So, the Boris Bikes (also known as the Barclays Cycle Hire) proved to be useful to me and pushed away my slight dislike of them, when at 1:30 am, a tired me, decided to get from my friends' home to mine on a Boris Bike.
Our homes are around a 20 minute walk away; yes, we are lucky to live so close to each other and avoid the usual London long trip that may even take an hour to visit other London based friends. But 1:30 am the walk becomes such a mission and a taxi such a rare thing...so... Boris was on the case and saved the day.
Although, i am not signed up to the scheme, i was able to simply hire a bike by using a visa card that had to be guaranteed by the machine at the bike dock; i was given an option of a 1 day hire which costs £1 or a 7 days hire for £5; both options having an extra charge added depending on how long you use a bike before returning to a dock. For example if you use a bike for less that 30 minutes you do not get charged any extra but if you use it for more than 30 minutes but less than an hour you get an additional charge of £1. So the trick is to return a bike to the dock every 29 minutes to keep your additional charge to zero. In other words, If all your journeys are under 30 minutes, all you pay is your access fee.
Anyway, back to my first experience of a Boris bike...my journey took just 7 minutes, the use of the dock was straight forward and i was even lucky that the scheme has docks right next to my home.
