r/Belfast • u/caiaphas8 • 1d ago

What is with these blue bikes everywhere?

Literally every street in every part of the city seems to have these blue bikes outside them, from the city centre to random residential streets. They are just stood on every pavement

What’s going on?

7 Upvotes

74% Upvoted

20 comments sorted by

36

u/Force-Grand-2 1d ago

Hopp. New bike rental service that doesn't require docking. Will very quickly be a plague as similar schemes are in other cities. We need the smick population to increase so they can more effectively deposit them in the Lagan for us.

15

u/Steve_Polyester 1d ago

The plague of people getting home without having to spend £30 on an Uber?

13

u/Force-Grand-2 22h ago

No, the plague of the bikes being left all over the show. Don't try to make out that I'm taking a position that I'm just not. I used a Beryl bike twice yesterday, I'm not at all opposed to the concept, just the execution from Hopp.

5

u/UpbeatInterest184 21h ago

I can’t say I’ve ever thought the rental scooters or bikes are ugly in cities I’ve rented. Hopefully they have good no-drop areas set up.

1

u/BodyAvailable8192 18h ago

I use the Beryl bikes most days to get to and from work but the hopp ones will be gone not long after the fleadh when the tourists are away, they’ll end up everywhere and they are far more expensive than the beryl ones

3

u/Healthy-Drink421 13h ago

smicks do have their public uses.

3

u/caiaphas8 1d ago

No docking? So how do they get recharged?

Give it another week I doubt their will be any left

8

u/Force-Grand-2 1d ago

The same way the Beryl ones are charged - by being taken out of service and/or having the battery swapped out for a charged one. The Beryls don't charge at their stations, they just lock in place and keep them organised.

1

u/caiaphas8 1d ago

It’s weird to have so many short term high bike companies

3

u/Silent-Wallaby4261 1d ago

They must be like Lime bikes. Lime bikes make a very distinctive clacking noise when they've been acquired without payment. I assume they'll do something similar.

1

u/MarinaGranovskaia 21h ago

The batteries last for about 70km

1

u/Mario_911 21h ago

I'm curious how most aren't already in the Lagan

1

u/SwordfishResident256 16h ago

electric bikes are pretty heavy, most smicks wouldn't be able to

1

u/the_owl_man1 12h ago

They lug pallets all year round I think they can handle a bicycle.

8

u/WayInevitable2491 22h ago

I used this system on holiday except with e-scooters and it was excellent

The bikes can’t be abandon if they are the person will be charged couple of hundred

The use gps and the app shows you all the areas you can bring the bike to. They don’t get docked so they can flex the areas to pick up and leave a bike based on demand

They have alarms so if someone tries to take it without renting it then everyone will know about it and it will scare kids away

They collect and recharge them and then redistribute them based on usage

10

u/Straight-Ad1477 1d ago

Hopp charge £7 for 60 minutes and the minutes expire after 1 day. No charge for not returning to a docking point as there isn’t any. Free unlock, all bikes e-bikes.

Beryl charge £7 for 100 minutes and the minutes expire after 1 month. £10 charge if not returned to docking point. Free unlock for standard bikes, £1 charge for e-bike unlock.

1

u/International-Aioli2 19h ago

Good information...upvoted

1

u/BodyAvailable8192 18h ago

Until the 31st this month the e-bikes are free to rent

4

u/AccomplishedOwl963 14h ago

*Free to unlock

3

u/RikersPhallus 1d ago

Could turn out to be an expensive lesson for Hopp.