I read an article, before arriving, that an electric-assist fleet of bicycles would launch soon, for the City of Stockholm's bike share program. It was delayed, of course, thanks to the COVID supply chain issues. But then in early May, we heard that it would show up in a week. I couldn't really believe it because I didn't see any docking stations anywhere, for the supposed 1,000 bikes! But in the end, many bikes did show up. It's a dockless systems, so they were painting in the parking areas, but I didn't see them until I saw them!
In our Bicification project, the Italians who built the gamification app refer to bicycles as either eBikes or muscle bikes. I giggle every time. But it makes sense, right? Regular bikes engage a lot of muscles. So, why shouldn't we call them "muscle" bikes.
Matt and I checking out bikes, earlier in the week. My tour guide, Jasper. And gelato!
But even if you get to ride a bike with electric-assist, you might still have to engage your muscles. After the new bike share launched, I got a tour with a Masters student who helped with the launch. Jasper Rickmers met me on a Friday afternoon, and led me on an 11.5 mile tour of three (or is that four?) of Stockholm's islands! This tour was completed, almost exclusively, on bike lanes.
We saw this gelato guy along the way, but I'd already bought my gelato from a brick and mortar shop. I'll be looking for him on my next ride, though.
There are several things I like about the Stockholm eBikes. One is that the bikes have seven gears. Stockholm is hilly, especially over some of the bridges connecting the islands. So, the extra gears should be helpful. The other thing I like is that you can pause your trip. This means, in theory at least, that you can stop along the way and run into a shop, without returning the bike to a designated parking area. I say in theory because it doesn't seem to work every time. Once, I tried and pausing actually locked the bike. No one else could ride away with my trip payment engaged. But the other time that I tried, the bike remained unlocked. So, I was just lucky that it was still there when I returned. My colleague, Matt, said that he "found" a bike one evening that was not in a designated parking area and was also not locked. He rode it home and parked it outside of his apartment. It was still there and unlocked the next morning, so he enjoyed a bit more riding. Oops!
There is also a feature where you can reserve a bike, but only for 5 minutes. I tried this when we arrived at a busy transit hub, with a subway station that was two floors underground. We saw on the app that there were only two bikes at the station, so we reserved. It took us 6 minutes to come up from the train. But our bikes were there waiting for us. Another friend said he tried reserving, but found no bikes when he arrived at the station. Clearly, Stockholm Bike Share is still new and has some kinks to work out.
I like this bike share's funding source: they're using marketing dollars to fund the system. They set up expensive looking digital signs at 100 (I think?) bike share stations, around the city. Apparently, the ad revenue more than covers the signs and should also cover the costs of the bike share system. I guess that's how they're keeping the membership fee so low, too. Right now a year-long membership is the equivalent of about $15!
Some things I don't care for, aside for the pausing function not always working is that they chose bikes with kick-back brakes. I HATE these. Like most bike share bike, these bikes are also quite heavy. Even though they have the eAssist, it's only pedal-assist, meaning you still have to get the bike going before the assist will engage. With a kick-back brake, I can't push the pedal to a good position to kick off from a stop. So, I wobbled around and blocked traffic several times.
I also did not find the eAssist to be as zippy as I was hoping. I've already mentioned the hills. And my tour guide was quite tall, and much younger than me. AND I hadn't been on a bike for over a month. But excuses aside, I'm a pretty strong rider, but I had a lot of trouble keeping up with my guide and getting over the hills. I'm sure the quality of an eBike chosen for a shared fleet is quite different than one that I would buy for myself. But my test rides of the 3-speed bikes that Memphis chose were a lot zippier (Way to go, Memphis!).
Before I rode, one of the PhD candidates told me how awful the bike lanes are, in Stockholm. She's been here for awhile. But she's also an American, so maybe she just forgot how much farther along European infrastructure is from back home? Sure, I see some areas for improvement. But the bike lanes are awfully nice here. They even have bike lanes crossing bike lanes!!
I appreciated the chance to see Stockholm by bike and will definitely ride again... if I can find any bikes at the station.
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