Cycling in Oxford might get the boost it so badly needs if the council goes ahead with plans to start a bike rental scheme. Oxford has become a cyclist's embarrassment, falling a long way behind Cambridge - now the UK's premier cycling city - and, more recently, even London.

People cycle in Oxford in spite of the problems. Routes stop and start willy nilly, trucks and buses - shoe-horned into our medieval streets - make the most hardened cyclist feel nervous, and when you get to the city centre, there is nowhere to park! It's all rather pathetic.

Let's hope that a bicycle rental scheme raises our game and puts bicycles back on the map of Oxford.

Rental bikes have had a huge impact in other cities and there are several schemes the council can look at.

The highest-profile is the "Vélib" in Paris, where the mayor has flooded the city centre with more than 20,000 rental bikes.

Introduced in July 2007, 1.2 million bikes were rented in the scheme's first month.

Lyon has an older system operated by the bus-shelter advertising firm, JC Deceaux, and Barcelona has a similar scheme, "Bicing". This column's namesake, a company called "OYBike", provides a bike rental service in Hammersmith, Fulham and Kensington.

How do they work? The systems rely on unmanned stations located at key points around the city. Punters release a bike using a pre-paid card, a credit card or a mobile phone, depending on the system. After using the bike, it can be returned to the same or any other station.

In Paris, for example, there are 1,451 automated Vélib stations clustered around rail and Metro stations.

They cost one euro (70p) for every 30 minutes, with the first 30 free. The free initial period, which is common to most systems, encourages users to return the bike quickly for others to borrow.

Some systems have a freestanding dock and others a dock which attaches to existing cycle stands.

One consideration for Oxford is that there is not enough cycle parking. Attaching rental bikes to existing stands will cause considerable problems in the city centre.

In the short time since the council's announcement, chat forums in Oxford have been up in arms about potential reductions in cycle parking spaces. Obviously, a rigorous and regular system for removing "dead" bikes would help a lot with this problem.

Why do we need rental bikes? They provide another tier in the public transport system, taking you anywhere any time for little cash, they offer flexibility, they are very cheap, and they are ideal for tourists, especially bike-savvy northern Europeans.

Vélibs have transformed the Parisian streetscape. The sturdy grey bikes are everywhere, ridden by businessmen going from Metro to meeting, old lady shoppers, tourists on the Île de la Cité and students at the Sorbonne.

Roll on the day when Oxford throngs with our own rental bikes.