OPINION
PHOTO: CHRIS LAWRENCE - SHUTTERSTOCK A SHARE OF THE PIE?
Bike share is performing comfortably ahead of the market for sales of full-size commuter bikes at present. So, do these riders become bike shop customers, and if not, what is next for their journey? Mark Sutton investigates…
O
ut of not much more than curiosity and the need to hit a
CyclingElectric.com editorial brief recently, I took on a number crunching task, assuming that
steadily rising bike sharing costs would soon equate to a fully paid-for electric bike, if you were a regular user. A specialist e-bike retailer in London backed up my thinking, similarly wondering why people would bike share when, presumably, they could just buy an e-bike and own the asset, thereafter cutting further costs. I have been a semi-regular Lime user myself, and before I really got to grips with the daily ride pass packages, I had grown a bit weary of the 27p per mile costs. On this basis, assuming that many newbie cyclists would never commit to package products if their interaction was fleeting, I developed a bit of a bias.
Looking in greater detail at the sums behind the idea, I’ll
admit to being a bit taken aback by the value bike share can offer. Here’s a quick breakdown: Using a baseline spend of £1,000 to obtain either a quality bicycle, or an entry-level electric bike, and benchmarked
20 | July 2025
against a £3.50 one-hour ride pass with London’s official Santander, it would take just under one year of daily usage (333 days) to match the cost of the bike. All of this assumes your commute is made up of roughly two 30-minute journeys. Actually, it could be better still. Santander offers an annual package at only £120, or a monthly £20 buy-in, which, compared to the main daily tariffs, is very appealing, even if you don’t cycle each day. As for Lime’s most cost-effective means to buy in, there is an £8.99 rolling subscription with unlimited unlocks. Over the course of the year, that’s £107.88 The mathematics, then, are not particularly favourable
to those who have convenient access and a regular need. In truth, they’re spending less for a year’s worth of bike hire than you would need to on a quality D-lock for a city like London, where bike theft is very high. I spoke to David Watkins of Dash Rides, the cycle to work provider that has a broad spectrum view of sales, subscriptions and bike sharing, offering the salary sacrifice benefits to all of his firm’s customers. Of his interactions with the array of buyers, he told me, “Bike share has certainly
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