There are so many reasons to despise these clunky chunks of street detritus. Tom Hodgkinson on why we should be saying “On yer bike!” to the tech boys behind them  

Why do I hate Lime bikes? The main reason is probably not the one you’re thinking of. You probably reckon that as a cyclist, I hate Lime bikes because they’re ridden by reckless young people cluelessly gabbing away on their mobile phones, with a total disregard for traffic lights, pedestrians and rules like overtaking on the inside.

Or maybe you think I hate Lime bikes because they’re too fast. Well, that’s true. They beat all other bicycles because they’re electricity-powered. They zoom along at 20 miles per hour, the speed limit. That makes them dangerous, in my view. The electric-power nature annoys me in another way. Why can’t these fit young people use their own muscle power to get around town? That’s the whole point of the bicycle. It converts muscle power – a renewable resource – into forward motion in the most elegant way. Lime bikes are not an eco alternative to cars as their marketing suggests. They are a non-eco alternative to good old bicycles.

Or you may reflect: well, he probably hates Lime bikes because of the way they clutter up the pavements. Outside Shepherd’s Bush tube station, to take my local example, there is a lovely wide pedestrian concourse which is used by a fruit and veg seller, buskers and promoters of Christianity and Islam, who hand out leaflets. But this well-conceived common space is now colonised by row upon row of Lime bikes. How I long to pay some local thugs to kick them all over! I do occasionally take a swipe at them myself. They block the thoroughfare and shield access to the bike racks which the council has provided. Sometimes I find Lime bikes on the pavement in front of my house – what happened to all those laws about blind people and not blocking public thoroughfares? Lime bikes disregard them all.

My gloom is only relieved when I cycle along the canal path and see a Lime bike lying uselessly at the bottom of the canal where some hoodlums have mercifully chucked it. That and the occasional beeping sound emitting from a Lime bike that means someone has stolen it. Well done young man!

While all the above are good reasons for hating Lime bikes, the main reason I loathe them so deeply is that they take money from people in London and deposit it in a Californian tech bro’s bank account. Your Lime bike money does not stay in the city that Lime has exploited for lucre. It disappears. It’s a tax on transport. That money should be staying in the city. And they’re not cheap. The Guardian says that a 25-minute Lime bike ride in London will cost you £8.25. The equivalent bus ride would cost £1.75. It would be completely free for me, as a bicycle owner.

That’s why I thoroughly approve of the Santander bike rental scheme, formerly known as Boris Bikes. This is properly licensed and run by Transport for London. Lime bikes, on the other hand, are run by pirates who have no interest in our laws or our wellbeing.

Lime was founded in January 2017 by two venture capitalists, Brad Bao and Toby Sun. The pair raised $12 million from Andreessen Horowitz, one of the big Silicon Valley investment vehicles. They then raised a further $335 million from investors in 2018, valuing the company at $1.1 billion. In August 2018, they signed a deal with Uber to provide them with electric bikes.

Lime now operate their vomitous scooters and electric bikes in over 200 cities. In November 2021 Lime raised a further $523 million in investment and now says it plans to float the company on the stock exchange (which would make massive fortunes for its founders and early shareholders).

Anyone who rents a Lime bike has fallen for this horrific Uber-backed attempt to squeeze billions out of the world’s city-dwellers and concentrate it in one Californian bank account. And Trump accuses other countries of “ripping off” the US! It’s the other way round, mate.

Lime’s vast wealth means they’re not afraid of local councils. Like Uber, they just start operating semi-legally and answer questions later – or ignore them. I contacted my local council to complain about Lime bikes clogging up the public space outside Shepherd’s Bush tube. The answer came: “Why do you believe these bikes are ‘illegally’ being placed across London? Cheers, Geoff Cowart, Strategic Lead for Communications and Communities.” I explained why I thought that and asked whether the council got paid by Lime/Uber. In reply I was directed to a news story from 2023 about a time that the council removed around 100 bikes from pavements. The piece quoted the head of the council saying that Lime is a “great addition to public transport”.

Some councils have protested but got nowhere. The leader of Wandsworth council said in 2022: “We receive daily complaints about Lime bikes blocking pavements, and when I raised this with the company last year they said they would be taking steps to solve this problem. Unfortunately the actions they have taken have not ensured sustained improvements in the situation and removing Lime bikes obstructing pavements continues to be necessary.”

And the dangers? They’re real. The website London Centric published a story in January 2025 called “Lime Bikes Keep Breaking Londoners’ Legs”. The piece went on to make the shortlist for Private Eye’s Paul Foot Award for investigative journalism. Following a Lime bike brake failure, said the story, “Alex” sustained a terrible injury. “At first Alex thought he was simply dazed and bruised. Then the pain hit him. The Lime bike’s central strut, a single bar of curved metal which holds the e-bike’s chunky rechargeable battery in place, had smashed against his leg and crushed his bone with enormous force against the road.” The doctor examining him was shocked. “The doctor said this is the sort of accident that comes from motorbikes, this is not a bicycle accident. He couldn’t believe the logistics of how I got there.”

A London surgeon told the site that he’s seen a “big increase in Lime-bike related injuries” arriving on his operating table. When London Centric contacted Lime about these accidents, they were given a bland and meaningless response: “We are saddened to hear about these unfortunate incidents and we wish these riders a swift recovery. At Lime, safety is our highest priority.”

No. Your highest priority is delivering money to shareholders.

Sadly people don’t look beyond the ends of their noses, probably because Lime spends fortunes on sophisticated marketing. If the end user reflected for a second on the ethics and morals involved here, they would boycott Lime immediately.

This article appears in our December 2025 edition, Idler #106 – out now.

Subscribe here and get 12% off the shop price plus a FREE copy of Idle Thoughts by Tom Hodgkinson, worth £8.95.

Subscribers may comment. Please add your idle thoughts using the box below.

A Drink with the Idler

“A Drink with the Idler” returns on 13 November when our guest will be the Idler‘s Art Flâneur Tim Richardson (below), who will be revealing the secrets behind England’s landscape gardens. Thursday 13 November, 6-7pm. Click here to book – it’s FREE to subscribers.

Our December 2025 issue is available in Waitrose, Waterstones, Smiths Travel outlets, select Smiths high street branches and around 100 indie stores. Click here for your nearest stockist.