Boris in Lincoln - on hire bikes and tourism

I'm just heading home from a city break in Lincoln. I whisked @rachaelprince off for the weekend with no clue if it was a good idea or grounds for divorce.

The news was good, Lincoln has spent its civic money wisely and it's a great place to wander round. The steep hill up to the cathedral which is called Steep Hill, is full of chaotic medieval buildings which are now cafés and high end boutiques or are still pubs. The cathedral itself is worth a look. Even this confirmed atheisist spent a happy hour marvelling at a splendid piece of architecture and it's free on a Sunday god was on our side, oh me of little (well no) faith. 

The museum come art gallery called the Collection. is in a new piece of superb design that would have fitted in well in LA or Barcelona. All acute angles, oak and copper. With a stone cladding to make it fit in nicely with the old buildings. There was loads of stuff and lots of Saxon metalwork which you don't often see. They also had one room with some interesting contemporary artworks on the availability of data in the modern world. I liked the reconstruction of the five day journey of a stolen iPhone recreated from google maps stills running as a film. It covers some ground.

There were loads of great restaurants and cafés and bits of public art dotted about here and there. All in all it reminded me of York, Prague or even Edinburgh. 

I got to thinking what a good job Lincoln did of marketing itself to tourists as a destination. It had spent its money on infrastructure and then there was a really good map tying it all together, everything was on a human scale you could walk across the city in 15 minutes. As a result the streets were buzzing.

Harrogate and Knaresborough where tourism is also a big deal hasn't done as good a job of selling itself I think. If you sold these two towns as a package, Did one big map showing some routes for a day out. I think the weekend break and staycation  market which shows no sign of declining would come running. There is more to Harrogate than Betty's and a winter gardens that's now a pub. We don't seem to sell the package, we sell the parts.

This morning we had an hour before our train so we had a go on Lincoln's version of the Boris bike, which is new to the town. We saw some of the distinctive orange bikes at the station as we arrived and there were some down by the water front where we were staying. Getting two hired was a bit of a faff. Websites and two phone calls and then we were in. They are fairly robust machines with no chain but one rear chain stay holds a shaft drive. In all the faffing with the fairly clunky un-locking interface I didn't do any-more than give mine a once over before I got on it. I realised my mistake as the front tire was pretty soft and it was like pedalling through a soft mud eleven on Tarmac.

Anyway we headed off down the Sustran's route beside the Fossdyke and all was well. Two miles in my left pedal was doing something funky under my foot. I had a look and it had worked loose and the crank thread was on the way out. With no tools to sort it I tried to tighten it by hand,  but it was no good. It all but fell off so I took it off before it got any worse. so I peddled back one footed which was memorable and really hard work. There was also some roughness from the shaft drive which again seemed a bad sign on a nearly new bike. I was missing my own bike and it's lightweight zoomyness.

What of the scheme then? In principle it's great. Bikes you can use day or night for £4 a day. They are heavy though and I want to know who if anyone maintains them? I checked over the other bikes at the station as we left they all seemed in good nick maybe I was just unlucky? Thing is if these bikes are aimed at people who don't ride bikes that much they need to work and despite the efforts of the design to be maintenance free if I'd had a pump and a spanner with me things would have been better. I know there is a theft issue there but there must be a way?

So would I like to see something similar in Harrogate? Well if the teething problems can be ironed out yes. I think they are great for small journeys and you don't have to try and get your bike on the train. Given that our train from Retford to Lincoln was a bus I am glad we didn't try. Sustainable transport still has a way to go in England but at least we seem to be trying. Oh and if you have a partner that needs whisking away you could do worse than whisk towards Lincoln.