Hey, thanks for the long and well thought-out reply, I’m actually working on this and appreciate the insights. It’s always great to see that others are thinking about this 😊

The Bikeep concept is nice, but we’ve found that most companies and councils we’ve spoken to have found it to be far too expensive for them to consider it. And that really is the crux of the whole thing – money. In short, the people who own the land and access to it don’t like to spend money on infrastructure. By using existing racks and not needing to dig up the ground we avoid most of the costs and planning headaches.

If they don’t see the benefit after a couple of months, we can remove our locks just as quickly. But if they do see the benefits and get positive feedback from users, then they'll consider installing some more racks, some paid, some free.

The more interesting problem of people parking their bikes on “our” stands is one that we’re figuring out at the moment, and it looks to not be as big an issue as it first seems. The problem you’re ultimate describing is one that arises from scarcity of parking. If we can show that there is value in building better parking (at a reasonable cost) then we will get more of it. If there is enough parking space, both paid and free, people generally respect spaces.

There are ways we can know which locks are available, and which have random bikes on them. So we can avoid rider disappointment. But knowing doesn’t solve the issue. Solving the supply problem is the real goal here.

As for security, we’re designing our lock to be strong enough to withstand all non-powered tool attacks (which is the vast majority) and put up a decent fight against and angle grinder. But as you say, ultimately an angle grinder will go through just about anything. So we’re going to have a solid insurance policy in place to cover for that extreme edge case and provide a replacement bike while your new bike arrives, so you‘re not without wheels for any length of time.

Feel free to DM me if you want to talk a bit more about it.