Londoners Flock to Rent Bikes With a Bright Blue Tire and Antitheft Guarantee

tech.hindustantimes.com:

A new group has joined London's busy bike messengers, style-conscious Rapha riders and Lycra-clad urban cyclists as they cruise through town. Thousands in the British capital are renting Dutch-style bikes from Swapfiets, a company started in the Netherlands in 2014. It signed up 3,000 UK customers to its service over just four months this summer.

Each bike has a relaxed, upright riding style with a hands-free coaster brake. For a flat fee starting at £17 per month ($19), customers can choose among four models, including e-bikes, designed to suit needs ranging from casual weekend bicyclists to dedicated delivery riders who rack up thousands of miles each month. Lights and locks are included in the price, along with a guarantee that the company will fix or repair any problems, such as a flat tire, within 48 hours.

If a bike is stolen—not uncommon in London—Swapfiets customers pay a modest surcharge of £40 and get a new bike. To return the bike, you just give a month's notice and drop it back at the shop near Spitalfields in East London, the company's first location in the city. Katarina Hlavata, 27, Swapfiets's UK manager, says only about 20 bikes a month have been reported stolen in London. That's 0.6% of their total subscriptions.

Customers say they like the all-inclusive approach. Molly Alter, 28, who works for venture capital firm Index Ventures SA, was an early adopter of Swapfiets (pronounced: “swap-feets”) when she moved to London from the US, signing up to rent a bike in March 2021. “I was pretty new to the city, and I worried about investing in a bike and not using it, or losing it if it got stolen,” she says.

Alter bought another brand of electric bike, Cowboy, but is still using her pedal-powered Swapfiets.