A top official at TfL, in charge of the launch of the London Hire Bikes, passed by the shop and gave us an update:

1. The launch is scheduled for 30th July; all 6000 bicycles will be placed in situ the night before.
2. No brand name has been developed for it. Barclays Bank are sponsoring the project, paying £25million for the privilege of having their name on all the bikes. A cynic may infer that Barclays vetoed clever names for the project, so that people will call them Barclays Bikes by default
3. The ratio of docking sites to bikes is 1.7; the contractors are bound to switch bikes around if a station is full or empty for more than fifteen minutes.
4. Some of the estimated riding times in the official literature are quite optimistic; for instance, Tower Hill to Bond Street in 24 minutes is fantasy for a non-regular cyclist on a fairly heavy bike
5. The bikes have all RFID and the contractors can monitor if a bike has not been redocked for a few hours and will try and get in touch with the credit card holder
6. The bikes have no locks, so try to avoid leaving them unattended away from a docking station

Spot a Barclays Bike in the image on top, by David Dansky, taken at yesterday’s Parliamentary Bike Ride. The two poster tricycles are from Velorution and are ideal for promotional events.

Image below is also by David.