However, the scheme does have its downsides – it is prohibitively expensive for anything other than short rentals. The report ‘Barclays Cycle Hire customer satisfaction and usage – wave Septembe 2011′ showed that only 1% of users rented these bikes for longer than 1 hour. This is very likely the result of the big expense involved in renting for longer periods of time.

So whilst this scheme scores highly for short rentals and convenience anyone looking to rent a bike for more than a few hours would be better served renting from a rental bike company.