I observed a similar, pioneering scheme some years ago in Copenhagen, where they do have an extensive bike road network. My neighbour, a banker, would go to the office each day on his (own) bike, but he had facilities to shower and change there, which in most cities is the exception. Besides, once he slipped in the rain and broke his arm. I met plenty of other Danes who had accidents on their bikes, and once observed a terrible collision of the bus in which I was riding with a cyclist.
The public bikes in Copenhagen were mostly used by tourists; I tried one out once. However, I seem to remember that there was a problem with bikes not being returned, and you could sometimes see vandalised public bikes in ditches, years later.
I am all for using the bike, but on a mass scale they need an extensive infrastructure to be safe, and they are much too easily stolen. (If memory serves, in Denmark at the time, only 2% of something like 90 000 yearly bicyle thefts were cleared up.)
A further point about bike security. I had three bike accidents in my life, all in my late teens. All were my fault and thus avoidable - and all had been more serious would I have driven a car.
One was just me showing off to friends with a risky stunt. In both other cases, I crashed at speed into cars that parked in violation of rules behind a corner. My fault: this is done too often, I should have slowed down when turning. Now, in neither case was my speed enough to break my bones - and had I driven a car, showing off could get me end up inside a metal coffin curled up on a lamppost, while for the other two, it would have been a frontal collision rather than flying over the parking cars, enough time to strech out my hands for the fall.
I have never been hit by a car, and that not due to courtageous drivers. Look out and be visible, and this risk is reduced. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
