With only a few days in London to kick off European Vacation – Project Bikeshare, my traveling companion and I took the opportunity to try out Barclay’s Cycle Hire.
The blue stations seem to be just about everywhere, at least in the part of London where we are based. We’re seeing many people riding the grey and blue “Boris Bikes,” as they are called by Londoners, in reference to Mayor Boris Johnson, a bikeshare supporter.
The stations themselves are easy to spot, indicated by the blue kiosk with a recognizable symbol of the London Transport system. Such branding reinforces bikeshare as an integral part of the public transportation system. A smartphone app with station locations and the number of bikes and available spaces is available. (As travelers from the U.S. with smartphones that require modification in order to work in Europe, however, we have not used the app.)
The instructions on the kiosk are very clear and easy to follow. Taking too much time to move through the screens will get you kicked out of the system, as we discovered.
Although we’re using a chip-and-pin credit card, magnetic strip cards will work in the as well, according to the website.
Barclay’s Bike Hire offers short-term access periods of 24-hours for £2 per bike or seven days for £10. As with most bikeshare programs, the first 30 minutes is included in the access fee but if you keep the bike for longer than 30 minutes, your card is charged according to the fee schedule that is clearly marked on the kiosk. As acknowledgement of the importance of tourists’ use of bikeshare, the instructions are offered in 17 languages.
Why would a tourist want to ride a bike for 30-minute increments at a time? Bikeshare is best used to get around between destinations as a form of transportation. It’s convenient, quick, flexible, and cheap. Tourists who wish to spend half the day or more cycling for cycling’s sake would be better off renting a bike from a local bike shop. But for those who want to use the bikeshare system as a mode of transportation to travel between destinations within the city, bikeshare is a great option. Several bike rental business owners have said that the presence of bikeshare has resulted in increased business, presumably because cities with bikeshare programs are welcoming to bicyclists in general.
We are really impressed by the number of cyclists of all sorts – including many on Boris Bikes – on the roads. We are also struck by the absence of much bicycle infrastructure, at least in the part of London where we are based. There are few bike lanes, and those that do exist are quite narrow and short to guide bicyclists through tricky intersections.
The absence of infrastructure, however, doesn’t seem to dissuade people from riding bicycles. There is a constant stream throughout the day and particularly in the morning and evening commuting hours. The civility of drivers is most welcome and unexpected in a city the size of London. Nobody has honked at us or buzzed us. And no one has yelled for us to get off the road. How refreshing coming from an American city where such treatment is the norm.
Helmet use is a controversial topic in bikeshare, and it is generally assumed that bicyclists in European cities typically do not wear helmets. Many Londoners – more than we expected – do wear helmets though.
The only real obstacle to using bikeshare in London as a tourist is the direction of traffic. Riding on the left side of the road when every fiber in my body tells me to ride on the right takes concentration and constant attention. A two-day, jet-lagged visit is not the time to test my traffic-riding abilities, so we’re playing it safe and sticking mainly to the park roads in Regent Park. A longer visit, however, would allow for more practice and more time to become accustomed to riding on the left.
While not Amsterdam or Copenhagen, London by bicycle works and I suspect that Barclay’s Bike Hire program contributes to its success.
Photos by Juliellen Sarver