Lockdown on tech: SmartBike app is challenging, finds user

At a docking station located on Five Furlong Road, on the intersection of Velachery Main Road and adjacent to the grounds of the Madras School of Equitation (think horsepower), I found salvation calling. As many as six brand new bicycles, including one with a flat tyre were up for pedalling and I wasted no time in downloading the Smart Bike app on the Play Store.

Having setup my payment options in a jiffy – you need a debit or credit card here (wallets are a no go for smart bikers) – I was ready to rumble. Unlocking a parked bicycle is straightforward – scan the QR code on the rear mudguard bearing a unique bicycle ID and voila, the bike gets unlocked, and you’re good to go. Of course, I had to fumble a bit with unlocking a bike, since a few of the bikes parked at the docking station were still tethered to their owners, who had presumably failed to ‘end’ their rides after docking and locking their bikes.

More on that later, but for now, I was up and about, riding my bicycle, the wind in my face, imagining myself humming Freddie Mercury’s Bicycle Race as I coasted along the Autobahn-like asphalt, feeling as liberated as one could be. But trouble lay right around the corner as I decided to stop by at the Blue Cross animal shelter for a short while. Having parked my vehicle, I now needed to lock the bike. This, however, proved to be a process riddled with anxiety as one needs to have the superior hand-eye coordination to press the ‘lock bicycle’ key on the app and wait for a few seconds before attempting to press down the actual lock lever on the bicycle.

Leaving an unlocked bike outside the gate was a strict no-no, so I decided to lug the bicycle into the compound. Since I had time on my hands, I once again gave the lock all my patience and a few necessary tugs, and through some miracle, I was able to lock the bike. By now, it had dawned on me that unlocking a bike was comparatively easier than locking it. Interestingly, the duration of having hired the bike is calculated only once you unlock the bike and are back to riding, so you are not really charged a bomb for the idle hours when the bike hasn’t been driven.

Now comes the gruelling ‘ending’ of my ride. Having brought my bike back to the docking station, I struggled for the better part of about 30 minutes, trying to end the ride on my app with one hand, while employing the Cool Hand Luke method to set the lock on the bicycle with the other hand. At one point, the app finally managed to end the ride, but for crying out loud, my bike was still unlocked, and I had half a mind to ride it all the way home until I figured out how to lock it. It seems, both locking the bike and ending the ride employs the same workflow. Oh, and if you’re trying to reach customer care, good luck with that – there is none.

I did wonder, what happens to anyone in a rush, picking up one of these bikes from a metro station, as a mode of last-mile commute? The whole idea behind these bikes is to reduce our carbon footprint and encourage more folks to take the green route out. But we need to idiot-proof the system, before all that. Starting with the app. And that lock.