[Closed] Oh dear and it looked so promising...

Lordy....

Such a good idea, too. Pity some people are such animals...
🙁

The idea of Velib Extreme made me laugh though.

😆

The same thing happened in Cambridge when they tried a similar scheme. The bike stocks just slowly dwindled as people nicked them or chucked them in the river.

How heavy are those bikes? They look like 50lbs

They want to introduce this to London. What could possibly go wrong?

they did introduce it in london a year or two ago - halfords supplied a load or yellow heavily liveried bikes - I think after 24 hours there was one left which lasted another day.

Well what do you expect from savage living in a capital?
The first scheme is from Lyon not paris, and IMHO it did get enough coverage in the article. The scheme in Lyon is so successful that they have trouble to manage it. They can't build the docking bay fast enough.

In the Liverpool Echo the other week I was reading an article about how the council are considering giving bikes to the not so fortunate for commuting/recreational purpose, approx 1500 of them. Would this not be a better option? The combination of scousers and free bikes is open to abuse (they're not all the the same you know but there must be some jokes out there!)but surely allocating a 'free' bike to an individual would promote more care and reduce the number found in ditches and canals (and the Mersey!)?

The bigger the city generally the lower the feeling of social responsibility and trust, so the more likely a schemelike this is to fail. Shame really.

It looks like a success to me, sure there'll be some nitwits that abuse things but over the scheme of things a city like Paris can afford to replace a few bikes surely..?

JCD just under-costed the scheme and has got stung now it's crying to it's mummy, boo hoo.

JCD just under-costed the scheme and has got stung now it's crying to it's mummy, boo hoo.

Nope I don't think so as they have provided for free the vélove. Plus JCD have enough money to support it, but you can understand they have better things to do than pay for the doing of some ruthless parisian ****s (oxymoron)

there's a similar scheme in reading, never seen anyone using them though.

The bikes have shaft drive which must cost a fortune!

Is it really that hard to police the scheme though? Credit card or debit card details taken to register for the scheme and you have to to input your card to release the bike and input the card to put the bike back. An attendant at the bike stations to give the bike a quick once over to ensure it's not had some stick while it's been out and away you walk unless it's damaged in which case you get a bill?
Our local Waitrose has a cycle trailer loan scheme which is not just free, they also give you the fixing bracket for your seatpost (and fit it if you like). You get the trailer for three days but as we normally do two small shops a week, we seem to be hogging it on a permanent basis. It holds the groceries better than the EBC trailer and you can walk round doing your shop, self scanning the items and put them straight in to the trailer as you can wheel it around with you. Minimal person to person contact which suits me fine 🙂

Would have to have serious policing though barca, all the things you suggest take time, cash and employment. I for one couldnt be arsed borrowing a bike if I had to register, sign one in and out etc etc - just not convenient enough. If they thought they'd keep track of the bikes without lots of theft they were deluding themselves, but the scale of the theft is immense.

i noticed in Berlin which has a similar scheme that a lot of the ranks were empty and there didn't seem to be many bikes actually being ridden

The waitrose trailer scheme would be brilliant for me. Cycle past three or four supermarkets everyday but I don't think there are any waitrose in the west end of glasgow. All supermarkets should offer this.

Only 6 of the stores country wide are offering it at the moment Jon as it's a pilot scheme. We've resolved to only use it once a week from next week so that others in our area can have a go of it.