UKC

I'll start by saying I'm not sure what I'm trying to achieve with this post, other than just share some thoughts.  But let's see how it goes.

Yesterday I found myself in Belfast for the day with some time to kill so rented a nextbike, it's the first time I've ever used this sort of service.  For some nieve reason I thought that the bikes would be in tip top condition but man was I wrong!  The first one I tried constantly ghost shifted and made weird clunking and squeaky noises - turns out from what I could see of the drivetrain it was hopelessly rusty.  The next one didn't shift at all and the brakes where knackered (though the chain was clean).  The next one had a semi-flat front tyre... I was learning pretty fast!  I finally found one that didn't squeak, had brakes and peddling was vaguely comfortable (though it was another non-shifter).  I bodged the dodgy seatpost so that it was the right height and didn't wander around and finally set out.

The next challenge was navigation, in a city I was unfamiliar with, and then as the thing was epically slow adapting my riding style in traffic - usually I'd move at city traffic speed and could mostly just merge with the traffic as if I was a car, but no chance on this thing.

Anyway after a rough start we made our peace - I pretty much kept off the roads and bimbled up the river on a pedestrian/cycle path.

The thing I can't get my head round is how dangerous the whole thing is - the fleet is obviously in a poor state of maintenance and yet it is marketed for tourists/those new to cycling to just hop on and head off.  Perhaps my experience was skewed by having the confidence to ride on roads, whereas tourists/neophytes woud stick to the cycle paths?

And then there was the state of the docking stations where about 25% of the docks seemed to be held together by gaffer tape.

You get the picture.  Any thoughts anyone?  Are these schemes viable?  How do you safely maintain a fleet of bikes that get used and abused and spend their entire lives outdoors in the elements?

My experience of hire cars in Ireland is similar, 6month old golf, every panel had damage. 

Nextbike are absolute shit. There are a few of these services around obviously, and I’ve used multiple - but your nextbike experience matches my own. Some have a few duff bikes, but generally ones which work - it’s less a bike share problem, and more a next bike problem.

Ah well that's helpful to know that other services might be better at least.  To be fair the app was absolutely fine, it was just the bikes and docking stations that were complete rubbish.

I've used the Villo Bikes in Brussels and my partner used to use the *ahem* Santander Cycles in London regularly for her commute and we've not had problems with either. Apart from putting in the maintenance work to keep the things basically working, I think the key is to be somewhere with developed enough cycling infrastructure (and cycling culture generally) that you don't need a highly optimized street-survival-machine and a carefully worked-out route in order to get somewhere safely. Not a public hire thing, but I've also ridden an AirBnB owner's spare bike - a sit-up-and-beg thing with swept-back cruiser handlebars and a backpedal brake, which felt very strange to ride and would normally terrify me but which was fine in a sleepy suburb of Utrecht because it's such a chilled out place to cycle generally.