Mobile bike repair firm claims half of London's bikes aren't roadworthy

Mobile bike repair firm, NipNip reckons that half of London’s bicycles aren’t roadworthy. They say that around 100,000 commuters are regularly riding into work on bikes that would fail an MOT equivalent, if there were such a thing.

Quite what this fictional bike MOT would entail is anyone's guess. NipNip don't say. Maybe they'd be failing bikes on a lack of reflectors.

Founded by brothers David and Matthew Farr, NipNip has been providing a mobile bicycle repair service since 2013. While they clearly have an interest in encouraging people to get their bikes checked out, they maintain that most bikes in the capital aren’t up to standard, backing this up with a somewhat vague reference to a 'study'.

According to Matthew:

“Cycling in London is a popular way of travelling for people of all ages, for both work and play. It has boomed in recent years, with over 200,000 London City residents cycling to work each day. Our study showed over 50 per cent of the cycles we saw would not have passed the equivalent of an MOT – if there was one. Based on these figures, it indicates that at least 100,000 cycles being used for commuting purposes are unsafe, giving riders many potential problems.”

Farr is keen to emphasise that for all the talk of infrastructure and behaviour on the roads, the condition of a person’s bike also contributes to rider safety.

“Every day we attend to bicycles with serious issues. Just yesterday, we serviced a bicycle with dangerously loose nuts on the front fork, which meant the cycle had a high risk of losing its front tyre and could have resulted in an ‘over the handle bars’ calamity for the rider. Worryingly, the bicycle had been ridden nine miles in to work that very morning.”

The firm has recently launched NipNip Collect, a service where it will collect, service and return your bike to your home or work. If the work is going to take longer than a day, they say they can temporarily provide you with a replacement bike.

Last month, Wiggle announced a similar service for cyclists in and around London. Operating in partnership with havebike, bikes will be collected from any address within the M25 and returned to that address, or another address inside that same area, within three days.