be sure to read the signs to avoid losing the bike lane on tricky twists and turns.

If you’re feeling a bit adventurous, don’t stop at the Zoo – instead take a right or go straight through the park and find your way to the Ķīšezers lake. If you have a GPS device, head to 57.005041, 24.180003 – a stretch of land in the lake with a beautiful view, a favourite spot for fishing, literally a hidden treasure. It may prove hard to find without GPS or a guide though, but the lake itself is hard to miss, it’s just too big for that!

Āgenskalns, the twisting street neighbourhood
As long as you wish

If you’re not in the mood to go far from the town centre and would rather explore a nice neighbourhood instead of pedalling along a straight bike path, Āgenskalns is your best choice. It’s a mostly wooden architecture area just over the river from Old Town where you can first work on getting lost and then on finding your way back. Both are, in fact, easy – the small alleyways are wickedly twisted and go everywhere but from point A to point B, so head into the maze and enjoy getting lost. Finding your way back will be easy once you lift your gaze and find the church towers of Old Riga and other points of high-rise reference, like the sail shaped bank building next to the suspension bridge.

Old Town bike stations and Islande hotel are all good to start a trip like this. If you’re coming from the city centre, use any of the bridges that run from Old Town, one of them has an actual bike lane on its side, the other is just a beautiful bridge with enough space for cyclists on the sidewalk. Once in Āgenskalns, keep off the main thoroughfares and you’ll blend in the traffic very well, since there is not that much of it in the area. Be mindful about one-way streets.

Something else to enjoy across the river from Old Town is the reasonable thing any cycling lover does in a new place – get to the water level. After all, it’s where you’re bound to find a properly level place to cycle, be it a riverbank in a hilly Czech smalltown or Barcelona seaside or an embankment in a flat and level place like Riga. If the city side embankment is either always crowded of pedestrians or unpaved, the Pārdaugava (Over-river) side is a perfect destination for a leisurely ride. Check both sides of the Akmens tilts (Stone Bridge): a wide embankment to the one side and to the other – the AB dam in front of the Radisson SAS hotel, a green getaway in the very heart of the city, complete with a cafeteria, culture centre and gallery and a view of the Old Town.

Ride safe, have fun and tell us your stories!

Tags: biking, travel tips

This entry was posted on Friday, July 2nd, 2010 at 12:31 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.