Cycle hire services or bike hire services are big in London right now and many new are opening. This method is slowly becoming an easy and affordable way to move around the city, perfect for locals and tourists. You can save money and, at the same time, you can enjoy all the things we recommend you see in the city without worrying about the traffic.
This way of transportation offers a lot of benefits in the long run for the city, besides the environmental impact. By transporting yourself this way, you are gaining a lot of health benefits because you are doing exercise. Another big benefit is that this is cheap; you don’t have to buy a bike.
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Why bike hire services in London are a thing again?
Cycle hires have existed for a lot of time but right now many large schemes are appearing again in the city. Now there are almost 25000 bikes to hire in London and many companies are using this service. there are also bikes on many platforms awaiting tourists or anybody who wants to save time and avoid the traffic.
There are many public spaces with pools of bikes that you can use, they are safe and work with smart locks to keep the bikes. Many local places have this service now and you can enjoy it almost everywhere on the outside of London. Most of the services use dockless bikes, you can check where they are online and you can also reserve them.
Beryl
Beryl is one of the services that has escalated recently and is one of the best you can hire. The bikes are tracked with a GPS, which is on the bike; this means you can use it to circulate instead of the phone. If you are a tourist this will save your phone battery and you can have your attention on the road.
Instead of being dockless, Beryl uses bays to leave the bikes, these are painted and you can’t miss them. You can’t leave these bikes anywhere as the other services but, if you are a local you can pay a fee to leave it wherever.
Santander Cycles, a.k.a Boris Bikes
This is the first bike hire scheme in London and has over 11000 to pick distributed over 750 docking stations. Most of the city has docking stations for these bikes and they are very easy to hire. You will need to insert your credit or debit card in the terminal at the dock and that’s it, you can use it for 30 minutes from dock to dock.
If you want to use the bike for more time, it will charge an extra fee – the same you paid for the first 30 minutes – but it’s cheap still. After you rode everywhere you wanted to, you just leave it in another docking station and that’s it.
Lime
These bikes are backed by Uber and they are very popular. The Lime docks are spread through London so you can use them to cycle across the city and the bikes themselves are very colourful. You can find them using the Lime app and the docks will be marked on the map, which is user-friendly. To unlock any of these bikes you will need to scan a QR Code and that’s it.
You can leave these bikes anywhere because the app tracks their unit via GPS. This is like Beryl, but there are some areas where you can’t. This could be a little bit confusing but this means you can leave the cycles beyond certain points.
Once you scan the QR code, your ride will start and the bike will charge you according to the use you gave to it. As an e-bike, this will help your cycling, so you can save the sweats. The impulse they provide is very helpful if you have to meet somebody or just want to be clean. When you finish the ride, say “End ride” to the app, and it will send you a confirmation.
Mobike
Being one of the smallest bike hire services in London, you can just move around the centre of the city and almost nowhere else. You can unlock the bikes using your phone, similar to Lime because they use e-bikes too. Again, the bikes work with electricity so they can help your cycling, which means you don’t have to do all of the work by yourself.
This is probably the most expensive service of all, charging £1 for only 20 minutes. On the other hand, this is a perfect service if you are a local. Mobike gives you unlimited use for only £9.90, being one of the cheapest.
JUMP
JUMP is the main Uber service of bike hire in London and you can find these bikes through their app. You can unlock them using the app, just scan the ride and unlock it from their bay. In case you don’t like Uber, this is a perfect alternative. They are faster than traffic, and they have a big basket for your things and an amount for your smartphone in case you need the GPS.
Unfortunately, this alternative doesn’t work in the whole city of London but you can still go to all the main places in the centre. On the bright side, you can leave and pick the cycles whenever they are. The app doesn’t make clear boundaries of where to use them, so be careful where you leave them.
Ofo Bike
You can leave the Ofo bikes anywhere too and you won’t miss them because they are bright yellow. Again, you access these e-bikes through the app and it will charge you. This is the cheapest bike hire in London, at least for us, and they can be used only in their operational zone, which is small.
You can see the areas where you can leave the bike in the app, and if you go across any of the invalid areas you will have to pay an extra fee. Anyways this shouldn’t be a worry if you stay within the area of central London.
