Chris Boardman reveals Liverpool City Bike hire scheme

Chris Boardman yesterday revealed Liverpool’s City Bike Hire scheme on the roof of the Central Library.

As of next month, 100 bikes will be distributed among ten key city centre stations, with a total of 500 expected to be available at 50 stations by July. Assuming all goes well, by March 2015, 1,000 bikes will be found at over 100 stations in the region.

Powered by a drive shaft system, the bikes are designed to be a low maintenance, worry free ride, with dynamo powered lights added for night time visibility.

Boardman said at the launch event: "I want to see normal people in normal clothes seeing this as a normal way to get around – with the emphasis being on the word normal!

"There is no chain, so there is nothing to catch your hands on and there are mudguards built in for the British weather.

"LEDs are so low on power that you only have to ride it for about two minutes and then they stay on, say if you stop at a traffic lights. The tyres are Kevlar reinforced so they are puncture resistant."

HourBike Ltd is to operate the hire scheme, as it has done previosuly in Southport, Lincoln and nottingham.

HourBike managing director Tim Caswell added: "The annual subscription would include the first half hour free, so once you’ve paid your subscription, when you think most of the trips you would make would be within half an hour, then you would almost have free use of the bikes."

"Financial sustainability is important to a scheme, so we do ask people to make an investment to use the bikes.

"Once they have signed up to the scheme, cyclists would be given a pin code to access a bike and take it out for a ride. They then just return it to a station."

The Liverpool Echo has more here.