Good ol' Boris!

Boris Johnson, London Mayor launched the Barclays Cycle Hire scheme with great fanfare, with over 90,000 users registering one million cycle rides being taken in the first ten weeks of operation. The millionth journey rider was awarded four annual memberships of the scheme for five years for free. Whoopee! - Lucky him/her!

In the first three months of the scheme, 95 per cent of journeys were under half an hour - i.e free of charge. The scheme generated only £323,545 in revenue from journeys in the first 96 days - with only 72,700 of the first 1.4 million journeys earning any revenue!

Hence...44 per cent of income came from the £150 "late return" fees, and with an average of only £3,370 income per day from journeys, can hardly be called a roaring success after the millions spent on the scheme.

Nice as they are, it's back to the drawing board Boris. Lovable fool that you are, this is one scheme you should have allowed Ken Livingstone (as it was he who muted it first and Boris took over) to take the credit for. Guess we'll still love you Boris!

Said yesterday I would blip the bikes!!!