Barclays Cycle Hire - London

Registration opens tomorrow at 6am. £45 for an annual pass which entitles you to borrow them for 30 mins for free

Been looking at them closely today, and they're great. I *really* hope this takes off

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/roadusers/cycling/12444.aspx

Argh sh*te. I used the sponsor name in the title like a corporate numpty.

[anna]

Fantastic idea, do they come with bike helmets?

Originally Posted by anna

Fantastic idea, do they come with bike helmets?

Nope. They're bugger all use in London though.

Also, they're expensive to rent for more than an hour to stop people having them all day long, but <30mins is free and <1 hour is £1. Bargain
Once you've returned your bike to a dock, give it 5 mins and you have another 30 mins free

[CheGuevara]

Great idea. Several years ago back in my [smallish] home town they ran a "Blue Bike" scheme: A few dozen recycled, basic bicycles were spray painted blue (including tires). It worked entirely on the honour system -if you came across a blue bike you were free to use it for your journey. Ran for a couple of seasons I think, but I suspect they hit issues with funding for maintenance, damage etc as they had no formal sponsors as far as I'm aware.

Have seen these popping up all over London, one of the positions for the hire cycles is very close to a tight right hand bend, was having a bet with my work colleague this morning on how many get wiped out in the stand!

This probably wont make me popular, but I hate cyclists in london, they dont look, they come up your inside when you are turning left and they stop in front of you at traffic lights. Then again they beat Bendy bus's and taxis

But for those who like the idea, good luck to them

I reckon it's a good idea - far more likely to get people cycling than some of the other initiatives (anyone seen the grandly named 'cycle superhighways' launched the other day, a.k.a. blue paint on the road on a couple of routes?)

It might actually achieve more of a critical mass of cyclists, in the same way that we benefit from the greater awareness of car drivers while riding m/cs around London (ahem, excepting yesterday's unfortunate Soho Massive incidents...)

Gonna really pee off all the fast regular cyclists though I reckon!

[Viney]

I dont mind the cycle to work at all, its the faff when i get to work that puts me off. As for cycle hire scheme, i have about 4 docks with in falling distance of the office. I wonder if they will put on the normal Oyster? As for free usaege, if its £45 a year to enable 'free' use for half hour, its not free. Would be handy though for a pootle around at lunchtime