A first-of-its kind ebike hire scheme has rolled out in Aberdeenshire this week, but how does it work, and how do you use it?
A total of 20 electric bikes are now available for rental from Aberdeenshire Council for cycling all along the Formartine and Buchan Way.
You can take the bicycles out for a ride from five locations — the Peterhead and Fraserburgh leisure centres, Ellon Community Campus, the Macbi Community Hub in Mintlaw, and at Aden Country Park.
We met with Helena Leita, strategy officer for Aberdeenshire Council, at Ellon Community Campus to show us every step required for taking one of the Aberdeenshire ebikes out for a spin, and how the rental system works.
Read on to hear from Helena how to get on your bike.
Step one for the Aberdeenshire ebike hire: Install the official app
Before you begin, you will first need to install the Moqo app on your phone.
You can download it for Apple devices here, and Android here.
Once you’ve got the app on your phone, you’ll then need to enter your bank details for processing payments.
The scheme costs £6.60 for two hours of rental time.
Next, you’ll need to decide where you’re getting your bike from, and how long you’ll be taking it out for.
Each of the five hire points all have their own hours of operation, and you can’t take out or return bikes outwith these times.
You can see all the times for all five locations on the scheme’s website, but the Ellon one at the town’s community campus is open for hires weekdays from 8am to 6pm, and weekends from 9am to 5pm.
“After you’ve booked it, you need to find the bike at the shelter at the location you’re starting at, and open the door, which should be unlocked during opening hours,” said Helena.
She continued: “The bikes all have a number on them, so just find the bicycle you’ve booked.
“There’s a big lock on the back wheel of the bike, which activates via Bluetooth with your app.
“You select unlock bicycle on your app, and you can then see the lock unhook from the back wheel.
“Once it’s open, you can take out the bike to use as you please — complying with safety codes, of course”.
Speaking of safety, all the bikes for the Aberdeenshire Council ebike hire scheme come with helmets, so if you’ve not got one of your own, you’ll be able to use one of theirs.
Step two: Getting to grips with your Aberdeenshire ebike
Unlike regular bikes, the Aberdeenshire rentable ebikes come with electric assistance to help you travel.
“They make hills feel as if you’re on the flat,” said Helena.
If you’ve used the Aberdeen ebike hire scheme, the Aberdeenshire ones are slightly different.
Whereas on the Aberdeen bikes there are no gears, and the electric assistance just kicks in when you start pedalling, the Aberdeenshire ebikes have a control panel on the handlebars you use to adjust how much of a power boost you need.
Helena said: “There’s four different levels of assistance you can get.
“You can change it depending on how much help you need, how hilly where it is, and so on.”
While you’re out and about on the ebikes and want to stop into a shop for a coffee for example, you can use the app to “pause” and lock your bike outside so it won’t get stolen, without ending your rental period.
Although the bikes hire locations have been placed for cycling on the 40-mile Formartine and Buchan Way, they can also be used along other local routes.
Step three: Returning your Aberdeenshire ebike when you’ve finished your cycle
Right now, you have to return your ebike to where you took it out from.
Aberdeenshire Council hopes in the future to allow people to take one of their ebikes out from one rental location, and leave it in another (for example, take one out from Ellon and leave it in Fraserburgh), but currently this isn’t possible logistically.
Helena said: “When you’re finished, put your bike back on the rack inside the bike shelter.
“Then you use your app to lock it again, and finish your booking.
“Once the booking is finished, your payment is processed.”
And that’s it!
Possible next locations for the ebike hire scheme
Although the Aberdeenshire ebike hire project only launched for the Formartine and Buchan Way last month, Helena and Chris Menzies, team leader in strategy for the council, both have high hopes for its future.
If all goes well along the current route, Helena said she’d love to see ebike rentals from the council made available elsewhere in the region, such as along Deeside and in areas like Kemnay, Kintore and Inverurie.
“I really hope that this is just the start, and we can replicate it in other places,” said Helena.
Setting up ebike hire project in a rural environment presented new challenges
Chris said getting the Aberdeenshire scheme up and running has been a very challenging task.
He explained that setting up an ebike rental project in rural Aberdeenshire presents different hurdles to overcome compared to establishing one in an urban environment, like the Aberdeen ebike hire initiative.
But he has ambitions for the Formartine and Buchan Way scheme to become a trend setter, and potentially inspire other rural communities across the country to put their active travel options up a gear.
He said: “If you’re renting out bikes in an urban environment, you’ve got a lot more people to market to, and you’ll probably only be thinking of taking those bikes on journeys within a two kilometre radius.
“But doing it rurally, you’ve got a lot more distance to cover, and a lot less dense populations.
“So you don’t have as many eyes on the bikes, and your destinations are a bit limited.
“So you’ve got to make it a different sort of offer, and so we’ve made our offering more suited to people looking for some recreational time, getting out and about into the countryside for some fresh air, rather than simply going from A to B.”
Chris added: “If we can use this as an exemplar for other rural communities, then I think that would be brilliant.
“But it’s really up to the visitors and residents of Aberdeenshire to give it a go and support it.”
More on ebikes in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire:
- Aberdeen ebikes: New parking zones and £1 for 7 minutes option
- Five things I’ve learned using the Aberdeen ebike hire scheme
- Our step-by-step guide to Aberdeen’s new ebike hire scheme
- New e-bike scheme to launch on Formartine and Buchan Way
You can visit the official Aberdeenshire ebike hire scheme website here.
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