Barclays/TFL cycle hire scheme in London

[Orang Utan]

i'm puzzled by your use of the term zone 1? what difference is travelling in zone 1?
i see what you mean about pubs. i've never considered going straight out after work though and if i do, i leave the bike at home. why would you want to get all sweaty before going out? always want to go home first. but people is people.

 

[teuchter]

fair enough - finding it difficult, being a twat and as a bike owner, to imagine why hiring one is better than owning one. glad to be enlightened!

The main reasons I don't use a bike in London are to do with not wanting to have to worry about locking it up and whether it'll get stolen, and also, having set out on a bike, then being committed to returning on it too.

The hire scheme removes both those issues. It also costs next to nothing (unlike owning a bike).

 

[salem]

i'm puzzled by your use of the term zone 1? what difference is travelling in zone 1?
i see what you mean about pubs. i've never considered going straight out after work though and if i do, i leave the bike at home. why would you want to get all sweaty before going out? always want to go home first. but people is people.

They are lazy bikes to ride. It's quite an important step IMHO to move cycling towards something done by regular people in regular clothes going at their own pace rather then making the mistake that many make which is to try and go as fast as possible to keep up with the traffic.

I rode about a few pubs yesterday with a mate and neither of us got sweaty. It was no more exerting then a brisk walk (and that's mainly I think because I've not cycled in a few months).

You have to consider how they cycle in Holland for example, no lycra, no flash lightweight bikes, no hurry etc. People often cycle to the pub there and they don't get sweaty.

And I presume the zone 1 references are because the scheme is only running in Zone 1.

 

[Open Sauce]

i'm puzzled by your use of the term zone 1? what difference is travelling in zone 1?
i see what you mean about pubs. i've never considered going straight out after work though and if i do, i leave the bike at home. why would you want to get all sweaty before going out? always want to go home first. but people is people.

I'd not expect to get sweaty on such a short trip were more of the time will be going slower than normal due to traffic. I work on zone 1, I tend to leave the bike at work if going out and if going out in zone 1 after work I can get a hire bike to the pub / gig / cinema

 

[Pat24]

I tried the bikes for the first time yesterday; a trip from Kennington Park post office to the Strand. It took me about 20 minutes as I kept being stopped by people asking me what the bike felt like, etc. I thought the bikes felt very comfortable and stable; I felt the heaviest gear wasn't heavy enough for me, and I wanted to go faster and I had to pedal like crazy to achieve more speed, but besides that really enjoyed the ride.

One thing that I thought was quite funny and I'm so glad I realized on time, as i was waiting by the lights on the imax roundabout, the side of the right handlebar came off and dropped...i heard it drop and picked it up and put it back on, it hadn't been screwed on properly!

I then docked the bike in and met Mr Pat nearby, who I later convinced to get hire a bike, which we got from Covent Garden. We rode to Mornington Crescent, where I went to pick my own bike and rode back to Lambeth North.

Mr Pat24 found the bike comfortable, but isn't sure about being a barclays riding advert

I'll definitely use the bikes again

 

[beeboo]

I went to try out the bikes yesterday. Armed with my official map of docking points, I went to find the docking station nearest to my office....which apparently doesn't actually exist. Went to look for the next nearest one...that doesn't exist either, nor the once after that (which is supposed to be outside the TfL offices!).

The fourth one I went to look for was in fact where it was supposed to be, but by that point I'd walked so far I was already at one of the nearest docking stations to my destination, so ended up completing the journey on foot.


However i can vouch for the fact it's bringing Londoners together - I ended up talking to someone else who was also on a frustrated search for a docking station.

I'm still keen on the idea but I wouldn't use them for anything time critical at the moment - I was trying to catch a train and luckily I'd left myself enough time to walk it, if I'd have been relying on getting a bike I'd have been stuffed.

 

[beeboo]

Having just checked the TfL map online, at least the phantom docking stations aren't marked on there so officially don't exist other than on the TfL printed maps

It also reveals that my office is in the middle of a massive docking station dead zone which renders the scheme much less useful to me, given it's a 10min walk to the nearest docking point. <sigh>

Wonder if it's too late to get my money back?

 

[Kanda]

They're not really phantom docking stations, they just haven't been completed yet due to delays. It would be stupid to have the expense of printing out maps with the incomplete ones left out then have to do another print run when they are added....

Get your money back? All £3??

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Hmmm....tried the bike this morning and found it ridiculously hard work. First gear was pointless, second and third were just not comfortable. Maybe I'd drunk too much yesterday or something, but I was fucked after a short ride from Waterloo to Victoria. Am I doing it wrong or something?

 

[snowy_again]

Lots of them haven't been set up well by SERCO apparently... they've over tightened the rear drum brake, which makes it feel like you're constantly pedalling up hill. I guess that will wear off in a week or so.

 

[ExtraRefined]

Hmmm....tried the bike this morning and found it ridiculously hard work. First gear was pointless, second and third were just not comfortable. Maybe I'd drunk too much yesterday or something, but I was fucked after a short ride from Waterloo to Victoria. Am I doing it wrong or something?

The gearing is apparently 32 gear inches for the lowest gear, and 60 for the highest. A road bike would usually have a range or something like 37 to 112 GI, so the lowest gear on the boris bikes is very low indeed, and the highest isn't that high. You'd need a cadence of 120rpm to do 21mph.

Reports say taht a lot of them have the brakes overtightened so far they're rubbing, which might also account for it.

You have to consider how they cycle in Holland for example, no lycra, no flash lightweight bikes, no hurry etc. People often cycle to the pub there and they don't get sweaty.

That's because they're feckless continental communists. Where's the fun in pootling about.

 

[Kanda]

So, geared for a more lesuirely ride rather than tanking along....

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

So, geared for a more lesuirely ride rather than tanking along....

Seems so and I was prepared for a leisurely ride, but was out of breath and dripping with sweat after such a short ride. Which is odd, on Saturday I cycled over 40 miles on my bike with no problems at all.

Hopefully it's just the brakes rubbing and this will get better.

 

[London_Calling]

It must be tricky when you know your market for the same set up will range for active old dears to young school kids and from 30 stone Americans to athletic 20-somethings. Not a substitute for your own, I suppose.

 

[beeboo]

They're not really phantom docking stations, they just haven't been completed yet due to delays. It would be stupid to have the expense of printing out maps with the incomplete ones left out then have to do another print run when they are added....

Get your money back? All £3??

You'd have thought it wouldn't be in their interests to annoy the would-be early adopters by frustrating them with a map that isn't accurate.

As for the money - it's the £45 I'd paid for the year on the assumption there's a docking station a couple of minutes walk from my office. It's not worth me having an annual membership until that one exists, as I reckon most of my usage is going to be heading-somewhere-after-work.

 

[Kanda]

You paid £45 without looking at a map of locations?

I'm going to try it this week, if it's any good, I'll go for the annual membership. It says in the bottom right corner of the map that it's not the final list of docking stations though, they're adding more all the time apparently.. I guess if demand is there.

 

[Mapped]

You'd have thought it wouldn't be in their interests to annoy the would-be early adopters by frustrating them with a map that isn't accurate.

....and a registration system that doesn't work. I've filled in the form on-line a few times today and get a 'website unavailable' message each time.

I've a docking station near work and one a few minutes walk from my flat so this scheme suits me pretty well. I'm getting my own bike on work's cycle hire scheme in a few months so I'll probably use it less when I've sorted that out. I like the fact that you can have up to 4 keys on your membership, that will be pretty useful for when guests come from out of town.

 

[salem]

There were issues with planning permission on some of the stations too. Perhaps the area of your work is fully of NIMBY's?

Frustrating but the map I had of docking stations mentioned that they were subject to change.

Actually I felt a map of docking stations on the bike might have been a good idea (how it'd work in practice I'm not sure)

 

[ShiftyBagLady]

Do they have bikes for short people?

 

[Mapped]

dp

 

[salem]

The seat is easily adjustable and seems suitable for most heights.

 

[London_Calling]

Is that £45 going to look like value on a wet/freezing Nov-March day . . . I suppose it'll depend on lifestyle, convenience and hardiness . . .

 

[beeboo]

You paid £45 without looking at a map of locations?

Of course I looked at the map, that's what led me to believe there were a number of docking stations in the vicinity of my office

As the map says they're adding more all the time, I kind of thought the ones that are already on the map would actually exist.

There were issues with planning permission on some of the stations too. Perhaps the area of your work is fully of NIMBY's?

I work near Parliament Square, so yeah, probably

 

[kyser_soze]

It must be tricky when you know your market for the same set up will range for active old dears to young school kids and from 30 stone Americans to athletic 20-somethings.

Nah. I reckon that for many Americans, bikes=communism, so this kind of social bike hire scheme would = ultracommie. No Real American would partake.

 

[Kanda]

Had a go this morning. Rode from Oxford Circus to work, Broadwick St. All docks were full so I had to ride half way back to another dock and walk

So, quicker to walk that little trip

 

[colacubes]

ooh where did you go from and to, and was there space where you wanted to leave it?

They said this morning that a van would drive around redistributing the bikes if thy found that docks were getting too full/others empty

Just realised I never answered. On Friday it was only from Southwark Road to Tower Bridge, but yesterday I rode from Tower Bridge back to Oval after work. There were plenty of docking spaces there.

One tip though, check how the back wheel spins before you get a bike. They've really overtightened the brakes (I think ) on a lot of them and the one I had yesterday was really stiff to ride and felt like very hard work unlike the one I had on Friday.

 

[Biddlybee]

Had a go this morning. Rode from Oxford Circus to work, Broadwick St. All docks were full so I had to ride half way back to another dock and walk

So, quicker to walk that little trip

The seat is easily adjustable and seems suitable for most heights.

I don't think some people know this from what I saw this morning

 

[editor]

There's a very neat free Android app that lets users know where the bike stations are and if any bikes/slots are available:

http://www.wirefresh.com/cycle-hire-widget-for-android-lets-londoners-find-tfl-cycles-quickly/

 

[Kanda]

Aye, there's one that does the same for the iPhone too 'London Cycle'.

 

[editor]

Aye, there's one that does the same for the iPhone too 'London Cycle'.

Why didn't you use it?