ofo bikes

Spotted a stolen ofo while I was out for a walk, all the lock and stuff had been removed.

https://twitter.com/Clockwisesss/status/1007022125775978496

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/770577719808432

someone is actually trying to sell one lmao

Brilliant

Spotted (not mine)

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Another

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Ofo drastically reducing the geo-area of bikes:
£15 charge to park one out of this area.

Pretty useless to me now.

Does anyone know the area of Mobikes?
EDIT: some online suggestion that its only Zone 1. Pretty sure thats old info though.

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A person came into my East London bike workshop at the weekend saying that they had bought a bike and needed a lock. They had purchased an ofo bike from a "homeless type guy" for £20. It still had the lock and tracker on etc. Fortunately they were just visiting London for a week...

ha, what crap. cause nobody has ever ridden a bike in south london.

Looks like side show bob

rep

For ref, this is the Mobike operating area.

It appears that some borough councils are just saying no to them. Odd that some agree to one but not the other.

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Mobikes all up in Ealing but I want the proper TFL bikes with credit card usage that doesn't require any apps being installed.

Too much $ for the sticks.

I saw some kids the other week riding riding some Ofo bikes that'd been sprayed silver, with their dad on the pump track by my flat, then when I was passing through there the other day they'd just been dumped.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jan/10/ofo-cycle-hire-firm-pulls-out-of-london

They'd significantly bumped up their prices a few months back (30p to unlock and 50p for 10 minutes).

The trouble with all of these is the councils that are for and against them resulting in strange usage areas. I still use Mobike occasionally as they're in the area near my office but I can't use one to ride home as that goes out of the area.

Guardian story:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jan/10/ofo-cycle-hire-firm-pulls-out-of-london

I didn't think this model was going to work--cycle hire is a public service that needs public investment. There are interesting parallels with the anti-social media data-skimmers, who are less likely to get vandalism, but they also, effectively, squat what could be a public service (although I think in general anti-social media are a very bad idea, even if they might be run better by less exploitative overlords).

There are several more companies doing this on the way in March.

Oh dear. Well, good luck to them. :)