London Saddles up!

Posted by: Fiona Cameron

If you live or travel into Central London you can't have escaped there's a new toy in town.

Look around and you'll notice blue cycle lanes and rows and rows of cycles. They're part of the new TFL 'Barclay's Cycle hire scheme' and the blue, (Barclay's Blue of course), road markings show the start of what will be 12 super cycle highways linking London and the suburbs by 2012. TFL are investing over £111 million pounds this year to promote cycling in the capital.  The new Barclays Cycle Hire scheme is trying to reproduce the success of a similar scheme 'Velib' in Paris. The intended benefits to Londoners are to make cycling accessible, safe and direct.  We wonder will non-cyclers be persuaded to jump on the new bikes and cycle across town for meetings instead of jumping on the tube?  If more workplaces offer showers and lockers for cyclists this may encourage more employees to cycle. Wouldn't it be lovely to see a cycling revolution?  Who wouldn't want less traffic and pollution in London and a relaxed European atmosphere?

Need to Know

So if you're interested in getting back in the saddle here's what you need to know about the new scheme:

• *Registration for the year costs £45 to become a member

• *You can choose weekly and daily plans and don't need to be a member (you can pay at the cycle points or online)

• *If you register as a member and enter all the usual personal details you'll be sent a key that you then need to activate

• *The key itself costs £3 (so most users will pay £45 and £3 for the key)

• Note: sadly there was a missed opportunity to intergrate pricing with the Oyster Travelcard

• *You then use your key to unlock your hire bike or you can pay at the docking points if you're not a member

• *Cycle around and return it to any of the hire bike docking stations

• *The bikes are available to use 24 hours a day, seven days a week (let's hope people remember not to drink and cycle!)

• *The scheme is aimed at short hops on the bikes as the first 30mins use are free so you can nip across a lot of Central London in that time

The bikes are heavy and don't come with locks so you may find the app links below handy for how to locate where your nearest docking station is

Click on the handy video here to find out more about how it all works.

Some more info:

• *There's over 6000 hire bicycles
• *400 sites to pick them up
• *Each docking station should only be around 300 metres apart
   

Handy Apps and Maps

This is where your Smartphone can really come into it's own. As many riders find it hard to locate where the docking station is to deposit their bike safely eg if they want to nip into a shop. Out and about and fancy a spin? Well try any of these apps to help you locate where your nearest Barclays cycle hire stop is:

cyclehireapp.com
m.layar.com/open/tflcyclehire
londoncycleapp.com

Here's a handy Google Map of where to find the bikes from TimeOut, just click here.

We wonder if some of the new cycle cafes that have sprung up in London will also cater for these big cycle hire bikes too. Have a peek at a recommended one here called 'Look mum no hands'.

The TfL website http://www.tfl.gov.uk/roadusers/cycling has a host of useful information about cycling in London. It's well worth a look if it's ages since you have ridden.

PS If you want to keep informed on the Bike scheme and charges you may love this forum Boris Bikes