So a bike hire scheme is up and running in London, already nicknamed after the relentless advocate of the idea, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. I haven’t have the chance yet to test out the “Boris Bikes” but I had a look at some of the issues raised up online.

Judging from the pricing this is not a proposition for serious bike-commuters. The “casual” option is not available yet - as in one has to register with the system online with their bank account details and have the account periodically debited. The option to pay at the docking station will be available “soon”.

Payment with Oyster card is not available yet either and I think that might be a major bummer. One has to invest £3 in a membership key, but that’s fair enough - presumably it is to stop people from losing them left and right.

The price comprises of two parts

access fee + usage charge (clever?)

Access fee is £1 for a day, £5 for a week and £45 for a year. Then you pay each time you use the bike, except the journeys under 30 min which are free. Next one is up to an hour for £1. Up to 1,5 hour the charge is £4 (full pricing list here).

This is an ok solution for people with the “last mile” problem. If your commute to work from tube station takes under 30 minutes by bike, I say you can buy the £45 yearly pass and use it to hearts content. That is if there’s a docking station near the tube and another one near your work. And if there are bikes available.

Apparently the biking system already shows a familiar usage pattern - in the morning all bikes travel from the communication points to office areas and back in the evening. You might be in trouble if you work unusual hours.

If, however, the routes you’d typically take are over 30 minutes and - lets say - under 1 hour the situation is thus:

£45 fee for a year

lets take the average of 252 working days per year. Due to weather + annual leave you would probably use the bike for half of these, which gives us 126 days. Two trips under an hour would mean £2 daily.

£252 in usage charges + £45 membership fee = £297 a year for work commute. Add the tube or whatever you’d use to make the bigger part of your journey. Unless you live really close to your work. In which case you might well buy a bike for £300 and use it whenever you want.

So, not an option for serious commuting, but once the “Casual” payment option is there it might be a nice option early June to late September.