Shaft Drive

Look - no chain! Shaft drive - rare on push bikes though
popular on motorbikes I believe.

Recently I had a day out in Reading, a town about 15 miles away, that has a hire bike scheme. These appear to be gaining in popularity and I'm liking the trend - a hire bike in Brussels is how I got back into cycling in 2008.

The docking station - these are dotted about all over the town

You key in your account number and pass code - given when
you register and take a bike. £1 per hour.

For me, these bikes demonstrate the forte of pushbikes as transport - short distances in fair weather, but they seem to be either ignored, derided or given token attention at most by many if not most cyclists in the UK. Why is this? Probably because they are heavy and slow, ergo not much use for sports and leisure cycling, still the primary purpose for most pushbikes here. The irony is, if cycling is to be promoted to the masses as a viable mode of transport as many want, these bikes will probably play a key part in doing this.

Forget racing, triathlon or mountains...

Put it this way, I found it thoroughly enjoyable pootling about a town or city riding in areas that are inaccessible to cars but a lot faster than walking. It was also very cheap - once registered via internet, you pay £1 per hour for the bike. To me, this is far more attractive and more likely to popularise cycling than expecting everyone to get kitted out in specialist clothing so they can cycle over 10 miles to work and back each day in all weathers. Maybe that's for later on once you're well into it, but I think it's unrealistic for those wanting to just get from A to B and if anything, might put them off.

Seems many British cyclists look wistfully at the cycling cultures in Holland and Denmark and want something similar here; strange that the heavy slow bikes popular there are often overlooked.

But I digress...

One of the reasons for me wanting to use one of these was because, unusually, they are shaft, as opposed to chain driven.

Shaft driven push bikes have been around for over a century, but have never caught on. Apparently they are less efficient than chains drive something others are quick to point out as a disadvantage. This might be important for sports bikes where every percentage counts in efficiency, speed and weight saving, but, obviously, that's not what these bikes are for.

A northern UK city, Liverpool also has shaft drive hire bikes...could we be seeing shaft drive becoming more popular?

Well I hope so; I have to say that I like the look of the shaft drive; it has something in common  with hubgears really - the major working parts are all enclosed, with no dangly bits. Also, they can only be used with a hub gear - a plus or minus depending on your point of view. They look much cleaner with less maintenance although, I might add, with chains, this is mitigated a lot with the use of a chaincase/guard.

Otherwise, they are similar to other hire bikes; upright riding position on an agricultural step through frame, 3 speed internal  Shimano Nexus hub with drum brakes, dynamo lights permanently on and there is a front rack for carrying odds and sods. There is a double kickstand and mudguards/fenders and a combination lock security cord. To be honest, given their intended purpose, this is the best configuration and probably every hire bike no matter where, is the same. The only difference here is the shaft drive.

Further reading: what shaft drive is and if you want to hire one:

Shaft drive

Readybike Reading

Citybike Liverpool

With nice weather on it's way, might be worth a try.

And if you want your own:

Beixo

Dynamic Bicycles - an American firm, I've just found out is importing into the UK

Biomega - a design oriented Danish firm