Will London learn to love Boris's bikes?

Andrew Neather
18 Jan 2010

As the Mayor prepares to launch his city cycle-hire scheme this summer, throughout the week The Evening Standard will be showing you how to get the most out of pedal power. Committed cyclist Andrew Neather leads the way...

It might not seem like it after last week's icy roads but 2010 will be one of the most important years ever for cycling in London.

Boris Johnson has set himself the ambitious target of increasing the number of journeys taken by bicycle in the capital by 400 per cent by 2025. In recent years the number of Londoners cycling has soared: the number of cycle journeys has doubled since 2000 to around 500,000 a day. Still, to make real progress towards his target before the next mayoral election campaign in 2012, this is the year Boris needs to convince us to get on two wheels.

To that end, Transport for London will this summer bring in the first two of a network of 12 “cycle superhighways”, cycle lanes aimed at making the commute into central London easier and safer. More ambitious still, the Mayor will launch his bike rental scheme, putting 6,000 bikes on central London's streets.

The past year has brought hard news for cyclists too: 13 have been killed in the city. But proportionate to the numbers cycling, it is getting safer. And with the new rental bikes coming soon, there's never been a better time to get pedalling. Over the next week the Standard will show you how to get started or, if you cycle already, how to get more out of it. Today: what the new bike hire scheme promises for the capital.

It's thumbs up to the hire bikes after my test-ride

For an election pledge, there's nothing quite like the solidity of one of the new Transport for London cycle hire bikes. I test-rode an advanced prototype in the icy Christmas week and with its weight and big tyres, it coped admirably with both traffic and snow. But will the scheme, as Boris Johnson claimed in his 2008 election campaign, revolutionise the way Londoners think about cycling?

Starting this summer, you'll be able to pick up one of the chunky bikes from around 400 docking stations in Zone 1. Each stand will have an average of 26 bikes, although some will have far more. You either pay £45 annually and get a chip-based key to unlock the bikes, or you put down £150 in caution money on a credit card, payable online or at a terminal at the docking station and then pay an access fee (£1 for a day, £5 for a week). You select your bike, the clamp holding the front wheel retracts, and you're away.

The scheme is intended, like the Paris Vélib' scheme on which it is closely modelled, to encourage people to use the bikes for short journeys around town: thus they are free for the first 30 minutes. After that, charges mount: from
£1 for up to an hour to £50 for a whole 24 hours.

The bikes are designed to be robust, easy to use and non-intimidating for those not used to cycling in the city. At 23kg, they're a bit heavy, the front end particularly, and almost double the weight of an average hybrid bike like the one I normally commute to work on. They certainly look well-nigh indestructible.

Which isn't to say that the TfL bikes are a difficult ride — far from it. They're equipped with hub brakes and three-speed hub gears. First gear is an easy ride up hills, although coming down, third isn't as speedy as most cyclists will be used to. Still, it added only six or seven minutes to my normal journey to work of a little under 40 minutes.

Other kit is robust and functional. They have a chunky handlebar rack with bungee cord to accommodate a bag, a kick-stand and a bell. A dynamo powers neat, always-on lights built into the rear forks and a four-LED front light. The technology isn't fixed yet but TfL promises the lights will keep running for two minutes after you've stopped pedalling at traffic lights.

What you notice most of all, though, is how comfortable the bikes are, with an easily adjustable and well-padded saddle and fat tyres giving a very smooth ride. They have an open frame — no crossbar — and the chain is entirely enclosed — these are machines designed to be rideable in an overcoat, a suit or a dress. For a confirmed Lycra-and-fluorescent-jacket cyclist like me, it's a psychological adjustment to pedal along, Boris-style, in a suit and tie. But in the interests of a full road test, I tried it — and it felt a lot more comfortable than it would on my normal machine.

Such considerations have been key in TfL's development of the bikes. So are the docking stations. At present, TfL has only just begun their construction, although it now has planning permission for more than 360. Each will have an information terminal which houses the payment facility, plus a neighbourhood map showing nearby docking stations. At night, the contractor Serco will move bikes around to even out imbalances caused by bikes accumulating at more popular destinations.

Whether all this has the desired effect of persuading Londoners to cycle for everyday trips around the centre remains to be seen. But looking at plans, and having seen the Parisian system, it's hard not to get excited about what this could do for cycling in London. It could make bicycles our normal mode of day-to-day transport.

Certainly the new riders will ride differently to the Lycra-clad hordes. But I also noticed that I rode more sedately on the TfL bike. The riding position and the handlebars don't make it that easy to stand up on the pedals for extra power.

And while the bikes are manoeuvrable, they're not as nippy at low speed as most conventional bikes. I found myself cycling less aggressively in traffic. They may change the way we get around London but perhaps Boris's bikes will also have the unforeseen effect of bringing more peace to London's roads.

How Paris took to two wheels

Inevitably, my mental image of using one of Paris's Vélib' bikes involved breezing across the Pont Neuf in bright sunshine, a baguette and a bottle of wine in the basket. In fact there was a dusting of snow on the handlebars as I unlocked it; the Seine glittered bright but the bridge was as slushy as London's streets. Still, it was hard not to be impressed.

Launched in July 2007 by Mayor Bertrand Delanoë, the Vélib' network (Vélib' = vélo + liberté) is bigger than London's, starting out with 20,000 bikes at 1,450 docking stations, one on average every 300 metres throughout the whole city. Now it has expanded into the suburbs beyond the périphérique too — another 3,300 bikes.

Yet even though Parisians are not really natural cyclists — most live in apartments, where it is often difficult to find space for bikes — they took to the scheme very quickly, pushing up the city's total cycle traffic by a third. “In the first couple of months it was very trendy to use a Vélib',” says system engineer Raymond del Perugia. “But they've kept up their popularity.” In the two-and-a-half years since, the grey machines have notched up 61 million trips — an average of almost 80,000 a day. Most bikes get used four to seven times daily.

Parisians use them mostly for short trips of less than half an hour, for which there is no charge once you're signed up. I found them easy to use. The terminal at each docking station can tell you not just where the next stations are but how many free bikes and empty docking points there are at them. Swipe a card and the bike is yours. The cycles are very similar to the London ones, although with a proper front basket and a lock.

There have been criticisms. More have been stolen (8,000) and more vandalised or otherwise damaged than was first anticipated — 16,000 have needed significant repairs, although officials emphasise that the rate has dropped significantly following a recent education campaign. Some taxi drivers grumble.

Yet there have been relatively few serious accidents: last year there was just one death on a Vélib', out of a total of six cyclist deaths in the city. I felt comfortable on the bike — so much so that I decided to brave the Place de la Concorde, the vast central square treated by many Parisian drivers as a handy Top Gear test circuit, and it felt fine (admittedly it wasn't rush hour). I pedalled on to Place Vendôme and then looped back towards the Hôtel de Ville; only the Châtelet one-way system defeated me.

Paris is a very different city from London, small and compact, so it was easier to put in a city-wide bike system. In London the docking stations will be mostly in the centre so people won't be able to use them for the whole of their commute to school or work, as more than half of Paris
users do.

Still, if it can transform the attitudes of the French capital's notoriously cussed inhabitants, it can surely do the same for us. Even if, on Boris's bikes, there's no basket for that baguette.