It’s not as if there are many community bike-share schemes left (didn’t all the bikes get thrown on a late-night lorry to Amsterdam and resprayed en-route?).
Anyway, today’s invention is a way to make such bikes somewhat more available and secure, without having to leave permanent bike racks for everyone to trip over.
A single hemispherical weight is bolted to the pavement. The top of this has a bicycle pedal rigidly attached.
The scheme’s bikes all have their left pedal modified to incorporate a small padlock. The two bars of this padlock can penetrate through the right pedal of any adjacent bike, ensuring that all bikes stay upright. All of the padlocks use the same key which is supplied only to members of a community of limited size (eg a College).
This allows people to walk up, detach a bike, ride around and then leave the bike anywhere with a pavement hemisphere (no need to carry bikelocks).
Bikes would be branded according to the group they served.
