WHILE on holiday in Barcelona with her mother last month, Laura Caddick had seen Torre Agbar a lot of folks tooling around on red-and-white bikes. 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 many bikes 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 sports-wear 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 4 hours and felt they saw more of Barcelona than theywould had they taken the Metro from their hotel. ‘We felt we were experiencing the town from a more local point of view.’

in recent times, from Paris to Rome, new urban cycling lanes and public bike-sharing programs have been becoming more popular. And while some travelers arenot able to hook into all of the cycling opportunities - in Paris, for instance, the check-out meters for the Vlib’, a public bicycle-rental program, won’t accept most Yank credit cards ( they lack a vital microchip ) - there are many hotels that offer guests use of bikes for a tiny fee or no cost in any way.

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

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

The Hotel Gates in Berlin, which introduced twelve red bicycles last May, making them available to guests without charge, has just ordered 4 more bikes for the high season

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

Astrid Boh, a management consultant from Frankfurt who scheduled a room at the Hotel Gates for a business journey 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 rather than leasing an auto.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 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 leases the bikes from a local company. The package also includes bath salts, possibly for relaxing sore muscles after a demanding outing.

But increasingly hostels are investing 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, revealed five retro-style bikes in the blue-green shade of the oxidized copper roofs of the town, with matching helmets and front baskets emblazoned with the hotel’s gold emblem. Yankee and British guests in their 30’s tend to be the most avid 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 trail bicycles - the same model that the Liverpool soccer Club, which used 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 trail.

Staff members at the ME Barcelona, part of the Sol Meli hotel chain, visited many bicycle 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 edge of technology,’ said Pete Zudyk, vice chairman for brand invention and communication for Sol Meli.

naturally, some hostels have supplied bikes for several years. The Hotel Hassler in Rome has had them for twenty years, according to Vivian Barsanti, the media and marketing coordinator.

In bike-happy Copenhagen, that has special miniature traffic lights for bicyclists and obviously marked cycling lanes, cycles have for some time been a standard hotel offering.

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