London’s bike hire scheme has completed its first ten days of operations and seems to be poised for future greatness. Here are a few personal observations.

While a few glitches were reported, the service is well-designed and from my own personal experience, is working well, too. Two weeks ago I signed up for the scheme for a year (£45) and within three days received my electronic key (£3), along with a map of docking stations across London. It was reassuring to see a map of central London peppered with over 400 locations.

I couldn't wait to try it. When the scheme went live on Friday, 30 July, I only had a few minutes time to test it, so I undocked from one station and rode 60 seconds to the next one, re-docked and marveled at how easy it all was. In that minute, I realised the bikes are heavy (23 kilos), but I didn’t understand how undersized for my 6’9” frame they actually are. While the saddle is height adjustable, it wasn’t until Saturday morning when I took a bike for a proper road test and my thighs started protesting that I felt just how much work peddling these sturdy two wheelers was going to be. Fast bikes they are not – built for comfort, not for speed, as Howlin’ Wolf used to sing. Riders will certainly not be able to compete with the “professional” cyclists of London. But perhaps we could have our own freeride team to compete with the Velib-istes of Paris:

Whatever we do with the bikes, the service really works. I imagine that it is intended for users like myself who:

•    don’t own a bike
•    don’t want to deal with storing a bike
•    are afraid of having their bike stolen
•    can’t be bothered to maintain a bike

and those of us who are happy to ride a bicycle on a casual basis for short trips. It is a healthy (apart from having to breathe Europe’s worst air) alternative to tube and bus, an independent transport option for getting round the city. 

The service is making good use of technology. A nifty, free iPhone app from FIPLAB helps you to determine your nearest docking station, bike and docking slot availability and to plan routes. Version 2.0 has just been released and makes some nice improvements on the original, though the search functionality doesn’t always deliver reliable results.

In addition to a Google Maps widget showing cycle locations across the city, the TfL website allows members to log on to see their complete biking history, with elapsed journey time and point to point travel information. As the bikes are equipped with RFID, their movements can be remotely monitored. This offers great possibilities for more “fun” sides to the service, such as road races, rallies and even personal training. It would be great to have an annual Boris Bike Marathon. Maybe Apple could support it with their new bike tracking app.

The biggest issue with the scheme seems to be the name. Barclays branding is already a fixture in British minds, but do we really want London blanketed with this particular identity? Our very own Anja Klüver represented Prospect’s views when she responded to a 5 Aug Design Week VoxPop asking designers “What alternative name would you have given to the London bicycle hire scheme, which is currently called Barclays Cycle Hire?”.  A few other designers chimed in, but there are no easy answers to the question. In this age of austerity and slashed public spending, are we happy to support rapacious corporations by riding around with their name stencilled across our arses because they’ve kicked £25 million into something that is good for us? Not really. But could Boris (and Ken, who started the ball rolling) have done it without corporate dosh?