Aberdeen has a new e-bike hire scheme which launched in the city on Wednesday with 100 bikes positioned in various locations around town. They will be adding more bikes over the coming weeks with the plan to eventually have 350 out for hire. Today they had an official launch event at Duthie Park to raise awareness of the bikes and let people try them out which I was only too happy to do. They were even giving out free collapsible helmets. How cool are these?
I took one for a test spin. It’s very easy to do. You install the app on your phone then scan a QR code on the bike to start the hire. That’s pretty much it. The bikes have no gears and no settings for the electric assist. all you have to do is sit on the bike and peddle. The electric assist works up until 25km/h when it cuts out. I found it incredibly fast and powerful.
I cycled up Polmuir Road and Crown Street to see how it would handle the hills and I barely pedalled at all. Indeed I don’t think I even raised my heart rate other than from the exhilaration of speeding up and down hills.
Voi electric bikes are powered by a 250W Ninebot motor. They are heavy bikes, weighing about 40kg. The batteries last about 80 km before needing to be recharged and Voi swap them out with fully charged batteries rather than taking the bikes off the street to be charged elsewhere. A spokesman for Voi said they launched on Wednesday and since then each bike has been used around 4 or 5 times a day which is amazing. After the first day they had to replace 30 batteries and today they’ll be replacing about 80.
The bikes have a very useful basket on the front for belongings or shopping and a phone holder which charges your phone.
In terms of pricing you can pay as you go which costs 0.18p/minute or you can prepay minutes in bulk. For instance you can buy 60 minutes for £5.99. The app provides all the pricing options. Go to https://www.voi.com/pricing-and-passes to learn more.
I thoroughly enjoyed my ride. I really hope it’s a great success and stays in Aberdeen. The last e-bike hire scheme we had withdrew after two years but they were only in two locations in the UK and completely withdrew from the UK market. Voi bikes are all over the UK and already in Scotland where they’ve clocked up a million rides in Edinburgh and Glasgow so I’m confident they’re here to stay.
Aberdeen Cycle Forum 