What's happening to Lisbon's shared bikes?

If your nearest Gira dock has been dead for weeks, there is a reason, and the numbers behind it are startling. It's Friday, 14 August. Thirty-one degrees. Air quality: 35 (Good). Here's what you need to know.

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LISBON'S SHARED-BIKE NETWORK HIT BY ITS WORST WAVE OF VANDALISM YET

Lisbon City Council says its Gira shared-bike network has suffered its heaviest wave of vandalism since it launched. This year alone there have been more than 700 separate acts of vandalism, over 1,400 docks destroyed and around 1,000 bikes torn out of their stations, at a cost of roughly €400,000 in this cycle. Across the network's lifetime, the council puts accumulated losses above €3 million.

The company that runs Gira, the city's own mobility firm EMEL, describes the current attacks as "violent, gratuitous and unexpected," with covers, wiring and electronic sensors smashed and a "devastating effect" on how many bikes are actually available to ride. Stations are being hit again even after they are repaired. The damage has been worst away from the centre, and the council has not said when the network will be back to full strength, only that it will step up monitoring.

For riders, the practical picture is simple, expect more dead docks and missing bikes for a while. The council says the large majority of stolen bikes are tracked down by GPS the same day, most turning up dumped nearby in a poor state, which is part of what makes the whole thing so strange.

Because the puzzle here is the motive. This does not look like ordinary theft, since the bikes are trackable and rarely kept. What the vandals mostly destroy is the infrastructure itself, the docks and their electronics, and that has fed a common theory among Lisboetas that the point is disruption rather than profit, someone simply wanting the system to fail. EMEL has said much the same in the past, its president once offering that the likeliest explanation was people "dedicated to disrupting the system." Others in the city read the smashed docks as a flash of wider irritation with EMEL, an institution many residents already resent, mostly over its aggressive paid-parking enforcement, and with a Lisbon that increasingly runs through apps, sensors, fees and fines.

None of it is new, either. Gira had a rocky start after launching in 2017, its rollout delayed so badly that EMEL scrapped its contract with the original bike manufacturer, and it has been through vandalism waves before, in 2019 and again in 2021, each with the same blend of theft, destruction and unanswered questions. What has changed this time is the scale.

Bottom line: Lisbon's shared bikes are being broken faster than the city can fix them, at a cost now running into the millions, and after years of the same pattern, no one has landed on a convincing explanation for who keeps doing it, or why.

⚡ QUICK HITS

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🍽️ SPOT OF THE DAY

ENCANTO (CHIADO)

A proper vegetarian option, and not a token one. Encanto, tucked onto a quiet Chiado side street next door to its famous sibling Belcanto, is chef José Avillez's plant-only restaurant, and it has a strong claim to being the best vegetarian dining room in the country. It became the first fully vegetarian restaurant anywhere in Spain or Portugal to win a Michelin star, in its very first year, and has since added a Green Michelin star for sustainability.

The format is a single tasting menu of around a dozen "moments," built entirely around seasonal, organic vegetables, roughly ninety percent of them grown locally, some in Avillez's own garden in the Alentejo. Beetroot becomes a "tartar," chestnuts are smoked, and everything is matched, if you want, with biodynamic wines, craft beers and house-made kombuchas. Vegans are looked after too, as long as you say so when you book.

Worth knowing before you go: this is a special-occasion place, not a weeknight drop-in. The tasting menu runs to around €155 a head before drinks, it is dinner only, Tuesday to Saturday, and you will need to book well ahead. Ring the bell at the door to be let in.

See the menu and book here

Insider tip: take a photo of each dish as it arrives, and the menu too. When you try to tell friends about it afterwards, you will find the plates are almost impossible to describe.

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See you tomorrow morning.

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