full rigid monster downhill bike for central london!

psymon

Couldnt quite believe this, I had to double take when I read it

its an article about a new rental bike scheme like they have in Paris that is being implamented in London

"At 23kg (51lb) the bikes weigh almost twice that of an average cycle, but prove surprisingly easy to manoeuvre."

51 lbs!!!!!! for a full rigid commuter bike. What they made of pig iron.
Id rather try and peddle my motorbike.
think we need Jon Whyte on the case to rethink this.



full story
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 132781.ece

JonnyN

Of course they won't be superlight.... they need to be as cheap as possible!

nicklouse

psymon wrote:

51 lbs!!!!!! for a full rigid commuter bike. What they made of pig iron.
Id rather try and peddle my motorbike.
think we need Jon Whyte on the case to rethink this.

yep he would make it a nice round 60 lbs

psymon

i know they aint gonna be light but 51 lbs seems a little excessive.
wouldnt want to go uphill on one, plus just a guess, they wont be graced with a wide range of gears.

Anonymous

psymon wrote:

i know they aint gonna be light but 51 lbs seems a little excessive.
wouldnt want to go uphill on one, plus just a guess, they wont be graced with a wide range of gears.

Well, it IS in London.

bails87

At 51lbs it would flatten out any hills!

Mickey Eye

The ones we have in Oslo are of a different design, but not much lighter than that, maybe 17-18kg. With 3 or 5 speeds (some are older than others) they can be made to go pretty quick, even up hill. And this is Oslo so we know hills.

Yours are expensive though, ours have a token yearly fee of about £10 and then you can use them as much as you want. The rest is paid for by advertisement. Sadly due to a disagreement between the council and the operators (Clearchannel) our system hasn't been expanded by as much as it should have been so I have to walk 10 minutes from my house to get to the nearest stand.

Otherwise they are brilliant, especially for going out in the summer. Or if your plans are a bit vague and you're not sure what you are going to do.

cee

psymon wrote:

wouldnt want to go uphill on one

this was an issue in Paris. They discovered that bike stations at the bottom of hills had loads of bikes, while bike stations at the top of hills had very few.

I think they go round in vans and redistribute the bikes to the top of the hill now...

gpsBRM

I rode one of these at the bike show in Earls Court. Know it was only round a flat indoor track, but they were easy enough to handle and didn't fell like they weighed "twice as much as the average bike". They didn't feel cheap either, but quite well made. They're obvoiusly not a race bike, but a tool to get you from A to B quicker than walking. Can't wait to try them out in London.

bails87

cee wrote:

I think they go round in vans and redistribute the bikes to the top of the hill now...

Uplift!

CycloRos

I've spent a lot of time in Lyon and they have a similar system there. It works very well, the bikes are fine for the intended purpose of pootling around town I wouldn't want to do any kind of distance on one though!

Northwind

They'll be built to be impervious to all harm, which is always going to add either weight or cost... My brother's old Rufftrak is about 40lbs IIRC so add stronger wheels, more durable tyres etc...