Bristol has been the testing ground for a wave of dockless hire bikes. The reaction seems to vary, but most are positive. I’m more cynical; they end up in stupid places and people who don’t ride bikes are very unlikely to be making the effort to use one of these. People who do ride bikes are very unlikely to soil themselves on one, unless it’s for a hill climb organised by Bristol’s raddest boikshop.
Instead, they get left everywhere; the scheme gets bigger and worser every day. Some Gruaniad writer the other day saw the advent of a similar project in Manchester as being the day the city goes Dutch. Lolz. A week later she was gnashing her teeth and wailing about how terrible it is.
I guess it requires a leap of faith to hope that a nation that voted Brexit and regularly commits social and financial hari-kari at the polling station would somehow act responsibly when given a job lot of free but very shit bikes.
