Sep 27, 2022
All the Docks
Why All the Docks?
At the start of 2022 I came across this New Yorker article (Doppelangers on two wheels) written about two “daredevil New Yorkers’’ who were each independently trying to visit all 1600+ Citibike stations. Why would they do this? In the words of George Mallory “Because it’s there”.
That article got me thinking whether something similar could be done with the Cycle hire scheme in London, which has over 800 docking stations. A post on LinkedIn roped Joe Seal-Driver and Matthew Clark, and we started to plan for the challenge. The first estimate was that to visit all the docks in one go would take around 40 hours over 360 km!
We decided a team challenge would be more manageable, and fun! We invited fellow micromobility enthusiasts to join the challenge. There will be 3 teams trying to visit as many of the Cycle Hire docking stations as they can in 12 hours.
The teams:
South Central (Starting at Canada Water) — Steve Bee, Rob Whitehead, James Dunn, Georgia Yexley
East Central (Starting at the Velodrome in Stratford) — Joe Seal-Driver, Jeyda Heselton, Oliver O’Brien
West Central (Starting at Ravenscourt Park) — Matthew Clark, Grace Packard, Steve Pyer
How will the challenge work?
Each team will start from a different docking station in the South, East and West of London and so we will know once and for all which is the best part of London.
They will then dock in and out of each docking station on route to the centre of London. One lead rider with the magic Cycle Hire fob will be visiting every docking station with that team. Each team will have approximately 260 docking stations to visit and an estimate 120km to cover.
A map of the routes:
https://misc.oomap.co.uk/atdmap/
Transport for London and Santander are both supporting the challenge and we would love for you too. You can follow on the challenge on Twitter by following @allthedocks or #allthedocks
