They’re not stealing them. They are borrowing them. There is no intention to keep them. Same as the company Lime are ‘borrowing’ the roadways and paths where they leave their unlocked and unprotected.
property.
Reality should be faced , that this commercial,operator are providing a free service to those who can’t otherwise access it. Try cycling a clicking 30kg lump up a hill, no electric assist. It’s not free.
This is back payment for staking out and trying to privatise the kings highway and pavements , turning up and dumping trip hazards all over the place, imagine being partially sighted or blind and falling over them.happens a lot.
On he bright side a lot of non cyclists now know how to cycle. Learning the hard way , breaking collar bones on over powered lumps. And kids get free school trips, evidenced by all the bikes outside of schools in the morning . Anything that keeps car use down in a London is great!
Can I borrow your wallet? And your car? Don’t worry, I have absolutely no intention of keeping them — just a quick joyride and maybe a snack run. Totally fine, right?
Love the Robin Hood energy though — teenage vigilantes liberating e-bikes from the evil Lime overlords. True social justice on two wheels!
Guess you could do ‘IF I WAS TO LEAVE IT UNATTENDED ON THE PAVEMENT SO A CLOWN LIKE YOU COULD TAKE IT.’ (see what I did there).. got any more bright repartee?
Ah, I see - your logic is: if it’s left unattended in public, it’s fair game. Got it. I’ll swing by your place later and see what’s lying around. Hope your bike lock’s as loose as your moral compass.
Yeah feel free to drop over, keyboard warrior. Bet you live somewhere posh your folks paid for, so don’t bother lecturing us all on ‘moral compasses’ ,mr self righteous. And dont fall over any lime bikes some teenagers dumped. Or get scared.
I’ll try not to trip over a Lime - I rarely touch the pavement, darling. My driver would be mortified. Jealous of “posh people”? Try working - it helps with poverty.
Labour really should start worrying about their rear flank, it's a lot softer than they think. A non-crackers Green Party would take a lot of votes off them in London.
I appreciate we must all genuflect beyond the eternal wisdom of the Red Wall, but Labour would be daft not to throw London voters a bit of cash.
Quite. There's only so many times you can make it clear that Londoners will only be rewarded if they vote somewhere else before they actually start doing it.
I'd be curious to know why the Lime ebikes are so easily hackable, but not the Human Forest or other companies.
Also - I feel like all the eBike providers have massively jacked up their prices over the past year. It would be interesting to see if they are now rolling in profit.
This entire publication is reported on an e-bike that does 2,000+ miles across London every year! And in a previous life when running late I’d happily get a bus a few stops to the station - feels fine!
And a lot of legit Lime users (I live in Brent where they’re a real menace, to the degree that the council threatened to ban them) say they’re doing it instead of walking to the station - hence the dump of Limes outside stations. They admit it saves them a 15 minute walk! So it’s not subbing for cars.
I don’t disagree that people in general need to be keeping active but Lime bikes aren’t the significant issue for that.
Usage of bikes and scooters is nuanced - you are correct that some people probably should just walk, but others are using them to make busy lives just a bit more achievable, or to feel safer getting somewhere rather than walking on their own.
How all the hire vehicles impact our streets is a real issue - but your original point was about people’s laziness.
The batteries also increase the weight significantly as Jim has noted, making them more hazardous for others. Shocking waste of precious lithium too.
I cycle commuted in London for years (until an SUV encounter) and think now I’d be too scared also of Lime and Forest users with no road skills and no manners. Bad enough as a pedestrian.
The hacked lime bikes are essentially a teenage manual bike hire scheme as they don’t engage the motor so are big heavy and slow free transport for them. I love it!
there must be a reason the dockless manual rental bikes got scrapped. I remember berlin was packed with them back in 2017, they clogged up every street corner far worse than lime bikes did.
I actually prefer them to the Ebikes, and were way way cheaper, like 1€ for 30 minutes or something. Possibly london had similar schemes at the time, im not sure. Im guessing theyre easier to rob/break. Wonder will they make a comeback for the cash poor youth
Two interesting Lime Bike-related things happened to me in the last week: first, I realised that in spots where lots of people park the bikes at a similar time (in this case - near to Canada Water tube station at about 8.15 in the morning), even after you've recorded the end of your journey in the app, the bikes sometimes don't respond- so several school kids were sitting around the spot and, in a surprisingly orderly fashion, waiting their turn to take an unlocked bike, after a commuter had finished recording the end of their journey. I then noticed the same behaviour near Holborn, where about 50 bikes were parked, many still with their lights on (indicating that they were still active). It's possible that one or two people walk off without finishing the journey in the app, but there were too many still-on bikes for this to be the only explanation. I wonder if the underlying tech gets confused if there are loads of bikes in a small area, or possibly where local mobile signal is overstretched (to give a nod to another Londoncentric story).
The second thing was: I parked a bike in a parking area near home recently. Quite often, I get to this area to find that a load of bikes are lying on the floor (due to either wind or kids). So I usually spend a couple of minutes putting them upright. This time, a guy was already in the process of doing just that (I'd seen him get off a Lime Bike just before I got there, but he hadn't locked the bike). I told him I'd never seen anyone bothering to do that before, and he replied "I'm one of the Lime Spies". I asked him what he meant, and he told me that he was paid by Lime to cycle around London, looking for bikes that were not upright, and stand them up - taking 'before' and 'after' photos. He said there was a Facebook group for this. He also said he was homeless until very recently. I didn't want to enquire about exactly how much he gets paid to do this, but I thought it was interesting. He then cycled off, looking for more bikes to stand up...
Been thinking for a while that if the beeping actually breaks the bikes like the clicking did, it'd probably be cheaper for Lime just to allow 14 to 18 year olds to use them for free.
SXSW were giving away tickets like crazy probably, I work on the NHS and we have a few websites where we can get tickets for free and I was very surprised to see SXSW on a couple of them.
Ugh, I use them all the time, but do find it depressing how often they have been vandalised/broken. It's a pain in the ass when there's only one, you're in a rush, and you realise there's a pedal missing... Or you zip off, and then work out the brakes are knackered. Cheers for the coverage - hopefully Lime will keep working on it.
Petition to keep the beep - it's always a handy reminder to put my phone back in my pocket...
But if they slowed down too much to steal your phone then there’s a risk the bike would lock!
I like the beep because it warns me and other pedestrians that they’re coming and I can take evasive action to avoid getting mown down.
They’re not stealing them. They are borrowing them. There is no intention to keep them. Same as the company Lime are ‘borrowing’ the roadways and paths where they leave their unlocked and unprotected.
property.
Reality should be faced , that this commercial,operator are providing a free service to those who can’t otherwise access it. Try cycling a clicking 30kg lump up a hill, no electric assist. It’s not free.
This is back payment for staking out and trying to privatise the kings highway and pavements , turning up and dumping trip hazards all over the place, imagine being partially sighted or blind and falling over them.happens a lot.
On he bright side a lot of non cyclists now know how to cycle. Learning the hard way , breaking collar bones on over powered lumps. And kids get free school trips, evidenced by all the bikes outside of schools in the morning . Anything that keeps car use down in a London is great!
Can I borrow your wallet? And your car? Don’t worry, I have absolutely no intention of keeping them — just a quick joyride and maybe a snack run. Totally fine, right?
Love the Robin Hood energy though — teenage vigilantes liberating e-bikes from the evil Lime overlords. True social justice on two wheels!
Guess you could do ‘IF I WAS TO LEAVE IT UNATTENDED ON THE PAVEMENT SO A CLOWN LIKE YOU COULD TAKE IT.’ (see what I did there).. got any more bright repartee?
Ah, I see - your logic is: if it’s left unattended in public, it’s fair game. Got it. I’ll swing by your place later and see what’s lying around. Hope your bike lock’s as loose as your moral compass.
Yeah feel free to drop over, keyboard warrior. Bet you live somewhere posh your folks paid for, so don’t bother lecturing us all on ‘moral compasses’ ,mr self righteous. And dont fall over any lime bikes some teenagers dumped. Or get scared.
I’ll try not to trip over a Lime - I rarely touch the pavement, darling. My driver would be mortified. Jealous of “posh people”? Try working - it helps with poverty.
An ‘ad hominem’ attack? Is that all you got? Something about working… Got any more super sharp put downs?
Forget the Google press office, speak to the builders doing the fit out 😉
Labour really should start worrying about their rear flank, it's a lot softer than they think. A non-crackers Green Party would take a lot of votes off them in London.
I appreciate we must all genuflect beyond the eternal wisdom of the Red Wall, but Labour would be daft not to throw London voters a bit of cash.
London had eight years of Sadiq Khan’s line being that he couldn’t get any money out of an anti-London Tory government. And now, um….
Quite. There's only so many times you can make it clear that Londoners will only be rewarded if they vote somewhere else before they actually start doing it.
I still would want to sit next to Rachel Reeves and ask her the Bianca del Rio question: "tell me something you do successfully, quickly".
The number of kids turning up to secondary school on Lime bikes honestly approaches Dutch levels of bike mode share... There's a huge unmet demand for cycling among young people (as per the work I did in Newham - page 44/45) https://www.newham.gov.uk/downloads/file/7772/newham-sustainable-transport-strategy-2024-
Also the leg workout that comes from having another teenager in the front bucket is always impressive.
Don’t forget how hard it is to pedal an unpowered Lime bike. These kids are getting a serious exercise.
I'd be curious to know why the Lime ebikes are so easily hackable, but not the Human Forest or other companies.
Also - I feel like all the eBike providers have massively jacked up their prices over the past year. It would be interesting to see if they are now rolling in profit.
If there is a teenage hire scheme, it’s got to be “manual” bikes. E-bikes are too powerful and, frankly, they (and others) shouldn’t be so lazy.
This entire publication is reported on an e-bike that does 2,000+ miles across London every year! And in a previous life when running late I’d happily get a bus a few stops to the station - feels fine!
Are (legit) Lime bike users more or less lazy than the 8 million daily users of London’s buses and the Underground?
Youngsters should be doing something active.
And a lot of legit Lime users (I live in Brent where they’re a real menace, to the degree that the council threatened to ban them) say they’re doing it instead of walking to the station - hence the dump of Limes outside stations. They admit it saves them a 15 minute walk! So it’s not subbing for cars.
I don’t disagree that people in general need to be keeping active but Lime bikes aren’t the significant issue for that.
Usage of bikes and scooters is nuanced - you are correct that some people probably should just walk, but others are using them to make busy lives just a bit more achievable, or to feel safer getting somewhere rather than walking on their own.
How all the hire vehicles impact our streets is a real issue - but your original point was about people’s laziness.
The batteries also increase the weight significantly as Jim has noted, making them more hazardous for others. Shocking waste of precious lithium too.
I cycle commuted in London for years (until an SUV encounter) and think now I’d be too scared also of Lime and Forest users with no road skills and no manners. Bad enough as a pedestrian.
The hacked lime bikes are essentially a teenage manual bike hire scheme as they don’t engage the motor so are big heavy and slow free transport for them. I love it!
there must be a reason the dockless manual rental bikes got scrapped. I remember berlin was packed with them back in 2017, they clogged up every street corner far worse than lime bikes did.
I actually prefer them to the Ebikes, and were way way cheaper, like 1€ for 30 minutes or something. Possibly london had similar schemes at the time, im not sure. Im guessing theyre easier to rob/break. Wonder will they make a comeback for the cash poor youth
Two interesting Lime Bike-related things happened to me in the last week: first, I realised that in spots where lots of people park the bikes at a similar time (in this case - near to Canada Water tube station at about 8.15 in the morning), even after you've recorded the end of your journey in the app, the bikes sometimes don't respond- so several school kids were sitting around the spot and, in a surprisingly orderly fashion, waiting their turn to take an unlocked bike, after a commuter had finished recording the end of their journey. I then noticed the same behaviour near Holborn, where about 50 bikes were parked, many still with their lights on (indicating that they were still active). It's possible that one or two people walk off without finishing the journey in the app, but there were too many still-on bikes for this to be the only explanation. I wonder if the underlying tech gets confused if there are loads of bikes in a small area, or possibly where local mobile signal is overstretched (to give a nod to another Londoncentric story).
The second thing was: I parked a bike in a parking area near home recently. Quite often, I get to this area to find that a load of bikes are lying on the floor (due to either wind or kids). So I usually spend a couple of minutes putting them upright. This time, a guy was already in the process of doing just that (I'd seen him get off a Lime Bike just before I got there, but he hadn't locked the bike). I told him I'd never seen anyone bothering to do that before, and he replied "I'm one of the Lime Spies". I asked him what he meant, and he told me that he was paid by Lime to cycle around London, looking for bikes that were not upright, and stand them up - taking 'before' and 'after' photos. He said there was a Facebook group for this. He also said he was homeless until very recently. I didn't want to enquire about exactly how much he gets paid to do this, but I thought it was interesting. He then cycled off, looking for more bikes to stand up...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5rcbUqiZKI Where the term "skulk of foxes" and others originated
Been thinking for a while that if the beeping actually breaks the bikes like the clicking did, it'd probably be cheaper for Lime just to allow 14 to 18 year olds to use them for free.
All sorts of insurance issues I guess.
I genuinely have a lot of admiration for the Lime contractors trying to fight the absolute insane kicking that Londoners give the bikes.
SXSW were giving away tickets like crazy probably, I work on the NHS and we have a few websites where we can get tickets for free and I was very surprised to see SXSW on a couple of them.
Lime bikes are still clacking (and beeping) where I live.
I’m nominating you for the fox investigation Jim. And I hope Google’s AI picks up that photo and reports it as news.
Ugh, I use them all the time, but do find it depressing how often they have been vandalised/broken. It's a pain in the ass when there's only one, you're in a rush, and you realise there's a pedal missing... Or you zip off, and then work out the brakes are knackered. Cheers for the coverage - hopefully Lime will keep working on it.
How do you know if they said 'Q-word' or 'queue-word'?