They’re a soaraway success story, but the course of London’s hire bike love-in has never run smooth

3 hours ago 3

Greetings from the cycling capital of Britain.

The crowds of London seem as busy as ever in the first weeks of autumn, even as the weather turns chilly and the summer tourists depart. That means I’m not alone in searching for the best ways to get through the congestion – and I’m willing to be converted when I find a group of believers who say they have found the righteous path to a faster commute.

Cyclists crossing London’s Westminster Bridge.

Nicolas Moura, for instance, tells me he can get through London faster than an Uber on a busy day. So I’m all ears. His solution is to use the hire bikes that were set up across the city 15 years ago. Mind you, he is a very fit cyclist and admits to having a flexible approach to traffic lights, which helps when the cars and buses are in gridlock at a corner.

Moura started using the bikes as a student when the scheme began in July 2010, and he still uses them now that he has a home in Kensington and a job as a financial analyst. In fact, he recently rode 100 kilometres in a day to test the limits of the network. One setback, he concedes, is that the docking stations empty fast when rush hour begins. “If you’re looking for a bike in the city after 6.30pm, you’re doomed.”

He is not alone in loving what Londoners call the “Boris bikes” – the thousands of share bikes introduced when Boris Johnson was Mayor of London. While Johnson remains a divisive figure, he is remembered for getting the bike scheme under way after his Labour predecessor, Ken Livingstone, set up the feasibility study. Says Moura: “It’s the best idea he ever had.”

The city began with 5000 hire bikes at 315 docking stations across the major boroughs close to the centre. Now there are 12,000 bikes at more than 800 docking stations, and this includes 2000 with batteries. There’s a big difference between this scheme and some others: the bikes have to be returned to a docking station. They cannot be left anywhere on a pavement or street.

A hire bike dock on the pavement beneath London’s 30 St Marys Axe aka the Gherkin.

Transport for London, the authority that runs the cycle hire as well as the buses and the underground, is so proud of the bikes that it set up a competition for people to send in photos of their cycling journeys. Moura won with a photograph of him and his wife, and their bikes, as they arrived for their wedding in Chelsea last year.

Cicibel Lucas loves the bikes so much she rode far outside the usual zone, twice, in the hope of photographing herself and the bike with the deer in Richmond Park. Her photo also gained a commendation – and she deserved it because she had to do a long ride back to the docking station. Originally from Guatemala, Lucas has been in London for six years. “I wanted to participate and feel attached to London,” she says. Cycling around the city helped her do exactly that.

Hire bike enthusiast Cicibel Lucas in London.

Lucas uses the pedal bikes because she wants the exercise, and she says it makes more sense to pay as she goes rather than own a bike. First, she doesn’t need to store the bike. Second, there’s the convenience of riding to a social gathering and coming home by bus or tube. A day pass costs £3.50 – about $7 – for unlimited 60-minute rides. The fee is £1 more for the e-bikes. (They are actually called Santander Cycles, by the way, after the bank that sponsors them.)

But the sheer spread of London creates headaches in areas outside the Boris bike zone. In Richmond-upon-Thames, for instance, you can hire a Lime bike. You used to be able to hire a Lime bike in the neighbouring borough of Hounslow, as well, until the council received too many complaints from residents about abandoned Lime bikes cluttering the streets. Hounslow switched to Forest and Voi bikes.

The result is Cold War chaos. The bridges across the Thames between Richmond and Hounslow have Lime bikes at one end and Forest or Voi bikes at the other, as riders walk between the zones. “Every bridge is Checkpoint Charlie,” quipped Irish comedian Dara Ó Briain. “Top work, everyone!”

The solution would be to expand the cycle hire that works so well in the centre: one bike to rule them all. But Greater London is a land of ancient fiefdoms, and the councils would probably never agree.

Cycle hire isn’t for everyone. Residents will understandably complain when bikes are left lying around for people to trip over. Lucas agrees with this concern, which is another reason she likes the docking stations with the Transport for London scheme. Many cities, including Melbourne and Sydney, are working through the same issues.

But the numbers are in, and they show that more and more Londoners want to get around on two wheels. The transport figures from the City of London Corporation for October last year showed that 139,000 people were cycling each day. That was 57 per cent higher than the number two years earlier. And that only covers part of Greater London.

The biking believers make a good case. I’ll let you know when I’ve converted.

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