American bike and scooter share company Lime has secretly soft launched in Sydney overnight with bright green electric assist bicycles appearing in various places around the Sydney CBD.
Electric assist bikes work by helping you ride once you start to pedal. Lime bikes claim to have a top speed of almost 24 km/h. The 24 km/h top speed complies with NSW licensing regulations surrounding mopeds and electric bikes which state the motor must cut out when it reaches 25 km/h.
Share bikes are controversial in Australia with many fans as well as people who dislike them.
The primary point of controversy is that most share bikes in Australian cities are not required to be stored in specific docks areas.
What happens quite often is that they are often dumped in the middle of streets after a booking is finished. Another common occurrence is bikes being thrown into trees, rivers etc.
Unfortunately some Australians are selfish jerks and unless they get punished for their behaviour, it’s likely these new Lime bikes will also be damaged en masse.
The cost is $1 to start and then 30 cents per minute. Each bike on the map shows it’s estimated kilometre range remaining.
If you want some free rides Google for “lime invite codes” and you’ll find plenty of options that give you 3 or 4 $1 vouchers. If you can’t find any codes that work try my code RJ5LPL7.
There are two ways to sign in to Lime, with either SMS or Facebook login though anecdotally we hear the Facebook login works better – however if you have some (understandable) trust issues with Facebook login the SMS option exists.
Ausdroid readers who would like to try these new Lime bikes out before they get trashed can sign-up and start using them via the Android or iPhone apps.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.limebike
