Bike-sharing app Cycle.land is coming to the capital
Londoners will soon have a wealth of options should they want to get on their bikes. It was recently announced the popular Boris bikes were getting a revamp and now a new bike-sharing company is hoping to win over the capital.
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Cycle.land launched in Oxford in April and is now being rolled out in five cities from 10 October – London, Brighton, Bristol, Edinburgh and Cambridge. It has launched a £100,000 investment campaign on crowdfunding platform Seedrs to fuel the growth.
Its app allows people to borrow bikes from local cyclists and vendors from £1 a day and wants to build a community of cyclists who borrow bikes, reduce car traffic and share tips. Bikes are accessed by regular, combination or keyless smartphone Noke locks.
Founder Agne Milukaite told Morning Wire the plan was for Cycle.land's bikes to supplement London's Santander Cycle hire scheme, where users can hire a bike from £2. "Initially, we will launch in east London where there are no Boris bike stations," she said. "Later, we aim to also have Cycle.land bikes provided at heavily used Boris bike routes."
She also said that her app's services were slightly different to the capital's cycle hire scheme. "Given the payment structure, Boris bike users rent the bikes for short periods of maybe 30 to 60 minutes and then return them to the next station. In Oxford, we see that Cycle.land users often take out bikes for three days or more, with some of our members borrowing the bikes for as long as three months."
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Since the launch of London's cycle hire scheme in July 2010 by Mayor at the time Boris Johnson, more than 54 million journeys have been made on the bikes. The Santander Cycles app was launched last May and has since been downloaded 275,000 times.