I’m in London. As a dutchie I love my bicycle and riding it. So what do you do? You ride a bike in London.
The software of the renting poles can be improved qute a bit. I tried to rent 2 bikes. One for me and one for my girlfriend. Everytime I tried that the software crashed on me. Luckily renting one bike worked. then I used the app to rent another bike.
So we went on our merry way. The pricing is very fair. You rent one bike for 24 hours. This costs £2. Every trip with it within 30 minutes is free. Any longer and you pay £2 per 30 minutes. So as good tourists we kept all our trips within 30 minutes and could ride our bikes for £4 all day.
London isn’t Amsterdam. It feels really dangerous to step on a bike here, but it is getting better. There are now these things called cycle superhighways. In the Netherlands these ‘highways’ would be called regular bike paths. And the highways end fairly randomly and then you have no idea where you are going. It feels too much like an expedition. Which is a good for a tourist, bad for a commuter.
But while the tourist sees all the streets for the first time. The commuter can explore all roads and plan a safe route. Then biking becomes a real option. As an alternative to the hot London underground. But the best thing is to combine those two. The cycle superhighways have good signage where underground stations are.
I think cycling in London is here to stay. I really look forward to visiting London again in a few years to see how everything had improved. In the Netherlands we are spoiled, and it is really exciting to see other countries following the lead.