Dear LPG, 

Has anyone else noticed the new predominantly two-wheeled fact of life that appears to be covering our streets?  I am talking about the bicycles that seem to be left just about everywhere these days.  

I remember the first time I saw what I thought was a stray bike lurking in the road where I live.  About two years ago it was left in my front garden on its side.  That one was red and obviously one of the famous Boris Bikes that were introduced quite a while ago now.   At that time, I understood that those bikes needed to be left in specific bike ports, but it eventually disappeared later that day.

It was last November that I saw one a couple of yards down the road from where I live, and the odd one is to be expected, but over the past two months there seem to be a new breed of green ones being left everywhere.  I thought that pretty thoughtless as a pensioner who finds them adding to the obstacle course that can be part of a walk down the street sometimes.  

 As I suspect that they need to be paid for, I wondered if it cost more to just deposit them wherever you like but apparently not.  They now have homing devices in them and so members of the public who want to use one just find the nearest one with an app on their phones.

I took a look on the internet and found that there are quite a few companies providing similar services now and I suspect that the powers that be hope that we will all revert back to bicycle riding and cars will become less used.  

I am now finding walking a bit of a challenge and I think that I am well past the age when I will ever sit astride any two-wheeled conveyance at any time in the future.  But as this new item of street paraphernalia becomes more apparent, at the rate we have seen over the past couple of months, how long will it be before we oldies just find ourselves with yet another impediment to negotiate as we walk down the road.

KF, Dulwich

While we are definitely not trying to advocate all pensioners getting back on a bike, LPG found some information on hired bikes…

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