Passport to Pimlico

[axel_knutt]

So who was listening to Radio 4 this morning?

Apparently, Hounslow and Richmond Borough Councils are using different E-Bike companies, so if you live in one borough and work in the other, the motor on your bike will cut out when you cross the boundary.

From 29m15s

[Cugel]

So who was listening to Radio 4 this morning?

Apparently, Hounslow and Richmond Borough Councils are using different E-Bike companies, so if you live in one borough and work in the other, the motor on your bike will cut out when you cross the boundary.

From 29m15s

Radio 3 is preferable, as the hoots, blares and honks are rather nicer than those made by various opinionaters on Radio 4.

But this issue is also the subject of a Groanydad article:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... ival-firms

It seems like another "advantage" of commercial competition, which (or so the ideology says) always leads to better services for the customers. Har har har.

Still, compared to the vast amount of car-litter clogging up the streets without paying a parking fee, this abandoned bike thing seems completely insignificant. When I be dictator, its the car-litter that'll be swept up and away by a bluddy great brushing lorry, with the collected detritus fed into the hopper of a large automated machine transforming car material into lurverly bicycles, issued free to all as part of the NHS (like rosehip syrup, cod-liver oil, milk and orange juice used to be when I were a bairn).

[axel_knutt]

I don't think the complaints are about abandoned bikes, they're about not being able to cycle across the boundary.

[Cugel]

I don't think the complaints are about abandoned bikes, they're about not being able to cycle across the boundary.

Troo, troo .... but this suggest a cunning plan for reducing the car traffic: only allow certain makes to work in certain locales. Heading for Wales in one's BMW, the fearsum enjin stops working at the border and one has to push it to a handy nearby carpark, where a Welsh entrepreneur offers £50 to take it off your hands. Or an exchange for a slow but working tractor & trailer (must drop off the sheep at Gwenogle, though; or Llidiad Nenog). Etc..

No one would go in their BMW, would they. Good.

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Cannot those hire bikes be pedalled at all when their motor cuts out, then? They do look like they weigh about 49 kg.