London Centric hired 50 Lime e-bikes in central London and asked an experienced bicycle mechanic to test each one to make sure it was safe to ride. His conclusion was stark: 12% of the e-bikes we rented should be removed from the streets immediately due to concerns such as missing handlebars, flat tyres, or malfunctioning brakes. Yet even after we reported the issues to Lime, the majority of them remained available to hire by other members of the public.
In total nearly half of the bikes had some mechanical issue which could lead to a poor ride or further problems. Of these, 18% of the bikes we tested had missing parts, such as the lights or saddle, while 14% had brake problems.
James Holloway, a specialist cycling instructor and mechanic, conducted a safety check of each e-bike and tested them in an emergency stop situation. He said: “The main issue for me is somebody jumping on a bike that for all intents and purposes looks fine to ride. They suddenly hit the brake hard and they either find it’s not working as well as they’d like it to in the event of trying to avoid a collision — or that it binds on and causes them to skid.”
A Lime spokesperson insisted safety is “our highest priority” and it conducts regular maintenance checks while also relying on customers to report faults at the end of their rides. But London Centric found Lime does not take bikes out of circulation even when it receives reports from users of high-risk faults such as missing handlebars, broken lights or flat tyres.
In one instance, London Centric repeatedly used Lime’s app to report that an e-bike’s saddle was missing but the company kept making it available for someone else to hire.
The Californian company confirmed it does not immediately stop a bicycle from being hired when a damage report is filed because customers might be overstating the severity of the problem. A Lime spokesperson said: "Given high levels of rider subjectivity and erroneous reporting, we will mark the vehicle for inspection from our team, but we do not remove it from service unless additional reports are received from recent riders." They did not specify how many reports needed to be received for a bike to be taken out of action.
The exception to this rule is if Lime receives any concerns about an e-bike’s brakes, which prompts a near-immediate immobilisation of the vehicle until a mechanic can check it out.
The company told London Centric it is hiring 100 extra staff to check bikes on the streets of the capital: “Lime’s industry-leading approach to safety has resulted in 99.99% of trips ending without a reported incident, and we continue to strive to ensure every ride ends safely.”
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Lime is not regulated when it comes to ensuring the safety and maintenance of its bicycles in London, beyond having to comply with general consumer safety laws. The company is valued at billions of dollars following investment from the likes of Uber and has flooded London with tens of thousands of bicycles in recent years as it prepares for a lucrative stock market listing.
The vehicles have become a popular fixture of London life, opening up cycling to new audiences and filling gaps in the transport network, while also infuriating others who find their pavement blocked by the ubiquitous e-bikes. Lime claims that nearly half of Londoners aged 18-34 hire one of its e-bikes in any given week, with the total number of journeys increasing by 85% last year.
London Centric has previously reported on the concerns of NHS doctors over a spate of motorcycle-style leg breaks experienced by Lime customers, with some of the capital’s orthopaedic surgeons now wryly referring to a double leg fracture as “a Lime bike leg”. But this is the first time there has been an attempt to assess the maintenance standards of the bikes available to rent on the city’s streets.
Each Lime bike in London Centric’s test had a basic check of key components, wheels, and brakes before being taken for a test ride and emergency stop. The bicycles were all hired on fringes of central London last Monday, while walking in a line between Angel tube station and Old Street.
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Holloway, the bicycle specialist, found that almost half of the bikes hired (48%) had some sort of mechanical issue, ranging from loose kickstands to broken spokes on the wheels. Many of these issues would not affect a typical commuter getting to work, even if it might lead to an uncomfortable ride or lead to further issues down the line.
Some of these bikes had more serious issues: 18% of them were found to be missing components — ranging from saddles to lights and kickstands — while 14% of the bikes were judged to have brakes that were not working, damaged, or deteriorating.
Holloway said he would suggest 12% of the bikes needed to be immediately taken out of circulation for heavy maintenance: “They’re out in the wild, they’re going to get used a lot, they’re going to get damaged. The main issue is people need to be reporting things back to Lime more effectively — and Lime needs to be more responsive when they do get a report.”
The mechanic said he hoped that no one would try to ride an e-bike with a broken handlebar but that doesn’t mean all is well with Lime’s system: “That they are available to hire means more needs to be done to get them out of circulation.”
The logistics operation to ensure Lime remains the dominant rental e-bike provider in the capital goes far beyond the bikes themselves. Although it might appear to Londoners that Lime bikes are scattered randomly across the city based on where the last customer finished their ride, in reality there are fleets of white vans which are constantly redistributing extra e-bikes around the capital and returning damaged e-bikes to maintenance depots. Other contractors circle the city replacing the heavy duty batteries on the e-bikes with fully-charged versions.
Vassily, a Lime contractor who spotted London Centric’s test in process, described rescuing 25 Lime bikes from a lake the previous day. He said some Londoners deliberately break the bikes so they can report a fault and don’t have to pay for the ride: “If you crash it, it’s not your problem, it’s an us problem. We go repair, change the battery, many things, make [it] like brand new.”
He briefly paused from unloading freshly maintained e-bikes from a van to show London Centric the internal Lime system used for and directing support staff to check out vehicles that might need taking in for repair, suggesting that poor cultural attitudes towards other people’s belongings among the London public is partly to blame for the state of the bikes.
Regular Lime bike users who spoke to London Centric said they were used to finding a large proportion of damaged e-bikes and accepted it as part of the experience of using the service. One man dropping a bike off at Old Street during London Centric’s test said he had started conducting checks before hiring through Lime: “I would say around 20-30% of the time something’s wrong. But in general they’re pretty good.”
A Lime spokesperson said: “Our e-bikes and e-scooters undergo regular inspection and maintenance, with a greater emphasis placed on those receiving reports of issues and/or low trip ratings from users. Alongside reports from riders, we closely monitor our vehicle data and will proactively identify and collect vehicles based on a range of factors. We appreciate the support of our riders in alerting us to issues they discover with our vehicles, and we regularly remind riders to check key components of a vehicle prior to starting a ride.”
Lime is currently engaged in a major lobbying campaign in London, trying to move beyond headlines about disputes with councils over bad e-bike parking and instead focus on the role the company can play in “London's sustainable future”. Having established itself as the dominant market player and driven out some smaller, less well-funded rivals, the company is promising to invest £20m in London. This will be spent on more designated parking spaces and hiring a 100 extra staff to help move bikes around.
This public relations campaign can throw up some unusual coincidences. In January London Centric ran a story in which an NHS surgeon stated he was seeing substantial numbers of Lime bike riders ending up on his operating table. Weeks later, an advert began appearing on the social media feeds of Londoners featuring a different NHS trauma surgeon talking about his love for the vehicles.
London Centric has previously revealed how personal injury lawyers are bringing at least a dozen safety cases against Lime in London, amid concerns that the design and maintenance of its e-bikes is contributing to injuries.
Bike mechanic Holloway said it’s important not to lose track of the benefits of introducing cycling to new audiences and pointed out that Lime’s operation is an enormous undertaking involving a large fleet of e-bikes that are constantly in use: “There’s always going to be a lot of playing catch-up with the issues.”
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