boris's stupid bike scheme

massrock

Well-known member
Getting around London by bike is usually like battling through some kind of robot war scenario except in this case the robots are impatient drivers who have no notion of considering other road users.
 

bobbin

What
Getting around London by bike is usually like battling through some kind of robot war scenario except in this case the robots are impatient drivers who have no notion of considering other road users.

hmm i dunno about central-ish london being that bad. like people have said, the more bikes on the road the better it gets, and i think that's happening to some extent. the bus drivers are by and large pretty sound as well.

cycled through ilford the other day for instance, didn't see any other bikes i don't think, and drivers just did not know what to make of it. i felt less safe definitely.
 

MatthewH

makes strange noises.
They started this last year here in Montreal and it's been spectacularly successful, and it gets fucking *cold* here.

Those who don't get it - give it some time. Maybe it'll grow on you.
 

luka

Well-known member
i cycled through ilford every day for a couple of years and thought it was fine. i agree theres no one else cycling but they seemed to understand the concept of a bicylce. the whole of london is fine really. sydney is so anti-bike that it makes london seem like utopia in retrospect.
 

Dr Awesome

Techsteppin'
i cycled through ilford every day for a couple of years and thought it was fine. i agree theres no one else cycling but they seemed to understand the concept of a bicylce. the whole of london is fine really. sydney is so anti-bike that it makes london seem like utopia in retrospect.

I've (briefly) cycled in Sydney before. Compared with Auckland it's a breeze.
You'd have to be literally nuts do to do it here on a regular.

A)
B)
C)
 

bobbin

What
they seemed to understand the concept of a bicylce

i wouldn't dispute that. but they didn't seem to think there was any need for bicycles to have their own special lanes, free of cars driving and parking in them. nor did they find it especially important that there should be any margin of distance between bikes and cars. someone almost hit me with a wing mirror, and someone drove into my foot at some traffic lights.
 

luka

Well-known member
auckland is so hilly you'd have to be some sort of superman anyway, never mind the local motorists. bobbin i ake your point. i got hit in chadwell heath. car pulling out after being parked in a cycle lane.
 

BareBones

wheezy
i quite like the idea of getting your free half hour, swapping your bike for another at a different station for another free 30 mins and so on, aside from the access charge that's free cycling, as long as you can be bothered to change bikes every half hour. There's loads of these stations around where I work (NW London) but not a single one around where I live (SE London) which is kind of shitty. Not that i'd cycle that far to work anyway.
 

Woebot

Well-known member
these seem to be everywhere and people are clearly enjoying using them. people seem to be cycling reasonably sensibly (apart from the idiot who cycled in the middle of the road along old street as i drove patiently behind him this w/e)

half tempted to have a go myself BUT, BUT the whole point of a bicycle is that you can go door to door. there's a rack at the end of my street, but even that isnt close enough to tempt me. the people i think would benefit the most are those commuters coming into london on trains - at last they can leave their silly foldaways at home.
 

unknown soulja

Wild Horses
I think the scheme is great in theory, however the bikes in themselves are pretty crap. I had a go on one using my friend's card during the first week following the scheme's intrpduction and one of the pedals snapped off. Bearing in mind they had only been in use for about 5 days this seems pretty flimsy!

The bikes also weigh a ton and the gears are so high that you have to pedal like the fucking clappers just to get moving; I can understand it helps to limit how quickly (possibly) inexperienced cyclists can go but it makes it such hard work its not worth bothering.

I suppose £1 for an hour is quite expensive but the whole point of the scheme is that you use it for a short sharp burst, avoiding paying altogether and making sure that bikes are kept in circulation.
 

Woebot

Well-known member
the bikes in themselves are pretty crap

yes my wife says that too. they're waaay too bulky looking. barcelona had much neater-looking bikes

080404-bike-share-hmed-251p.grid-6x2.jpg
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
I suppose £1 for an hour is quite expensive but the whole point of the scheme is that you use it for a short sharp burst, avoiding paying altogether and making sure that bikes are kept in circulation.
Yeah, I thought the point was to hire a bike when you'd otherwise do a short hop around the centre by bus, tube or taxi. In which case (given that you can pretty much cover the centre in an hour) the pricing works fairly sensibly compared to the alternatives. Obviously if you're commuting from zone four into the centre and back every day you're going to want your own bike for it.
 

luka

Well-known member
I hired my first ever one of these to cycle home after seeing Edmund on his birthday and it was great fun. Really enjoyed it. Dunno why I'd not done it before.
 

woops

is not like other people
so you don't need a smartphone to do this? or do you have one for personal use
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
who are these people who can't afford a bike and their own bike lock! a bike will cost you, what ten pounds. a free car scheme i can understand! it's a total bloody joke - a sickening waste of money - you'd think he was a labour politician by the way this has run.

political meltdown mate. the 20th century labour/tory polarisations don't matter anymore. both the left and the right misunderstand this. Only the real god of self-valourisation survives. if this means Boris bankrupts himself, well, so be it.
 
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