JERSEY CITY, N.J. — On a recent Wednesday, Steven Fulop, the mayor of Jersey City, got ready for one of his regular morning bike rides. He had his helmet on, but rather than his usual spandex jersey, he wore khakis, an oxford shirt and a light down vest. And instead of his $3,000 Kuota carbon-fiber racing bike, which Fulop, a former Marine, rides in triathlons, he mounted a hefty, bright blue Citi Bike.

“I’m impressed,” the mayor said as he coasted past Hamilton Park. “I was not excited about this bike ride, to be honest. I didn’t appreciate how easy these bikes are to ride.”

Although he has spent the past two years trying to bring a bike-sharing program to New Jersey’s second-largest city, it was only on that Wednesday, five days before the Monday afternoon start of Citi Bike, that the mayor actually rode one of its bicycles.

That night, less than a mile to the north, Dawn Zimmer, the mayor of Hoboken, had a pair of community meetings to attend. Rather than walk or drive, she did what she often does: ride her trusty Specialized hybrid bike. Afterward, she met up with her husband, who had left his bike at home.

“We were joking that it’s too bad we don’t have a bike share yet,” Zimmer recounted the next day.

In a few weeks, she will not have that problem anymore.

With the recent success of bike-sharing in New York City, to say nothing of cities around the world, cycling systems are now hitting the streets of Jersey City and Hoboken.

The programs are meant to provide a convenient way to get around these cities, where train, bus and ferry service can be far away and far from reliable, and where parking can be a nightmare.

Indeed, there may be no greater testament to the growing popularity of urban cycling than its adoption in the land of “Racing in the Street” and “Thunder Road.”

“In the face of the ever-present and ever-stigmatizing car culture, both cities have done a stellar job in improving overall bikeability,” said Charles Brown, a senior research specialist at the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center at Rutgers University.

Even so, the road to each program was not smooth.

Initially, Jersey City, Hoboken and a third city, Weehawken, wanted a unified bike-sharing system serving nearly 325,000 residents with 800 bikes. The program was unveiled at the end of 2013, not long after Citi Bike got rolling in New York.

The system aimed to be a unique model that eschewed the typical docking stations for bikes that could be locked up almost anywhere. Equipped with GPS, they could then be located with a smartphone app.

But within months of the announcement, the cities’ priorities diverged.

Fulop, a Democrat, wanted a program that could be integrated with Citi Bike, since his constituents tend to work and relax in Manhattan (600 of them already have Citi Bike memberships). Zimmer, also a Democrat, preferred a cheaper system proposed by a partnership of Bike and Roll, P3GM, Next Bike and e3think. That system meant the cities could afford more bikes, and Zimmer wanted to ensure that every resident was within a 3- to 5-minute walk of one.

Unable to agree, Hoboken and Jersey City went their separate ways last summer.

“We both selected the system we felt was best for our residents,” Zimmer said.

Weehawken had its own problems. Without local support or private funds, it began studying Hoboken’s system before starting its own. At 3 p.m. on a Monday, 350 bikes were activated in Jersey City, served by 35 docks across its 21 square miles.

Citi Bike had initially urged Fulop to focus his program downtown, where there was a critical mass of riders, but he rejected that idea. He feared alienating residents in outlying areas where getting to trains often involves driving, waiting for the bus or taking a long walk.

“The system would not have succeeded, governmentally or politically, if it had been concentrated only in a few areas,” Fulop said.

In Hoboken, officials are holding off on a start date, but Zimmer said it would be “within weeks, not months.”

Hoboken’s program will start with a similar number of bikes — 250 at 29 stations — as Jersey City’s, but at a quarter of the cost: $500,000 investment instead of $2 million. Both systems get their funding from private sponsors. Annual membership in Hoboken is cheaper: $95, compared with $149 in Jersey City. Because of the cost, Jersey City will begin with roughly half as many bikes as the mayor hoped, although there are plans to expand to 500.

Hoboken got the number of bikes it wanted, and its system works still work without docks.

“If you want to run into the store, or the racks are all full at the PATH station, we don’t want you to worry about what you’re going to do with your bike,” Chris Wogas, the president of Bike and Roll, said.

Although Hoboken’s system is incompatible with Citi Bike, it offers regional no-fee zones, allowing riders to leave bikes in seven hubs in Weehawken and Jersey City.

Despite the schism, residents in the cities seem eager to share bikes — even if they cannot share them across city lines.

Mandee Bellarosa, who was walking her dog in Hoboken, said that cars were once a necessity, but no longer. “I think in a lot of places, it’s all about cars, but we’re so much more urban here,” she said. “At least half my friends don’t even own cars.”