by the possibility of catching nits. Another constraint is inexperienced cyclists are nervous about mixing it with traffic. But they're not the only things holding CityCycle back, as I soon discovered. I went to hire a bike on Saturday morning for the purposes of research, having decided I was prepared to chance any hygiene risks with the yellow helmets. I was staggered to discover, though, that I couldn't hire a bike on the spot -- I needed to be a registered subscriber! I couldn't just swipe my credit card at the kiosk to subscribe. Subscriptions must be done beforehand, either on-line, by telephone or at distribution points like libraries. In other words, there's no possibility of spontaneous use by first-timers. That's got to be a cold shower for visitors and any locals who decide on the spur of the moment they want to give CityCycle a go. I doubt I was the first to give up. Deterrents like the mandatory helmet law and limited bicycle infrastructure are unlikely to be addressed in the short term. But other bike schemes don't have this sort of administrative hurdle. It shouldn't have happened but it should be addressed straight away. Like Melbourne Bikeshare, this strikes me as a scheme which was set up without, or despite, sensible evaluation and planning processes. It seems the objective was just to get a bikeshare scheme; but no one cared if it actually worked. Worse, it's almost as if CityCycle was designed to fail. That's my personal