London Cycle Hire

And a boardgame cafe!

Rode an Ofo bike back from work on Thursday. It felt small but actually pretty OK.

Parked it at the end of my street in Streatham. Seemed OK. Rode it into central Brixton and parked it in front of the tube station by the bike racks.

Got a text to say I was illegally parked. Huh? Oh, I'm outside the approved area? Ugh, that sucks! What's the point in dockless bikes that have limits on where you can go? Might as well just have docks.

Anyway, I was penalised 20 ofo credits, which seems to impact how much I pay for my journeys.

I'm not hugely encouraged by all this...

Rode it into central Brixton and parked it in front of the tube station by the bike racks.

"Simply collect and leave ofo bikes anywhere that traditional bike parking is allowed."

Hmmm - odd.

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Anywhere traditional bike parking is allowed...within a certain area.

Edit: From their FAQs:

"There is a perimeter boundary around your city, which you can view in the ofo app. The area is designated by a green line, we call this the "geofence". If you take the bike outside of this area, you will have 12 hours to return the ofo bike back inside the "geofence". Failure to do so will result in credit points being taken from your ofo account.
"

Looking at the map in the app, Brixton lies outside that green area.

@Sparky or @GwGs will be more qualified to comment, but I imagine the current 'geofence' is probably the borough boundary of the London Borough of Southwark, where they have an agreement with the local authority (as in Hackney). Brixton's in (the London Borough of Lambeth). Tricky if you're not aware.

This makes sense, thanks. Makes the bikes basically useless to me, so I won't feel too badly about the 20 'credit' point deduction.

Isn't getting different borough councils to agree to things a barrier to a lot of 'continuous' infrastructure?

That's absolutely correct. More boroughs are coming on board though, so it'll be less of an issue in future.

Well, no doubt ofo are working all the time to strike agreements with more London councils so that the area covered becomes contiguous. However, concerns about street clutter in London are very important and I can't see areas like Westminster ever allowing it. (Hope I'm wrong, although I'm still not sure about these companies currently flooding the market.)

A lot of people complain about the structure of local government in London, but there are obviously advantages and disadvantages to it, as with all things. I personally think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, although I'd want to see a return to much smaller units of local government, e.g. a bit like the former London Metropolitan Boroughs and different set-ups for council wards. Needless to say, in the current climate it's more likely that the reverse could happen.

For a day or so all of the Mobikes on the app disappeared from around me, I assume because I was in the wrong borough. A day or so later they were all back, although I'm not aware of any deal being struck with Haringey (they're not really into that cycling lark).

Aren't the other companies just putting the bikes out without talking to councils?

I don't think so, Mobike appears to have loads of bikes in some boroughs (Islington for instance) which I suspect they wouldn't get away with without approval.

Yes, I meant Mobike as being among the 'other companies'. Should have been clearer.

It looks like Mobike have agreements with Islington, Ealing and Hounslow (although plenty seem to have found their way to Camden and the like).

Ah, OK, thanks. I haven't really been following this scene, just remembered when the first batches of bikes arrived seemingly without the approval of authorities. Maybe it's just Islington bikes that users have ridden into Haringey.

Mobike are definitely placing bikes in Haringey even if they don't have an agreement with them; I regularly see them perfectly lined up in groups of 8 or so on Stroud Green Road near the crossroads with Tollington Park which I'm sure is within the Haringey border.

Stroud Green Road is the borough boundary, so if the bikes are on the south side, they're in Islington.

@Sparky is the sole subject matter expert on hire bikes.

Ah I see; I'd always assumed it was Haringey just for a squiggle at that end, as the GP surgery near there is counted as Haringey CCG while the one on the Crouch Hill crossroad is Islington. I always see them placed on the south side so that makes sense.

Noticed a few more than I'd suspect vandalised/damaged/crashed hire bikes while out and about recently.

https://twitter.com/Clockwisesss/status/984065433300099073
Maybe it's the explosion like increase in bikes being available in places I'd likely go or some other factors but have other people noticed this too?

Great as hire bikes are like this as an advert for easily accessible ways of cycling seeing constantly damaged/crashed bikes isn't great.

I found this interesting--it seems that in Paris a high-tech upgrade to electric bikes (among other things) has gone badly wrong:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/04/paris-bike-share-scheme-velib-hi-tech-upgrade-problems

Australia showing how they love cycling again so obike have pulled out of Melbourne.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-12/obike-dockless-bicycle-scheme-to-leave-melbourne/9860314

A few random observations re cycle hire

Quite a few santander/barclays bikes have been loaded in containers to Nigeria, I assume the Barclays ones were nicked ages ago and only recently resurfaced, wonder how TfL deals with the cost of missing bikes?
Also Seen a handful of mobike/ofos mixed in on pallets of scrap bikes being shipped abroad.

Had a guy bring an ofo bike to a scrap yard, said it was left near his house and they wouldn't come and collect it, so he brought it in his car, unloaded it and was turned away, pretty stupid as i'm assuming he could have just left it anywhere on the street for the next person to use?

Mobike appear to be cracking down on where they can be used, the app suggests a £10 fee if a bike is left outside of their registered area. The area is pretty small (Islington, the City and somewhere out west I think) which is making it pretty useless for me now.

I find it slightly difficult to make these two articles work together.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/aug/25/mobike-no-more-dockless-bikes-could-soon-be-gone-from-uk-streets

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/electric-bikes-for-hire-will-offer-londoners-sweatfree-cycling-a3921301.html

Electric bikes for hire have been coming for some time (causing an almighty disaster in the 'up'grading process in Paris).