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2021: A Year in Review

2021: A Year in Review

2021 has been an extremely busy year at Bleeper. While our core public bike rental service has continued to grow, we’ve also expanded our business to offer new services, including private bike fleets, cargobikes, and eBike subscriptions. We’re taking a look back at the year that has been, and also looking ahead to some of the new things that Bleeper has in store for 2022.

 

Bleeper’s main focus continues to be on providing our public bike rental service, which serves an area of 100km² across Dublin City Council, Fingal County Council and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. In August we reached the significant milestone of 100,000 registered accounts and celebrated by giving all our users a free Bleeper day pass.

 

Bleeper had another big moment recently when our public bikes became available to hire 24 hours a day from the 1st of December. Many of our members had requested this change and, in implementing it, Bleeper became the first public bike rental provider in Ireland to offer a 24/7 service.

 

One of the more noticeable changes to Bleeper this year came in September, when our public bikes turned blue as part of the “Dublin is Open” campaign. Bleeper was proud to be part of this campaign by Dublin City Council and Dublin.ie which encouraged people to visit Dublin City Centre.

2021: A Year in Review
One of our Blue Bleepers pictured at Grand Canal Dock by @youforb on Instagram.

 

At the start of the summer Bleeper extended our Purple Zone to include new areas in North Fingal. This expansion brought Bleeper’s service to Balbriggan, Rush, Donabate, Portrane and Skerries.

 

While the Covid pandemic caused much disruption throughout 2021, Bleeper continued to offer free membership to healthcare workers who needed to use our bike rental service. When Covid vaccines became available, Bleeper provided free bike rides to enable people to cycle to their vaccination appointments.

2021: A Year in Review
Some of the Bleeper Private Scheme fleet being delivered to the UCD campus in Belfield

 

Bleeper started offering a private bike service this year, My Private Scheme, which provides fleets of shared pedal bikes and eBikes to companies and organisations. This has proved to be a popular service and we’ve established private bike fleets with a wide variety of organisations, including Actavo, Sonbrook, eBay, UCD, Sport Ireland Campus, Bartra Healthcare and Home Instead.


Bleeper has also gotten into cargobikes in a big way this year, via our BleeperBox service. In May we launched a pioneering cargobikes-for-business pilot project with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. This scheme offered bespoke eCargobikes to local businesses at a discounted rate which was subsidised by the County Council.

The Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown cargobike project was the inspiration for Dublin City Council to launch a similar initiative in September, and Fingal County Council followed suit earlier this month with its own cargobikes initiative. Through these three projects, Bleeper has provided eCargobikes to more than 40 local businesses across Dublin this year.

 

Another new product which Bleeper started providing this year is our Subscriptions service, which offers all the benefits of owning an eBike with none of the hassle. For a weekly subscription fee, people can have their very own eBike which they keep 24/7. Bleeper looks after any maintenance or repairs that the eBike might need, and that’s all included in the subscription fee too.


Bleeper currently offers three types of eBikes through our Subscriptions service: A regular eBike, a folding eBike, and an eCargobike - and we’re hoping to expand our Subscriptions offerings in the new year.

2021: A Year in Review
Irish Independent journalist Adrian Weckler is pictured testing Bleeper's eCity 1 eBike



Speaking of the New Year, there are exciting times ahead for Bleeper. Early in 2022, we will be announcing some big changes to our public bikes service which we believe will greatly improve your user experience with Bleeper. Stay tuned for further updates on this in January.

Finally, we wouldn’t be here without Bleeper users, so we want to finish up the year by thanking you all for your custom, your feedback, and your support. As Bleeper continues to grow, we hope you’ll grow with us and continue enjoying what Bleeper offers.

We wish you all a Happy Christmas and a wonderful New Year.

2021: A Year in Review