"The main issue for me is somebody jumping on a bike that for all intents and purposes looks fine to ride," said our mechanic. Plus: Paying subscribers can view an exclusive documentary of our test.
Mad that there is zero regulation. You could literally kill yourself or seriously injure someone else if the brakes fail (along with the other things) but how can you test the brakes before you hire the bike as you can’t move the thing until you’ve signed in.
"The company told London Centric it is hiring 100 extra staff to check bikes on the streets of the capital"
Well I've not seen these roles being advertised. Are they really hiring skilled mechanics or just more contractors using the juicer app? I am doubtful.
This video is really well done! I use Lime bikes almost daily and I'd say the ratio of broken vs "perfect" bikes is higher than reported, at least in my personal experience.
Thanks for the kind words on the video! I'm still a regular user of Lime bikes myself... but my personal experience is that you can find some serious clangers. No one pretends it's easy to maintain them but it feels they might need to up the standards a bit.
Not sure how eco friendly having vans collecting and moving bikes around is. These sound like death traps. How is a missing saddle or handles not an immediate issue? Who is riding them in that state?
Missing saddles aren't an immediate issue - it's easy to spot and no-one will hire that bike. That bike won't be earning for Lime, but it will be cheaper to wait until several bikes in that area need to be collected for repairs than to rush out and get it at once.
I'd assume the service vans are electric - it's the perfect use case for an electric vehicle.
That said, I'd question the eco friendliness of the whole setup. Where they replace walking, public transport or non-electric bikes they are a less eco friendly alternative. Where they replace car journeys it's great of course, but I don't think there's much of that in (central) London.
Mindblown that there is actually an incentive to break the bikes, and it seems there is not enough measures to blacklist users...
Mad that there is zero regulation. You could literally kill yourself or seriously injure someone else if the brakes fail (along with the other things) but how can you test the brakes before you hire the bike as you can’t move the thing until you’ve signed in.
That's such a good point - you've already hired by that point.
"The company told London Centric it is hiring 100 extra staff to check bikes on the streets of the capital"
Well I've not seen these roles being advertised. Are they really hiring skilled mechanics or just more contractors using the juicer app? I am doubtful.
This video is really well done! I use Lime bikes almost daily and I'd say the ratio of broken vs "perfect" bikes is higher than reported, at least in my personal experience.
Thanks for the kind words on the video! I'm still a regular user of Lime bikes myself... but my personal experience is that you can find some serious clangers. No one pretends it's easy to maintain them but it feels they might need to up the standards a bit.
Not sure how eco friendly having vans collecting and moving bikes around is. These sound like death traps. How is a missing saddle or handles not an immediate issue? Who is riding them in that state?
Missing saddles aren't an immediate issue - it's easy to spot and no-one will hire that bike. That bike won't be earning for Lime, but it will be cheaper to wait until several bikes in that area need to be collected for repairs than to rush out and get it at once.
I'd assume the service vans are electric - it's the perfect use case for an electric vehicle.
That said, I'd question the eco friendliness of the whole setup. Where they replace walking, public transport or non-electric bikes they are a less eco friendly alternative. Where they replace car journeys it's great of course, but I don't think there's much of that in (central) London.