I keenly registered with the Barclays Cycle Hire Scheme and have on previous blogs made known my first impressions of the scheme. Please see attached link of previous blog. But what’s beginning to cloud my experience of this scheme, is how l’ve been hit with additional costs of up to £87 since the 30th of July when l first registered.  The cost of registration itself was £48 for the whole year including the key, so to then be expected to fork out nearly double that, is a complete disincentive for the scheme.

It’s inconceivable that l could have incurred my first financial hit of £52, within just two weeks of the scheme launch, as all my trips have been less then half an hour long and quite frankly, I just haven’t done enough mileage. I have of course been back to TFL, and was told that l would get a refund, but these have yet to materialise on my credit card.  Also, just to add insult to injury, whilst chasing up my refund, l was swiftly informed that l’d be charged a further £35! Something is clearly amiss with the administration of the charges for the bike hire scheme.

So although it’s very handy having the bike option in my local area, it’s turning out to be a very expensive way of travelling around the neighbourhood, something most Londoners can do without in the present climate.