Now now, is this a good thing or a bad thing?

[mountainsport]

Hi all,

You all may of all heard by now that as of next year our friend Boris will be introducing electric bicycles to the public for hire. What I am asking is that do you think it would work in favour of our professional ebike dealers or against?

Imo, correct me if I am wrong this could go both ways, people on a whole and definitely not ruling out the youngsters may get the taste of it and then go out and purchase one personally from a dealer OR they may get the taste of it and decide not to purchase one in order to avoid the yearly maintenance of the bike and the 3-4 yearly battery replacement expense ?
I just hope that in the long and short of all this that ebike dealers will not loose out. I know that there is much more to be said on this topic, therefore what else can we add to this? You'll never know it may have an adverse affect on us ebike riders for some apparent reason too.

What Boris needs to also take into consideration is the cost of running these bikes, remember at the end of the day there will be careful responsible riders as well as irresponsible ones jumping off high curbs and also trying pop these so called wheelies.

MS

 

[Martin@e-bikeshop]

Hi MS,

I think by having ebikes for hire in London, could be great publicity. Like you said many people would try them that may never have thought to before.

So in a short answer. Yes I think any publicity is great publicity.
Although if the bikes were to be used everyday by some 'newbies' too. They would have to be a well thought out design otherwise the ebikes could end up getting trashed fairly quickly by miss-use. Owners tend to care for their ebikes. Hire'rs tend to not..

I wonder how well the current non electric bikes cope at present?

Regards
Martin

 

[mountainsport]

Hi MS,

I think by having ebikes for hire in London, could be great publicity. Like you said many people would try them that may never have thought to before.

So in a short answer. Yes I think any publicity is great publicity.
Although if the bikes were to be used everyday by some 'newbies' too. They would have to be a well thought out design otherwise the ebikes could end up getting trashed fairly quickly by miss-use. Owners tend to care for their ebikes. Hire'rs tend to not..

I wonder how well the current non electric bikes cope at present?

Regards
Martin

Hi Martin,

I don't know the actual total figure of non-ebikes out there throughout the patches of London, but I can tell you that whenever I am riding through Hyde Park his bikes are so plentiful there, So I can not put a big bet on it.

MS

 

[flecc]

What Boris needs to also take into consideration is the cost of running these bikes, remember at the end of the day there will be careful responsible riders as well as irresponsible ones jumping off high curbs and also trying pop these so called wheelies.

MS

If the e-bikes are built to the tank like standards of the unpowered ones, no-one will be doing any wheelies! However I think the running costs will be prohibitive. The present unpowered scheme is a financial failure just as I forecast at the outset that it would be. The expected income has failed to materialise due to users only taking advantage of the free period at the start of a ride and only Barclays two major contributions have masked the failure. The mayor isn't willing to reveal the facts which itself is indicative of all not being well.

I'm completely opposed to all these subsidised schemes, in every sphere fit users should bear the entire costs and all subsidies for any purpose are wrong. The farm subsidies of Common Agricultural Policy are prime examples of the chaotic outcome that all subsidies bring.

 

[Croxden]

I'm completely opposed to all these subsidised schemes, in every sphere fit users should bear the entire costs and all subsidies for any purpose are wrong. The farm subsidies of Common Agricultural Policy are prime examples of the chaotic outcome that all subsidies bring.

This forum would pack up if not subsidised by the advertisers.

 

[EddiePJ]

Who is expected to hire these bikes?

Despite only living 40miles away, I have only ever been to London once, and if I ever happen to go there again, I'd just buy a tube or bus pass for the day. I would imagine that public transport would offer more scope and freedom than pedalling around an unknown city, amongst heavy traffic and without a clue of where it would be safe to leave the bike.

As tourists would probably be the main users (I guess) I don't see any benefit for the trade, and as said with the abuse that hire stuff gets, the bikes would need to be like tanks.

 

[mountainsport]

If the e-bikes are built to the tank like standards of the unpowered ones, no-one will be doing any wheelies! However I think the running costs will be prohibitive. The present unpowered scheme is a financial failure just as I forecast at the outset that it would be. The expected income has failed to materialise due to users only taking advantage of the free period at the start of a ride and only Barclays two major contributions have masked the failure. The mayor isn't willing to reveal the facts which itself is indicative of all not being well.

I'm completely opposed to all these subsidised schemes, in every sphere fit users should bear the entire costs and all subsidies for any purpose are wrong. The farm subsidies of Common Agricultural Policy are prime examples of the chaotic outcome that all subsidies bring.

I'm sure that politicians nowadays feed on the word 'failure'. And the hurtful thing is that they will never suffer or fall flat on their faces because once your a politician you are set for life.

MS

 

[Clockwise]

I think it's bad. I ride in london and I already give far too much space to boris bike riders as they can get themselves killed and me with them, lost count of the number of times I have stopped to help a cyclist who has had a spill and looked over to see it was a boris bike they had tumbled off of. Typical boris bike riders are very poorly equiped for riding(wrong shoes, clothing, iffy maintained brakes/bike, little road sense, no helmet, no hi-vis ect ect) and giving them 15mph of assistance to play with is dangerous, the current bikes are geared so they can't get going fast so maybe 10mph if you pedel with all your might or a little more if you find one of the few hills in the boris bike areas.

As for the financial failure it is all based on tfl being crap at making bike paths and roads safe. I have used similar schemes in paris, koln, antwep, brussels and other places on holiday that the boris bikes want to copy but without investing in the cycle paths and roads to make the idea more safe and attractive. People don't want to borrow a bike to ride down dual carriageways in the middle of a rush hour in a space that is "shared/dominated" with/by cars, buses and trucks, might even go as far as saying you couldn't pay some people to bike along london roads. Local councils seem to have more influence over road layouts than safety and some of the more recent changes I have seen orientate around adding speed cameras, boxes, traffic lights(with cameras) and so generating revenue from motorists which can produce some of the most dangerous road layouts for cyclists as people drive in weird ways to avoid the fines(slowing down then flooring it across a yellow box to not get trapped).

But yeah, I can't see it going well.

 

[mountainsport]

This forum would pack up if not subsidised by the advertisers.

Good point you had made, but I don't think that flecc was referring to advertising he was specifically targeting the field of politics .

MS.

 

[the_killjoy]

They had better make sure the batteries are wel secured or people will be doing swappsies

 

[john h]

This is what comes of letting boris the boffune on a free holiday to china ( on the pretex of drumming up trade) wonder if ebikes come free when you buy a nuclear power station.

 

[MikeyBikey]

And he gets them charged up for free for 35yrs
So not so daft after all, even if when he arrived, they thought the circus had come to town :-D
Mikey

 

[flecc]

This forum would pack up if not subsidised by the advertisers.

This forum is not subsidised by advertisers, that is a misunderstanding of the true position. We the members, managed by the administrator, are producing the forum content and that content exists because of our efforts. Therefore we are little different from any management and team of employees producing a product, and in fact rather like a TV channel business. In this case the product is a media window which advertisers can use to sell their wares, their payments for that service being the same as payment from customers to a business for any other product. And like any business this site uses that customer income to cover it's costs and hopefully leave a profit.

Nowhere is there any subsidy involved.
.

 

[john h]

yes mikey he will need to get them charged for free, at todays prices he would not be able to run them.