“No Barclays Cycle Superhighways will be launched in 2012/2013 due to a reduced construction delivery window necessitated by the 2012 Games”

This was the answer given by the Mayor when asked about the progress of the Cycle Superhighways.

The good news is that the Cycle Hire scheme will continue to expand. This news comes despite the revelation that total income by March 2012 is now expected to be £7m as opposed to the original estimate of £18m. The difference is attributed to the delayed launch of the 400 sites as well as the delay of the launch to casual users. Although TfL says this figure is likely to change again depending on the roll out of phase 2.

As part of phase 2 rollout, the cycle hire scheme will be heading towards Tower Hamlets, Westfield White City and Camden Town.

Phase 3 of the scheme will be rolled out in summer 2013. This will head towards the West and South West of the current area. Wandsworth and Hammersmith & Fulham have already started to identify suitable cycle hire locations and are calling on local residents to send in their suggestions.

In other news from Mayors questions:

• Total complaints about the cycle hire scheme have fallen by 1/3 in the past six months since May 2011. From 1,647 (0.23% of total hire) to 1,100 (0.16% of total hire)
• We don’t yet know if the Trixi mirrors (blind spot mirrors) is statistically successful but TfL has had approval to install them on all future superhighways from the DfT.

Instead of the heavy bikes that epitomise cycle hire schemes, this alternative idea relies on folding bikes. Now that you’ve read the words folding bikes, there’s no doubt you will be able to guess the next sentence. The scheme is being championed by the makers of the Brompton folding bikes.

It’s called the Brompton Dock. Currently, the pilot scheme has started at Guildford train station in a partnership with South West trains. Using a membership smartcard the commuter can then undock a folding bike and take it on the train with them.

Membership costs £50 per year and the hire costs £4 per day, £2 per day if you hire for more than a week or £1.60 a day for a monthly hire. Bikes can be hired 24 hours a day.

Expansion is in the works as Brompton are seeking to bring the scheme to other areas.

The scheme is similar in style to the Streetcars scheme. Where cars can be hired from various locations, eliminating the hassle of car ownership. Whilst 40 bikes is obviously a very limited trial size, it’s exciting to see where this will expand to next.

See also:

• Is this the future of cycle helmets?
• Best value road bikes
• Could this be the most beautiful eBike there is?
• 12 months into the cycle hire scheme

With news of the scheme expanding east and west, love stories on Boris Bikes and news of how cycle hire schemes saves lives… you can’t help but ask: How are you getting along now, with the cycle hire scheme?

There was plenty of fuss in the beginning about overcharges, cards not working and docking problems. These seem to have drifted away from media attention but recent experience suggests problems are still persisting.

I’d like to hear from everyone’s experiences at the moment – the good and the bad.

Please leave a comment below.

I’m a little late off the mark with this one as I’ve been away for a week. However, it is worth reporting on.

Following the first year of successful operation and the completion of more than 6 million journeys on Boris Bikes, the announcement has arrived the scheme is to expand west. This will cover the boroughs of Wandsworth, Hammersmith and Fulham, Lambeth, and Kensington and Chelsea.

This will take place over the next two years and be funded in part by the sponsorship money from Barclays. Who provided £25 million for a 5 year sponsorship. This will cover the Olympic period.

The scheme has proved very popular in its first year as you can readily see during peak hours and around popular tourist destinations such as Hyde Park. Usage of the bikes has peaked at around 30,000 trips a day.

Despite this success, the scheme has continued to experience technical issues. Many users having to call up the Cycle Hire centre on more than one occasion after facing issues undocking the bikes. Most of the issues appear to remain for casual users rather than those holding a cycle hire membership key.

The expansion means both the East and West of London are the first to see the benefits of the cycle hire bikes. The North and South will have to wait a while longer. According to Boris Johnson "We’re prepared to go in any direction. The sole constraints are time and money."

The eastward expansion which is set to be completed before the Olympics commence will see an extra 2,000 bikes to complement the existing 6,000 currently available. This will be achieved through an expansion of existing docking stations and new ones being installed.

In comparison the Paris Vélib bike-sharing scheme marked 20,600 bikes and 1,451 docking stations by the end of its first year. This generated 10 million dollars in revenue for the city. From then on, Velib was aggressively expanded.

Whilst the expansion is welcome news, much attention has been devoted in the past week to the protests held on Blackfriars Bridge. Despite calls from cyclists with overwhelming support from members of the London assembly and politicians it seems TfL are to proceed with plans to turn the bridge into an urban motorway.

See also:

1. How the London Cycle Hire scheme will look for casual users
2. Cycle hire bike 14964

While pedalling a Boris Bike I start to shuffle in my pocket. Where is that damn iPhone. Finally, I find it. The next challenge is to get it out my pocket whilst still navigating the Humvee of the bike world. Eventually, I give up. I pull over and get my iPhone out. I look up the nearest docking station with spaces and get back on my way. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was some way of accessing this information from a watch-like gadget?

Enter Live View.

Using Bluetooth, the Live View gadget (£45 – £50 Amazon) connects to your Android phone (2.0 or later). You can then do cool stuff such as checkout the latest tweets, SMS messages, Facebook messages, take pictures remotely or, as this is a cycling blog, find the nearest Boris bike docking station.

Setup

Setup if fairly easy – you download a load of apps for your Android including the LiveWare Manager, Live View Application and the Cycle Hire Widget. You then sync the two together via Bluetooth. One thing to note is that it’s worth downloading the latest version of the Live View firmware as previous version are very buggy.

Strap it to your wrist and off you go

Strap the Live View to your wrist or clip it your shirt pocket. When you need a Boris Bike you pull it out, go into the Plugins folder and open up the Cycle Hire Widget. About 30 seconds later you’ll have a list of nearby docking stations.

On the screen you can see the number of bikes available, any empty spaces and how many metres away you are. You also see an indication of which direction you need to be heading.

Whilst Cycle Hire on the Live View would be far more useful with a map it’s not bad if you know the street names nearby (Or your North from South!).

To buy now or to wait?

The Sony Ericsson Live View definitely has that “wow” and “that’s cool!” factor. If you are already on an Android phone then it’s worth considering. I definitely wouldn’t say that the Cycle Hire Widget is the killer app. Instead, the ability to browse Tweets, Facebook messages, texts, your calendar and see who is calling you is far cooler.

Unfortunately, while using Live View I did find that it didn’t always respond. I was often hit with the classic “Computer says no”. Therefore, you may want to wait a little longer for another update to the firmware.

Amazon are listing it for £45 – £50 which I think is pretty reasonable.

I’ve put together a short video showing the Live view in action:

See also:

• Bike repair on your Android
• Cycling apps for the Android

Tomorrow the London cycle hire scheme will be opening up to all users. This means you can walk up to a terminal, insert your credit or debit card and hire out a Boris Bike. For those of us with membership it is worth noting that you cannot hire a bike using the same card as the one you’ve registered with.

The above video shows the interface casual users will be greeted with when hiring a bike. Unfortunately in the demonstration the transaction didn’t complete however we’ve been promised everything will be ready for tomorrow. Overnight Serco visited every single one of the docking stations to test out the system and make sure it was working. Fingers crossed!

Choosing 24 hour or 7 day access

The receipt you’ll need with the 5 digit unlock code

“Work starts today on London’s biggest cycle hire docking station”

As any Barclays Cycle Hire Scheme user will know Waterloo is one of the busiest cycle hire stations. In fact it has been so busy that Serco, the company who is contracted to run the cycle hire scheme, has been placing employees to manage the huge influx of bikes at rush hour.

In one incident there was even a bike stolen as so many bikes were being handed over to employees that it became almost impossible to manage.

By mid-December the new super station should be complete.

Waterloo however isn’t the only place with cycle hire issues. Perhaps the earliest criticism of the Cycle Hire Scheme was the lack of availability around key rail terminals. Places such as Kings Cross and Liverpool Street would also clearly benefit from additional space. It is often at these key commuter locations that space is at such a premium.

The addition of the larger Waterloo station would suggest that TfL are embracing the commuter as one of the key users of their cycle hire scheme. However, the motivation behind this move may just as easily be the additional cost of all the support staff that were required for the volume of hire bikes. Either way it’s good to see the scheme making progress.

See also:

• Cycle hire bike 14964 < my horror story!
• Cycle hire tips < insider tips to using the scheme
• Cycle hire routes < 3 great routes to try on a cycle hire bike

Image by Nic Price Flickr

Cycle Hire Bike 14964 will always have a vivid place in my haunting memories.

Yet, when I first approached it, it didn’t look so sinister. If anything Cycle Hire Bike 14964 looked kind of friendly and welcoming. Like an old friend. It wanted me to sit down. It wanted to show me the places I can see. The people I can meet. The fallen leaves I can gently trample on beneath its comfortingly large wheels.

Confidently I held out my London Cycle Hire Key as I approached the bike. I knew what needed to be done. I’d seen hundreds of fellow Londoners do it with ease. As I slid in my key the light predictably turned from red, to orange and finally the all-clear green.

I pulled the bike. It didn’t move. I pulled it again. That’s strange? This time I put more force into it, hands firmly on the handlebars and pulled with all my strength. Still no movement. Confused I stepped back. Was I missing something? Was there some kind of a vital step in this oh so simple looking extraction of a bike from a docking station process?

Unfazed, having faced bigger challenges in my life, I put the key back in the dock. But by now it was too late. Cycle Hire Bike 14964 was not budging. My mind started to spin. Presenting me with hundreds of unthinkable scenarios of why it didn’t work. Perhaps it’s a well known secret amongst Boris Bikers that you never, never borrow Cycle Hire Bike 14964? Perhaps this is a plot by Boris Johnson to prevent London Cyclist from borrowing a bike and suddenly he will emerge from the nearby bushes laughing full heartedly at my miserable situation and snapping pictures on his iPhone to put up on his Twitter account.

Damn him and his evil plots.

My friend, who was with me at the time, looked at me with her Boris bike. I could see the disappointment in her eyes. I vowed to find a solution. With my phone now in my hands I found myself about to embark on one of the toughest challenges of my life. On the 9th of October 2010 at 17:38 and 27 seconds whilst stood next to Berry Street Cycle Hire Station I was about to call the Barclays Cycle Hire Support Team.

I dialled the number knowing that they were the only ones that could help me now.

Pleased with the speed of someone answering my call and goaded on by passing their security check I optimistically waited for their words of wisdom. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad after all..

“Have you tried pulling out the bike?”

I was glad to see they had a sense of humour. Of course I had tried to pull out the bike. Why did they think I was standing here? I was no Boris biking fool.

Next they suggested I pull harder.

I started to pull with all my strength. Maybe this was the solution. Maybe we would all laugh later at my embarrassing lack of strength and all would be well again with the world.

But it wasn’t to be. The bike was not moving. We needed something else. A new approach, some blue sky thinking. I awaited their next suggestion, keen by now, almost desperate to try the next thing.

They suggested I pull again, but this time harder.

Surely we’ve already tried this? Einstein said the definition of insanity is to do the same thing again and again and expect a different result. But I doubted myself. Maybe I truly wasn’t pulling hard enough.

So once again I pulled it with all my strength. The passing cars started to look at me funny. Like I was vandalising the bike. If a police car arrived I’d soon be in the back of it, explaining to them that it’s what Boris’ minions wanted me to do.

No movement.

Again I searched for answers from the support staff. Again they suggested I pull the bike harder. This continued for around 10 minutes at which point it was time to step things up a level. I wanted to speak to a supervisor.

To protect his name, let’s call him John. John will have the answers I thought. He’s the kind of person where if there’s a problem with a bike he’ll deal with it. On John’s watch no Boris Biker is ever left behind. Or at least so I thought. Once again the suggestion floated to pull the bike really hard. Once again it didn’t work. I had lost count of how many times we’d tried the same suggestion. Desperation was beginning to turn to anger.

As I took a deep breath and received a sympathetic pat on the back from my friend I stated the facts as I could see them to John:

“We’ve been trying the same thing for about 15 minutes now John and let’s face facts, it isn’t working.”

For good measure I threw in some encouragement:

“Now we’re both on the same team here.”

And finished with a bit of light-heartedness:

“Isn’t there some kind of magic button you can press to release another bike for me?”

I’d pulled off the friendly customer 101. Surely now a solution would be on my hands and we’d soon be on our way to Regents Park.

John had other ideas. Had I tried lifting the bike and dropping it?

As someone who was trying to rent a bike not test to see if the gravitational pull of the earth is still working I can’t say I had tried that. I promptly did, realising this was the only way to move to the next stage in this ever escalating game of ridiculous suggestions that I seemed to have unwillingly entered myself into.

Once this stage was finally passed and I had lifted and dropped Cycle Hire Bike 14964 three times John relented.

He told me to hold the line.

What happened next on the other end of the line I can only imagine happened as follows..

John called up Boris Johnson. He asked him for authorisation to use the secret button. Boris gave the go ahead. Then two little elves appeared with a secret key. John placed the secret key into a keyhole under the desk. A red button emerged labelled: “Solve the customers problem”. He pressed it.

Back on the line with me he told me to try another bike. I slid in my key and the bike released without any issue.

Putting the phone back against my ear I thanked John and cycled to Regents Park with my friend.

Two days later I received my phone bill:

I learned three things that day:

• A 23 minute and 09 second call to an 0845 numbers costs £3.94.
• Boris Bikes are really, really theft proof
• Before you call the support line lift and drop the Boris Bike at least 3 times and try and pull it out with all your strength for at least 15 minutes

I’m not sure if Cycle Hire Bike 14964 is still out there. Causing misery for people. Heed my warning. If see Cycle Hire Bike 14964 stay away from it. It’s cursed.

Here are some of the tips from those pioneers of the scheme that have been leaving comments on London Cyclist and on sites such as the Boris Bikes forums that should make your cycle hire experience as smooth and as pleasurable as possible:

Check that your chosen bike has a rear wheel that spins smoothly by lifting the bike and spinning the back wheel.

If you need to do a journey that is longer than 30 minutes you can dock your bike. Wait 5 minutes. And then undock the bike again to continue your journey for free.

Use an application for your mobile phone to see where the nearest docking stations are and how many bikes are available there. There are great applications for the Android or iPhone.

The members key is money well spent. For £3 you can quickly undock bikes.

Be careful as to how you use multiple cycle hire keys system. People are reporting that activating one key will activate all four thus costing you money. Also people are reporting each key requires an annual fee and is not covered under the initial key.

Be sure you get the green light from the docking station when you return the bike. Check to see the bike has been correctly docked.

Print a receipt of your journey to check that the bike has in fact been docked correctly.

Be aware that popular terminals such as Waterloo and Kings Cross are likely to suffer from poor bike availability. The chances are you may have to walk or cycle an extra 5 minutes to find hire docking stations in less popular locations.

Leave any tips you have for first time users in the comments below.

Images via: Steve Punter and Charlotte Gilhooly

See also:

• Cycling apps for the Android
• What are your thoughts on the cycle hire scheme?
• 3 great routes to try on the cycle hire bikes
• How to use the cycle hire docking stations

It has been an eventful first week for the Cycle Hire Scheme. First we were told a few days before the launch that you had to pre-register. Then lots of people had problems registering and their cards being accepted. Upon launch a number of people reported bikes whose brakes were overzealous. Other people reported cycle hire docking stations not working. Lot’s of people forgot to register their cards and a few even got hit by big charges as they didn’t dock the bike correctly.

At the same time most people reported a completely smooth experience.

When I asked the question “Will you be registering for the cycle hire scheme?” the article received a huge number of responses and became the 2nd most commented on all the blog. It was fascinating to read through different people’s experiences and I was very glad to see TfL refunding those people who were hit with over charges. In this weeks Comment Friday I want to follow up and hear about people’s experiences with the scheme now that it has been going for 1 week. 

Did you try it? Are you finding the bikes are available? Have you heard about the spinning the wheels trick? Have you still not received your key card? Did you enjoy being a “pioneer” of the scheme with fellow cyclists? Will you be using it for your daily commute or for short hops? Did you manage to stay in your first 30 minutes? What do you think of the bike? Any tips for fellow cycle hire users?

Leave your answers in the comments..

See also:

• 3 great routes to try using the cycle hire bikes
• Will you be registering for the cycle hire scheme?
• How to use the cycle hire docking stations
• B&M Ixon IQ light review