Your step-by-step guide to Aberdeenshire’s ebike hire scheme

By Kieran Beattie

February 1 2023, 5:00 pm

Aberdeenshire Council has launched its own ebike hire project. Helena Leita from the council shows us in this article how to take one of the bikes out for a spin. She's pictured here at Ellon Community Campus on one of the ebikes. Image: Kami Thomson/DC Thomson

A first-of-its kind ebike hire scheme has rolled out in Aberdeenshire this week, but how does it work, and how do you use it?

A total of 20 electric bikes are now available for rental from Aberdeenshire Council for cycling all along the Formartine and Buchan Way.

You can take the bicycles out for a ride from five locations — the Peterhead and Fraserburgh leisure centres, Ellon Community Campus, the Macbi Community Hub in Mintlaw, and at Aden Country Park.

We met with Helena Leita, strategy officer for Aberdeenshire Council, at Ellon Community Campus to show us every step required for taking one of the Aberdeenshire ebikes out for a spin, and how the rental system works.

Read on to hear from Helena how to get on your bike.

Step one for the Aberdeenshire ebike hire: Install the official app

Helena explained to us exactly how to rent one of the Aberdeenshire ebikes, using the rental bike shelter at Ellon Community Campus as an example. Image: Kami Thomson/DC Thomson.

Before you begin, you will first need to install the Moqo app on your phone.

You can download it for Apple devices here, and Android here.

Once you’ve got the app on your phone, you’ll then need to enter your bank details for processing payments.

The scheme costs £6.60 for two hours of rental time.

Next, you’ll need to decide where you’re getting your bike from, and how long you’ll be taking it out for.

Once you sign up to the app, you can open the map view to see nearby available bikes for rental. Image: Kami Thomson/DC Thomson

Each of the five hire points all have their own hours of operation, and you can’t take out or return bikes outwith these times.

You can see all the times for all five locations on the scheme’s website, but the Ellon one at the town’s community campus is open for hires weekdays from 8am to 6pm, and weekends from 9am to 5pm.

Once you’ve picked a bike, you can book the times you want to rent it on the app. Image: Kami Thomson/DC Thomson

“After you’ve booked it, you need to find the bike at the shelter at the location you’re starting at, and open the door, which should be unlocked during opening hours,” said Helena.

The Ellon Community Camus ebike rental shelter is located just outside the main entrance. Image: Kami Thomson/DC Thomson.

She continued: “The bikes all have a number on them, so just find the bicycle you’ve booked.

“There’s a big lock on the back wheel of the bike, which activates via Bluetooth with your app.

“You select unlock bicycle on your app, and you can then see the lock unhook from the back wheel.

Once you press unlock bike, it sends a signal to the bicycle which unhooks the large lock over the rear wheel. You’ll be able to see and hear the lock moving. Image: Kami Thomson/DC Thomson

“Once it’s open, you can take out the bike to use as you please — complying with safety codes, of course”.

Speaking of safety, all the bikes for the Aberdeenshire Council ebike hire scheme come with helmets, so if you’ve not got one of your own, you’ll be able to use one of theirs.

Step two: Getting to grips with your Aberdeenshire ebike

Helena taking one of the ebikes out for a spin at Ellon. Image: Kami Thomson/DC Thomson

Unlike regular bikes, the Aberdeenshire rentable ebikes come with electric assistance to help you travel.

“They make hills feel as if you’re on the flat,” said Helena.

If you’ve used the Aberdeen ebike hire scheme, the Aberdeenshire ones are slightly different.

Whereas on the Aberdeen bikes there are no gears, and the electric assistance just kicks in when you start pedalling, the Aberdeenshire ebikes have a control panel on the handlebars you use to adjust how much of a power boost you need.

Here’s the control panel on the handlebars to help set your level of electric assistance. It also displays battery level and other features. Image: Kami Thomson/DC Thomson

Helena said: “There’s four different levels of assistance you can get.

“You can change it depending on how much help you need, how hilly where it is, and so on.”

The ebikes come with plenty of power to help you traverse hilly terrain. Image: Kami Thomson/DC Thomson

While you’re out and about on the ebikes and want to stop into a shop for a coffee for example, you can use the app to “pause” and lock your bike outside so it won’t get stolen, without ending your rental period.

You can stop and lock the bikes mid-rental if you want to stop for a coffee or a chat with a friend. Image: Kami Thomson/DC Thomson

Although the bikes hire locations have been placed for cycling on the 40-mile Formartine and Buchan Way, they can also be used along other local routes.

Step three: Returning your Aberdeenshire ebike when you’ve finished your cycle

Right now, you have to return your ebike to where you took it out from.

Aberdeenshire Council hopes in the future to allow people to take one of their ebikes out from one rental location, and leave it in another (for example, take one out from Ellon and leave it in Fraserburgh), but currently this isn’t possible logistically.

Helena said: “When you’re finished, put your bike back on the rack inside the bike shelter.

A view inside the shelters. When you’re finished, place your bike back on one of the metal racks. Image: Kami Thomson/DC Thomson

“Then you use your app to lock it again, and finish your booking.

“Once the booking is finished, your payment is processed.”

Once you’ve finished your journey, lock your bike with the app, and end the booking to conclude your rent. Image: Kami Thomson/DC Thomson

And that’s it!

Possible next locations for the ebike hire scheme

Helena says she’d love to see the scheme rolled out elsewhere. Image: Kami Thomson/DC Thomson

Although the Aberdeenshire ebike hire project only launched for the Formartine and Buchan Way last month, Helena and Chris Menzies, team leader in strategy for the council, both have high hopes for its future.

If all goes well along the current route, Helena said she’d love to see ebike rentals from the council made available elsewhere in the region, such as along Deeside and in areas like Kemnay, Kintore and Inverurie.

“I really hope that this is just the start, and we can replicate it in other places,” said Helena.

Setting up ebike hire project in a rural environment presented new challenges

Chris said getting the Aberdeenshire scheme up and running has been a very challenging task.

He explained that setting up an ebike rental project in rural Aberdeenshire presents different hurdles to overcome compared to establishing one in an urban environment, like the Aberdeen ebike hire initiative.

But he has ambitions for the Formartine and Buchan Way scheme to become a trend setter, and potentially inspire other rural communities across the country to put their active travel options up a gear.

replacement bridges — The Formartine and Buchan Way is a popular active travel route for walkers and cyclists alike. Image: Aberdeenshire Council

He said: “If you’re renting out bikes in an urban environment, you’ve got a lot more people to market to, and you’ll probably only be thinking of taking those bikes on journeys within a two kilometre radius.

“But doing it rurally, you’ve got a lot more distance to cover, and a lot less dense populations.

“So you don’t have as many eyes on the bikes, and your destinations are a bit limited.

“So you’ve got to make it a different sort of offer, and so we’ve made our offering more suited to people looking for some recreational time, getting out and about into the countryside for some fresh air, rather than simply going from A to B.”

Chris added: “If we can use this as an exemplar for other rural communities, then I think that would be brilliant.

“But it’s really up to the visitors and residents of Aberdeenshire to give it a go and support it.”