Bikes of a certain design and poorly maintained, can brake riders legs
If you don’t want your legs broken, pay your gambling debts on time or the Lime Biker Gang will get you.
Wait until you find out what a car can do to somebody’s legs…
I helped a guy out of the road a few weeks back after he’d fallen off his Limebike and he broke his leg. Literally had to carry him off the road.
He was in a really bad way. Luckily two police bikes were coming past so I flagged them down and went to move my car as I blocked the road both ways whilst helping him.
Nobody else got out their car to help but at least everybody was very patient and nobody got on their horn.
Great, can we get rid of Lime bikes yet?
Maybe invest in the “Boris” (🤮) bikes some more? Go back to the docking station model?
cycling safety groups do advocate the remembering the ABC of bike checks before every ride. and that’s with your own bike that you’ve looked after, never mind a shared bike that you don’t know what abuse has been done to it.
seems like it’d be a good idea for Lime to be made to remind their customers of this.
the B for do the Brakes would be the pertinent check.
Make them rent out normal bikes instead of one with giant heavy batteries in the frame then
Well, it’s logical really. You make a bike strong enough to withstand the kind of abuse Lime Bikes have to and the bike is going to weigh a ton (comparatively speaking) when measured against your usual bicycle. Given it’s 35KG for a Lime Bike. Your average road bicycle is 8KG. That’s 4.35x heavier than a normal bike. The new electric assist Boris Bikes are 23kg in comparison.
Then we have speed to consider. The Lime Bike has a top speed of 15.5MPH same as the Boris Bike (because this is the government regulated speed for e-bikes) EDIT: Yes, the average bicycle can go faster, in London many don’t do higher speeds because of traffic and safety involved. If anything they go slower probably about 8 – 12 MPH on average but they also weigh less than a quarter of the weight of a Lime Bike which massively reduces impact force so isn’t such an issue. /End of Edit. Now does anyone recall riding the pre-electric assist Boris Bikes which still weighed about 23KG, anyone tried to get those to exceed 5 – 10mph? It’s not easy they had 3 gears and those gears were “Useless, “Absolutely f-ing useless” and “Let’s see how you feel riding through tar” when it came to speed.
So what we effectively have is a 35KG vehicle hitting your body at 15.5MPH which means you may as well have dropped roughly 300 – 350KG weight on your leg focused in the width of that bike frame (the Human Tibia can withstand forces of up to around 290KG before it gives out). People don’t understand, or realise the danger these bicycles offer.
Equally, pedestrians and riders both need to be very aware of the dangers involved with these. A lot of pedestrians simply say “Oh it’s a bicycle” but it really isn’t.
I had a bad accident on a lime bike with bad brakes.
IRRC, their liability insurance only kicks in if you lose a limb.
Lime T&Cs basically absolve them of providing you with a mechanically sound bike and you’re taking your life in your hands every time you ride one.
My (pregnant) wife was hit by a lime bike inside kings x station. I’m a massive proponent of cycling but lime bikes are a massive danger, and then are left everywhere on the sidewalks. It’s up there with the illegal electric bikes that are just disguised mopeds
In an ideal world we’d have lighter e-bikes with smaller batteries, and bike parking would include charging docks. But we’ll get that for cars before we ever get it for bikes.
Probably not helped by the fact that most lime bike users seem to be completely unaware of the concept of intersections, pedestrian crossings etc. A lot of normal cyclists run reds as well of course but at least they’re normally a bit cautious and only do it when it’s relatively safe. Lime bike users just sail on through regardless.
Lime bikes are great, although I think it is fair to say a lot of riders are a bit naïve with them and the physics involved. Torquey electric motors, three times heavier than a regular push bike, hard tyres manufactured for durability over grip, greasy winter roads – you really need to mentally lock in, anticipate hazards ahead, make pedalling/turning/braking actions as smooth as possible.
Amazed at the losers trying to make parallels between shit Lime bikes and … cars (?)
The first paragraph of this article also highlights one of the main issues with cycling in London. Stupid pedestrians.
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Cars keep unaliving Londoners
https://bsky.app/profile/jonworth.eu/post/3lggchejlsh2o
Bikes of a certain design and poorly maintained, can brake riders legs
If you don’t want your legs broken, pay your gambling debts on time or the Lime Biker Gang will get you.
Wait until you find out what a car can do to somebody’s legs…
I helped a guy out of the road a few weeks back after he’d fallen off his Limebike and he broke his leg. Literally had to carry him off the road.
He was in a really bad way. Luckily two police bikes were coming past so I flagged them down and went to move my car as I blocked the road both ways whilst helping him.
Nobody else got out their car to help but at least everybody was very patient and nobody got on their horn.
Great, can we get rid of Lime bikes yet?
Maybe invest in the “Boris” (🤮) bikes some more? Go back to the docking station model?
cycling safety groups do advocate the remembering the ABC of bike checks before every ride. and that’s with your own bike that you’ve looked after, never mind a shared bike that you don’t know what abuse has been done to it.
seems like it’d be a good idea for Lime to be made to remind their customers of this.
the B for do the Brakes would be the pertinent check.
Make them rent out normal bikes instead of one with giant heavy batteries in the frame then
Well, it’s logical really. You make a bike strong enough to withstand the kind of abuse Lime Bikes have to and the bike is going to weigh a ton (comparatively speaking) when measured against your usual bicycle. Given it’s 35KG for a Lime Bike. Your average road bicycle is 8KG. That’s 4.35x heavier than a normal bike. The new electric assist Boris Bikes are 23kg in comparison.
Then we have speed to consider. The Lime Bike has a top speed of 15.5MPH same as the Boris Bike (because this is the government regulated speed for e-bikes) EDIT: Yes, the average bicycle can go faster, in London many don’t do higher speeds because of traffic and safety involved. If anything they go slower probably about 8 – 12 MPH on average but they also weigh less than a quarter of the weight of a Lime Bike which massively reduces impact force so isn’t such an issue. /End of Edit. Now does anyone recall riding the pre-electric assist Boris Bikes which still weighed about 23KG, anyone tried to get those to exceed 5 – 10mph? It’s not easy they had 3 gears and those gears were “Useless, “Absolutely f-ing useless” and “Let’s see how you feel riding through tar” when it came to speed.
So what we effectively have is a 35KG vehicle hitting your body at 15.5MPH which means you may as well have dropped roughly 300 – 350KG weight on your leg focused in the width of that bike frame (the Human Tibia can withstand forces of up to around 290KG before it gives out). People don’t understand, or realise the danger these bicycles offer.
Equally, pedestrians and riders both need to be very aware of the dangers involved with these. A lot of pedestrians simply say “Oh it’s a bicycle” but it really isn’t.
I had a bad accident on a lime bike with bad brakes.
IRRC, their liability insurance only kicks in if you lose a limb.
Lime T&Cs basically absolve them of providing you with a mechanically sound bike and you’re taking your life in your hands every time you ride one.
My (pregnant) wife was hit by a lime bike inside kings x station. I’m a massive proponent of cycling but lime bikes are a massive danger, and then are left everywhere on the sidewalks. It’s up there with the illegal electric bikes that are just disguised mopeds
In an ideal world we’d have lighter e-bikes with smaller batteries, and bike parking would include charging docks. But we’ll get that for cars before we ever get it for bikes.
Probably not helped by the fact that most lime bike users seem to be completely unaware of the concept of intersections, pedestrian crossings etc. A lot of normal cyclists run reds as well of course but at least they’re normally a bit cautious and only do it when it’s relatively safe. Lime bike users just sail on through regardless.
Lime bikes are great, although I think it is fair to say a lot of riders are a bit naïve with them and the physics involved. Torquey electric motors, three times heavier than a regular push bike, hard tyres manufactured for durability over grip, greasy winter roads – you really need to mentally lock in, anticipate hazards ahead, make pedalling/turning/braking actions as smooth as possible.
Amazed at the losers trying to make parallels between shit Lime bikes and … cars (?)
The first paragraph of this article also highlights one of the main issues with cycling in London. Stupid pedestrians.
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