I ride a boris bike to work every day and have been hoping someone would put out an edit for a while now. You've got to realise that these things weigh about 1.5-2 times more than a standard DH bike and a lot of that weight is at the front. I'm impressed! They are both ridiculous and hilarious to hop around on and I think Sam captured that attitude well.
the bikes are super solid, made by Devinci in their plant near Quebec. Kinda rad to think the same guys making the Devinci Wilson are making the "Boris Bike"
Here is an old photo of my Dixon just before TFL dropped the first Boris Bikes into the city.
Really difficult design to get right for super abusive daily rental use whilst being theft resistant. The design team made 100+ changes from the Bixi bikes (Toronto) and Velo bikes (Paris) before they finished the design for the London hire bike.
One of the big changes was moving the locking mechanism into the bike hire stand, as many of the Velo bikes in Paris got stolen due to the weak lock on the bicycle itself.
Great bikes but a round of applause must go to the Muppets at TFL for awarding the contract to Devinci. No offence to Devinci, but couldn't the British government spend the British taxpayer's money more appropriately and get a British company to do it? One thing to love about Taiwan is that they try to promote and protect local industry. Do you know the skinny, Hampsteadbandit? Did any UK companies tender?
To be fair there aren't too many UK bike companies that have the equipment to build such a large volume of bikes, they'd probably outsource the contract to Taiwan. I quite like the that they're made in Canada eh. Nice background there @hampsteadbandit, they certainly do a good job on them!
I know the story about tfl and the Boris bikes (or 'ken' bikes really...) As I was working for devincis UK distributor.
Tfl did put it all out to tender and brompton amongst others in the UK (very few left unfortunately) could not put a competitive bid forwards due to scale of production and the design requiring aluminium alloy construction. Brompton have been having issues meeting huge demand for their folding bikes, let alone taking on contract work! The legal contract devinci signed was 400 pages long.
Devinci should be applauded for being a domestic manufacturer, albeit not based in the UK, but i'm half Canadian so I'm proud of Canadian companies. I heard devinci could produce 400 hire bikes a week in addition to their own models, which gives some idea of their scale as a fabrication plant.
From Wiki: Cycles Devinci is a Canadian bicycle manufacturer established in Chicoutimi, Quebec in 1987. In addition to a full line of road, mountain and hybrid bicycles, it also manufactures the Bixi bicycle used in bicycle sharing schemes in cities such as Montreal and Toronto.[1] Devinci supplies a similar bicycle to Barclays Cycle Hire in London, England.
True but just because you're a pro and having fun doesn't mean it deserves a spot on the homepage. There are a lot of banger edits on here that will never get noticed, while a video of pros pedalling around a city on rental bike does.
I'm down with kbakes after watching that horrid piece of boring trash Pilgrim put out the other week but this was kinda tight. We have a version of these bikes here and I cannot imagine doing any of what they did in this (well ok, standing on the seat on flat ground or riding down stairs anyone could do). For the most part, that was insane.
Thanks for making my day, freeride-forever. Its not everyday you see a grown adult who cares about something so meaningless as a rating system for posts on a bike website.
the bikes are super solid, made by Devinci in their plant near Quebec. Kinda rad to think the same guys making the Devinci Wilson are making the "Boris Bike"
Here is an old photo of my Dixon just before TFL dropped the first Boris Bikes into the city.
ep1.pinkbike.org/p4pb5318701/p4pb5318701.jpg
Really difficult design to get right for super abusive daily rental use whilst being theft resistant. The design team made 100+ changes from the Bixi bikes (Toronto) and Velo bikes (Paris) before they finished the design for the London hire bike.
One of the big changes was moving the locking mechanism into the bike hire stand, as many of the Velo bikes in Paris got stolen due to the weak lock on the bicycle itself.
Nice background there @hampsteadbandit, they certainly do a good job on them!
Tfl did put it all out to tender and brompton amongst others in the UK (very few left unfortunately) could not put a competitive bid forwards due to scale of production and the design requiring aluminium alloy construction. Brompton have been having issues meeting huge demand for their folding bikes, let alone taking on contract work! The legal contract devinci signed was 400 pages long.
Devinci should be applauded for being a domestic manufacturer, albeit not based in the UK, but i'm half Canadian so I'm proud of Canadian companies. I heard devinci could produce 400 hire bikes a week in addition to their own models, which gives some idea of their scale as a fabrication plant.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAHT8rs2AZ0
From Wiki:
Cycles Devinci is a Canadian bicycle manufacturer established in Chicoutimi, Quebec in 1987. In addition to a full line of road, mountain and hybrid bicycles, it also manufactures the Bixi bicycle used in bicycle sharing schemes in cities such as Montreal and Toronto.[1] Devinci supplies a similar bicycle to Barclays Cycle Hire in London, England.
I thought Sam rode for NS, lol