One of the fastest growing sectors of the cycling industry is shared e-bike schemes. Each year in the UK, user records are being shattered. The latest figures show that 25 million journeys were documented in the year to September 2023 – that’s 67,565 rides a day.
Today, the companies who run these schemes have become household names. You’ve almost certainly heard of Lime – the operator which supplies most of London’s fleet – but there’s also Forest, Tier, Voi, Dott and Beryl. This latter brand, first founded as a bike light maker in 2012, is now rolling out its latest model – and its CEO believes it’s one of the most advanced on the market.
“I’m not prone to hyperbole,” wrote Beryl boss Phil Ellis on LinkedIn, “but I really think this is the greatest shared e-bike ever.”
On a cold January morning, I visited the company’s HQ in central London to see if this was the case. There, I met Ellis, who showed me the bike in detail, and took me on a frosty half hour test ride around the streets of Shoreditch.
The first thing I notice with Beryl’s e-bike is its simple design. According to Ellis, this is a conscious choice. “What we’ve tried to do, from an aesthetic point of view, before we even get into the features, is make the bike look and feel as approachable as possible,” he says, “make it look and feel as light as a normal pedal bike that people might have been familiar with growing up.
“We’re trying to achieve a bike that’s light, but almost as importantly, looks light and looks accessible.”
Compared to its competitors on the market, Beryl’s e-bike is significantly lighter. Most weigh between 35kg and 40kg, while Beryl’s is 28kg. Of course, that’s still a hefty sum to try and lift over a kerb, but as we pull away on our test ride, and the e-assist kicks in, the weight disappears underneath me.
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The bike is driven by a motor in its front hub, but the magic happens in the rear hub. There, a two-speed device automatically shifts up a gear, helping me maintain a smooth cadence. “As a rider, you don’t really feel it, but it does mean that you can sort of cruise comfortably at the top speed [15.5mph/25km/h],” Ellis says. He struggles to think of any other schemes that have this two-speed shifting feature.
(Image credit: Jake Baggaley (Beryl))
Beryl creates all of its technology software in-house, having advanced from its origins as a bike light manufacturer into a full bike builder out of its warehouse in Poole on the south coast of England.
“It’s got cellular connectivity, Bluetooth, GPS, a small battery, and a whole sensor array,” says Ellis, pointing to the control box. “It tells us what’s going on with the bikes. We can monitor if the bike’s fallen over, when it’s being docked, all these sorts of movements.
“One thing I would say we’re ahead of the market on is the level of connectivity of the bike, and particularly the accuracy and reliability of the GPS tracking,” he adds. This, he explains, is controlled with the brand’s own GPS antenna. “We use every available satellite that there is,” he says.
Unlike Lime and its competitors, Beryl’s modus operandi is to partner with local authorities and run schemes in tandem with them. The company first introduced its bikes in Bournemouth in 2019; its new e-bike models are currently available in Stevenage and Guildford.
This spring, Ellis and his colleagues will extend the fleet into larger cities, namely Leeds and Manchester, where Beryl already provides more than 1,000 bikes to the council’s Bee Network.
“Every design choice you make on a bike share bike is to make it more resilient,” the CEO says. “It’s a bike that lives on the street 24/7.”
As a result, Beryl has tried to make its offering “bombproof”. Ellis highlights in particular the wide 54mm tyres, and the rear hub brake, which is internalised and protectively encased. The bike also has a chain tensioner – a small device placed behind the chainring – which tightens the chain to stop it slackening over time.
“We’ve tried to take all of those features that give a really good riding experience and [make it] a technology-enabled operation,” Ellis says.
(Image credit: Jake Baggaley (Beryl))
It’s a wonder then, with all the engineering, how much money goes into creating one of these e-bikes. I ask the company’s CEO about the cost, but he won’t be drawn into an answer. He does reveal, however, that operators would hope to break even in “as close to a year” as possible after the bike gracing the streets.
Our half hour jaunt comes to an end. My fingers are frozen, my ears sting with the cold, but my legs feel as fresh as when I started.
I wonder, in an already saturated field, how many of London’s 40,000-odd dockless e-bikes belong to Beryl. The answer, Ellis reveals, is one: his one.
“I ride it to and from the office,” he says. “It’s actually part of the scheme, and anyone can unlock it. I’d say it happens every quarter, but I quite like when it happens. I have to go out across London and look for it.”
Is Beryl looking to expand into the capital? The CEO ums and ahs. Beryl already works closely with Transport for London, he says, providing the Santander Bikes operators with the brand’s signature laser beam light. “That’s our product,” Ellis says. “We sell that as an accessory to TfL, and that also has GPS tracking and accelerometers.”
It’s this technology that’s keeping the brand at the leading edge of the market, and it might be coming to a town near you soon. “They’ve been really successful so far,” Ellis says of the new bike. I leave hoping my half hour jolly won’t be my last with it.
