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Ben Tries a Beryl
Published on: 16 Nov, 2024
Updated on: 20 Nov, 2024
By Martin Giles and Stella Kuchanny
Whether you like them or not, the new e-bikes for hire in Guildford are definitely being used.
Beryl told The Dragon over a week ago ago that there had been nearly 12,000 journeys made on the bikes and that is well before all the bike bays have been installed.
So here on the Dragon we thought it would be interesting to see how easy it would be to hire one of the new bikes, having downloaded the Beryl app, and what they were like to ride.
We asked well-known Guildford personality Ben Darnton, of Ben’s Records, an experienced e-bike rider to be our guinea pig and proceeded to the e-bike hire bay outside the public library at the top of North Street.
Please watch the short video to see what happened…
Filmed and edited by Stella Kuchanny
See also:
Dumped E-bike Provokes Questions
E-bikes for Hire Arrive in Guildford
Letter: Will E-Bike Prices Put People Off?
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V McClure
November 17, 2024 at 1:08 pm
I walk in to Guildford centre most days and today I came across another Beryl bike dumped on a pavement. Recently there were two near the station, each within about ten paces from an official Beryl parking place.
Some users seem to delight in leaving them around without bothering to park them in a nearby designated space. And don’t get me started on cyclists riding through Porridge Pot Alley and past the Yvonne Arnaud theatre, ignoring several clear notices asking them to walk through this confined space.
Or riding down the High Street even when it is closed to traffic. Don’t they realise how dangerous this is? Not for them, but for us pedestrians.
The police and Street Angels don’t seem to care and just ignore them – I have seen it happen. Isn’t it time something was done to educate rude, ignorant cyclists?
Mary Jenkins
November 19, 2024 at 1:36 pm
I wonder exactly how many people have ever been injured by someone cycling down the cobbled high street?
It’s funny how in the whole of Europe, bikes and people are able to mix without any problems in almost all situations, yet here, the deadly threat of someone using their bike to shop rather than yet another car in the traffic that gridlocks Guildford is seen as a moral, social and safety outrage. Sad.
Malcolm Fincham
November 17, 2024 at 8:57 pm
I have recently contemplated adding Beryl bikes to my birdwatcher’s diary sightings. I have spotted four discarded individuals in just the last week.
Harry Eve
November 18, 2024 at 10:14 am
If only they had names. Some repeated many times and some far rarer – perhaps unique. Malcolm may have started something.
Dave Middleton
November 18, 2024 at 4:51 pm
The Beryl bike scheme is a good idea in theory and in a perfect world.
In practice, regrettably, there will always be users who misuse the scheme by failing to return bikes to the parking bays because it’s either inconvenient, there isn’t a bay near enough, the nearest bay is full, or they’re just plain lazy.
Also, there’s always going to be that section of society who will abuse the scheme and find a way to defeat the tracking and locking mechanisms and steal the bikes, dumping them wherever, as and when they’ve finished with them.
Sad, but true.