Support road.cc

Like this site? Help us to make it better.

Mystery of Boris Bike returned 18 months late

On New Year's Day 2015 someone hired bike 12626. It was returned yesterday (the giveaway being the Barclays livery, not seen in London since early 2015)...

The man who found it dubbed it the Kimmy Schmidt of Boris Bikes.

It was hired in the early hours of New Year’s Day, 2015 – 1.12am to be precise, and returned yesterday afternoon at 5.34pm -  a year and a half late. The hire date may go some way to explaining the 'mystery' of why it's been away so long.

Hackney resident Bradley Tubb, noticed something strange when he docked his Santander Cycles bike yesterday afternoon.

Bike number 12626 might have blended in with all the other bikes had it not been for the fact it bore the livery of former scheme sponsors, Barclays Bank. The bikes were all re-branded red in February 2015 when Santander won the £44m sponsorship rights, leading Tubb to wonder where the bike had been in the meantime.

Tubb, aka @BradTubb said:

Putting aside the £300 fine the midnight reveller would have clocked up since renting the bike that fateful New Year’s Day, we can’t help but wonder what the person was doing with number 12626 for the past 18 months.

We may never know the answer to this question. Did it cycle up Mont Ventoux? Decide to take a trip on the epic 3,000km Kerala Express train line bearing the same number, 12626? Maybe it was just languishing in someone’s garden. Or perhaps, just perhaps, it was held captive in a bunker and made to turn a wheel with no apparent purpose for hours on end.  

Or perhaps it ended up in Gambia.

Boris Bike turns up in the Gambia - almost 4,500 km from London

Tubb told road.cc: “I saw it on Ada Street near Broadway Market, it was there yesterday evening and still there this morning. Not sure if it's still there. Pretty bizarre - most of the bikes were changed over from Barclays to Santander last year, so who knows where it's been!

“I haven't [used the cycle hire scheme] for a while (I have my own bike) but I have a key fob and use them from time to time when it makes sense to - yesterday was the first time I'd had to in a while.

“I had just finished my journey (I was travelling to Broadway Market), but I'd have absolutely used it otherwise!”

According to Transport for London, the city’s hire bikes do go missing from time to time, and many are reported by helpful members of public. A spokesperson for TfL told road.cc someone once spotted a bike in someone’s garden from a train and sent them the photo, while people regularly report unattended bikes left away from docking stations.

Non-return fees of London's hire bikes are £300 after 24 hours. If you spot a Santander Cycle you think may be lost, call TfL on 0343 222 6666.

Add new comment

5 comments

Avatar
paul-ldn | 7 years ago
0 likes

I volunteer sometimes for the Wandle Trust and once a month we meet, collect and remove rubbish thrown into The Wandle river that flows between Croydon and Wandsworth. A few months ago we pulled out a Barclays hire bike from the river covered in mud.

I hosed it down and tried it out, it rode, the brakes and gear change worked just fine! So at the end of the meet I cycled it home to Battersea and docked it. I don't think it was this bike, but it must have been in the river for some time to have been so dirty.

It's great fun clearing The Wandle as you never know what you will find, so look us up online and come join every second Sunday of the month from 11am to 3pm.

Avatar
matthewn5 | 7 years ago
1 like

I saw someone yesterday riding a blue one near an estate in Islington.

Avatar
handlebarcam | 7 years ago
2 likes

The people who run the system probably aren't too worried about the occasional bike going missing. The person in charge of brand compliance, on the other hand, is probably spitting feathers.

Avatar
Ratfink | 7 years ago
2 likes

I saw someone riding a Barclays one around Chigwell a couple of weeks ago.

Avatar
tritecommentbot | 7 years ago
1 like

Ahem. Sorry about that.

 

Unexpectedly long trip, man.

Latest Comments