Just registered to get my key to use Boris’ bikes. If a few more London Bikers do maybe we can plan a rideout to a curry house or something.
ooooh… how does it all work then? I saw them (well, the stands) this morning…
You register your details and a credit or debit card and then they send you a key card. To use a bike you have to pay an access charge which is £1 for a day plus a fee for how long you use it but if you use it for less than 30 minutes there is no additional charge.
You can also pay for a weekly, monthly or annual access fee which works out considerbly cheaper. When you’re done with the bike you put it back in a bay. You don’t have to put it back where you found it.
My key arrived today! Looking forward to using it as a cheap alternative to getting the tube when moving between offices for meetings. (I have off-street parking so currently no need to pay for bike parking in Westminster).
Wife’s not happy though. Reckons I’m going to die. (Like biking in from Essex to central London along the officially most dangerous road in East Anglia - A113 -isn’t going to get me one day…)
think we should all meet up on a wednesday morning … hmm shall we say westminister and all go for a slow pootle and have breakfast ?signage optional nttntbpt
it seems really expensive to me unless you only have the bike for less than 30minutes a time
Whats this all about? What bikes are they?
KTM’s 
It pays to be quick.
What happens if you get to your destination and there are no stations to leave the bike at or the station is already full of bikes? Presumably you get charged for riding around looking for a way of getting rid of the bike and charges ramp up quickly once you go over 30 minutes.
I thought the idea was people hopped on and off the bikes. As someone who quite likes cycling, I had assumed that I could just turn up and go. If I have to pre-register and wait for stuff to arrive so I can use the system, it ain’t ever going to happen for me. If my local petrol station can let me have £100 of petrol pay-at-pump without pre-registering why can’t the same work for cycle hire?
Ha ha im in, never seen a KTM pushbike… oh i dont live anywhere near london… Whats to stop someone nicking the bike? If you can put them in any spot how do they know what bike you’ve taken?
The bikes need to be returned to a bike stand and presumably there is some sort of chip system so they know it was your key card that released the bike and when you returned it. There is a hefty charge to your card if the bike is lost, stolen or damaged. Personally, I think the scheme would be a good idea if it was less expensive (it is the second most expensive city cycle scheme in the world), less complex, and less bureaucratic. I don’t see what the key card does that your chip and pin wouldn’t do to identify and ensure you had the means to pay and charges due to you.
think the relative ease of card scamming is what the key card lark is all about … imaging the amount of scammers out there cashing in on this basically unmanned and open scheme
not read the scheme btw but this free 30 mins … is that just for the one day ?
or can you … hop on one bike for 25mins then stop using that bike re rack it and get another for a free 30 mins ?
And if someone came along and vandalised a rack of bikes, are the last people who hired them made to pay for their repair/replacement?
Good thinking
There has to be a five minute gap in between journeys when the key registers that a bike has been put back in a bay. Less than five mins break and it is added on to the first journey, making one long one.
They’re rolling out the membership scheme key card access first, there’ll also be a casual user option where you can just turn up & pay by debit/credit card in a few months.
so if you put the bike back after say 28 mins wait for 3 mins and get it back you will never get charged anymore, keep doing it every 28 or so mins, lol