Thursday 26 April 2012

Testing the Boris Bike

This time next week, London will choose its mayor. Two candidates, implacable enemies ideologically, yet united by a desire to get the capital cycling. Launched in the summer of 2010, the Barclays Cycle Hire bicycle sharing scheme has more than met expectations. Popularly nicknamed 'Boris bikes' after current mayor Boris Johnson, the concept was in fact prepared by his predecessor and mayoral challenger, Ken Livingstone.

Below: the Boris Bike docking station at Hyde Park Corner. Most of the people hiring bikes here are tourists; the decision to limit hire conditions to credit or debit card ownership rather than insisting on a cumbersome registration scheme has boosted usage among non-residents.


Keen to try one since arriving in Central London on Monday, I was waiting for a break in the rain, and finally this evening it did. I picked up my one in Kensington Gardens, by inserting my credit card in the docking point and getting a five-digit number to unlock the bike. Costs are really low if you use it for short hops. The access fee was £1 for 24 hours and usage fee £1 for the first hour, then rising steeply thereafter.

My ride was less than 50 minutes, so I would be charged £2 in total - marvellous value for money when you consider that a short-hop bus journey costs £2.30 and a tin of sockeye Alaskan salmon at Waitrose costs £2.50. A small problem in releasing my bike was the fact that the docking stations are so heavily used that the PIN code buttons are worn out and you can't see the numbers (but then there are only three of them - 1, 2 and 3).


Above: These bikes are really popular; and not only with tourists. Only the Brompton is seen in greater numbers on London's streets.

The bike itself is heavy (indeed, weighing twice as much as my Cannondale Caffeine F2) and built around the concept of battleship-like indestructibility. A low-geared three-speed drive means its not hard to get the beast moving, but this limits top speed. As I rode the bike down the Bayswater Road, I found myself in the unusual (and somewhat demeaning) situation of being overtaken by every single cyclist on the road (except others also on Boris Bikes). But it was comfortable, stable, easy to ride and pleasant-handling. The Shimano Nexus hub gears are robust and efficient (once you work out the twist-grip system) and the brakes are also buried in the hubs (so they too are protected from the elements).

My regular Canadian readers will be proud to read that the whole Boris bike system, docking stations and all, is Made in Canada (by Bixi)

Left: if there's one mankament, it's the risk of finding your destination docking station full. This happened to me as I attempted to dock my Boris bike off outside Whiteley's on Queensway. Every single bay was taken - what next? Fortunately, there are around 600 docking stations around London's Zone 1. The nearest one was actually even nearer to my hotel on Kensington Gardens Square; here I found plenty of empty bays.

I have seen the future, and it works.

This time last year:
Corruption: reasons to be cheerful

This time three years ago:
Bicycle shakedown day

This time four years ago:
Jeziorki in full bloom

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thought they looked familiar...

First launched in Montreal
BIXI Montreal
Launch: May 12, 2009
Bikes: 5,120
Stations: 411

BIXI Toronto
Launch: May 3, 2011
Bikes: 1,000
Stations: 80

Barclays Cycle Hire
Launch: July 30, 2010
Bikes: 9,200
Stations: 687

Enjoy
Basia

Paddy said...

Did you say they were coming to Warsaw? Hura! Time for more bicycle lanes while we're at it.

Car drivers, the EU has seen the future, and it's not petrol led.

Anonymous said...

I wonder what Sir John Betjeman would have written about these contraptions?


Frater Amersham

Sigismundo said...

" a short-hop bus journey costs £2.30"

Only if you pay in cash. If you use a (prepaid) Oyster card it will set you back just £1.35.

For real penny pinchers - in most large supermarkets in the UK you can buy 4 tins of flaked tuna in brine for less than £2.

Anonymous said...

Michael,
For Londoner's the scheme is even easier to use. For a small fee you can register and obtain a plastic key. With this you can unlock the bike in 5 seconds. No need to mess about with credit cards and pins. You can subscribe for £40 a year, which allows you to use the bikes fee for up to 30mins at a time - more than enough for most journeys in town.

The bikes are really handy for short hops within town. I often use them to speed up a journey which would require a change of tube line. eg Ealing to St Paul's by Central line, then hop on a bike to Clerkenwell. Much quicker than tube to Bank and change to Northern line.

Also although occasionally there are problems with no bikes in a docking station, or the docking stations being full. This is mainly resolved by the bikes being constantly moved about by the bike operator. If you are worried there are iPhone apps that will tell you where you nearest docking station is and how many bikes or spaces it has.

Basically a fantastic scheme that has really revolutionised transport in London.

Janek