Urbikes
Urbikes has been a bike rental system in the Catalan town of Granollers since January 2009 . When designing the 25 kg heavy urban bike, particular consideration was given to reducing ongoing operating and maintenance costs. These are around 250 euros / year. Instead of a chain , the wheel has a cardan shaft that transmits the movement of the pedals to the rear axle with 8 gears. The tire tubes are filled with foam rather than air, so that no punctures prevent their use and no regular inflation is necessary. All individual parts are custom-made and cannot be used on other bikes in order to prevent parts theft. As a registration system for electronic borrowing and return, existing parking ticket machines that have been vandalism- optimized for many years as well as their data transmission, power supply and payment systems are used in order to save investment costs. The same system operates in the Catalan city of Vic .
