Saw a car at lunch towing a specially built trailer of bikes. I think he was moving them around, although he may have been dropping off new ones.

think they are still stocking some docks

Will be interesting to see what usage patterns will be like – one of the benefits of the fully electronic bays is that they can see what kind of journeys they'll get used for.

I believe that despite the "commute in by train, get a mile or two to work" people being the most interested in the scheme in earlier surveys, they deliberately avoided putting bays too near the mainline stations – presumably to avoid a Le Mans style rush of commuters running off the train then squabbling over the remaining bikes.

The problem with paris is the hills, everyone picked up a bike in the suburbs in the morning, scooted downhill to the center

Ha brilliant! There are a few hills to the north such as Highgate Hill. Maybe they could be free to people who cycle them back up?

At 50lb they should be!

Or maybe add an uplift?

Le Mans style rush of commuters

So the new meaning of rush hour begins! 😆

I was at a press conference as the mayor of Madrid launch of a similar scheme here. Most journeys are less than 5km, blah, blah, blah, we need to see more cyclists on the roads, blah, blah, blah!

The next time I rode past the docking place, nothing, nada! All the bikes had gone and the stands too. I haven't seen a single rental bike in the city centre! 😥
It's a shame as cycling needs more support in the city, it's small and the city centre is quite flat, the cycle lanes that have been built are mostly an afterthought. Often they are in 50-100m sections crisscrossing the roads, or they simply disappear leaving the cyclist stranded! 😥

Good luck in Lundun.

The 'Montmartre Problem' (Montmatre being at the top of a very bill hill). I believe now if you return a bike to that station you are given time on your account

Might be an interesting way for time-rich/cash-poor people to earn some cash.

I think it should be called something basic 'CityBike', or 'BorisDandyhorse'

Velon? Nah, too French. How about CycLon?

Tiger roach; ye of little faith.

I can see that many people won't want to ride a 50lb bike up a hill but will happy going down one – rewarding people to get them back up seems a good idea.

All the docking stations are in Zone 1 though so there are bog all hills anyway.

I really think this is a good idea, and i will use it when i visit London!

However the two main train stations i use to get to london are paddington & liverpool street, from what i can see there are no docking stations that are situated at the station themselves. seems crazy.

Paddington has 4 in close proximity, if your prepared to walk 2 mins….

Eastbourne Mews
Winsland Street
South Wharf Road
North Wharf Road

fair enough don't know london that well, i guess i was expecting some in the station environment itself.

are all the docking stations in the centre of london, are there any further afield? islington, brixton etc?

DandyLon.

That's taken me all night.

it's gotta be good for bikes, and therefore health and it's good. cos it is. I hope there is no backlash for cycling in the city. it is so obvious to me as a fresh, simple, way of getting about. good!

Paris, Hills?
London, Hills?

Really, you're having a laugh, right? I know both cities pretty well and I'm seriously struggling to figure out these hills of which you speak.

Paris is hillier than London but come on.

Overall I think it's a great idea. Even if say half get broken or stolen, it's still fantastic. The big problem for everyone in this country is impressing that bikes are a viable form of transport, even for rich people. I **** hate car drivers in this country, I have to say, what a bunch of morons. I'd happily machine gun all of them, including me. We're all complete ****.

map of docking station locations

and rather nicely, it tells you how many bikes and empty docks are available at each one…

Samuri, it was a problem in Paris, Paris does have more hills than london, they found ways arround it, by carrying bikes back up on the hills by lorry and I'd not heard of th e idea of free rental if you cycle up the hills but that also sound like a good idea.

Bloody annoying no casual usage at the mo, as was up in town yesterday without my brompton, must have walked past 14 docks… Would have been ideal, just have to wait until end of august. Not worth registering and paying 45quid + 3quid for a key as normally have brompton with me.. Good to see them all whizzing around though and amuzing to see all the barclays branding outside RBS offices

Nice touch for Barclays getting all their branding outside RBS…

45 + 3 quid?? No – it only cost me 4 quid for a key as I only bought a one day pass. Then, setup auto-refill from your account and just use it on the odd occsion you need to.

Really cheap. If your journey is less than 1/2 hour you only pay for the day access.

Rachel

There's a scheme in Reading, shaft driven bikes and everything, I've only ever seen 1 on the move though, town is too small to make bike journeys worthwhile, business parks on the outskirts are well served by buses.

Shame because it looks like it was an expensive scheme, just in the wrong town.

45 + 3 quid?? No – it only cost me 4 quid for a key as I only bought a one day pass. Then, setup auto-refill from your account and just use it on the odd occsion you need to.

that is a good idea – might do that in advance of the causal user option with credit card and be quicker than credit car access as you will have a key!

Slightly anoying that the money went to a canadian firm, I'm sure Pashley or Brompton would have jumped at the chance to build 10,000 bikes. Heck, for that big a contract they could have bought the old raleigh works in nottingham and build them there!

Pashley and Brompton did not have the capacity or manufacturing technology (hydroformed aluminium alloy) to undertake this project, and had not manufactured anything similar

Devinci Cycles (Quebec, Canada) have already been involved with the Montreal Bixi scheme, which the London bikes are modelled on, albeit it over 100+ small improvements

the next city for this scheme is Washington, USA, with further cities in the pipeline

This morning Mayor Boris has announced plans to increase the size of the London hire scheme with an additional £81 million of funding (the initial contract awareded to Serco was £140 million, with Devinci subcontracted as the manufacturer) – Barclays sponsored the scheme with £25 million which includes the "bike super high way" scheme (i.e. blue paint on some roads..)

funding shortfall will be made up by rental charges and further sponsorship investment

I reckon day membership, auto-renew and just leave the key on your key-ring or keep it with your Oystercard. I'm leaving London next month, but I shall keep it going for occasional visits.

So far, my worst experience has been a bike with a seriously draggy brake, and having to ride it around looking for a docking station when there really wasn't one obvious near my destination. But so far I'm really enjoying it. 🙂

Apparently Paris has a V+ scheme where certain stations credit you with 15min if you return the bike there.

Andy

I think it's a great idea and looking forward to having a go on one.

There's definite potential for some boris bike pub crawls covering a considerable area at minimal cost. Everyone has day membership, limit each leg to under 30 minutes and let the good times roll.

On a more responsible note, it will come in handy getting between hospitals when I don't have my own bike with me.

To get a key + day membership is the only option to apply online ?

Yes.

Yes, that's all you can do at the moment.

Oh – and the "key" looks like this (the one tastefully decorated in blue…)

Rachel (yes, I have a Skoda…)

Cool, cheers!

Key + 24h membership applied for 🙂

So how does daily membership with auto renew work, each time hire a bike it takes a quid on top for daily membership ?

In london every other week but can't afford to lump 43 quid on yearly, especially since I don't know when my London trips will end, could be next week…

That's basically it. You'll pay a quid a day every time you use it, plus hire charges (although free for first half hour)

yer and doing the day membership + key + autorenew will have the benefit over the upcoming casual user scheme as with the key you will be able to undock more quickly.

just signed up

Me too, you end up paying for a days access as well as the key, will it activate first time I use it or am I paying for a day while the key turns up.

I know I know it's only a quid.

oh right, logged in to do the auto renew and it starts when I activate it.