Computer generated image of a Beehive by bicycle (capacity 50 bicycles).

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The hive by bike

  • A Nantes start-up wants to remove the “obstacles” to the use of bicycles in the city, including theft and parking.

  • La Ruche à Vélo, a project launched in 2017, is about to install its first “secure and automated” parking lot

In full boom since the deconfinement, the use of the bicycle remains however still slowed down by the fear of the theft and the lack of solutions of secure parking in the big cities, according to a recent study.

Concerns which the Nantes start-up La Ruche à Vélo wanted to tackle, the invention of which should soon delight cyclists in Maine-et-Loire.

Near the Angers SNCF station, the first example of the "most secure car park in the world" is being installed.

By the end of December, this "hive" will allow cyclists (subscribers or occasional) to park their bike quickly and with the assurance of finding it when they come to pick it up, promises the start- up.

For this experimental model, this wooden box, currently being manufactured in Vendée, will be able to house ten bicycles on three floors.

It is the city of Angers which must set the parking prices.

Stow and take out your bike in 30 seconds

"Our parking lot is completely automated: the user places his bike in an airlock and the machine will take it over to store it in an inaccessible, very secure space," explains Antoine Cochou, founder and manager of the Bicycles Hive.

There is no longer any need for a padlock, nor to remove your baby seat or its accessories.

The manipulation is done in 30 seconds, so that parking is no longer an obstacle to the use of the bike in town.

Another advantage according to the company manager, that of space saving: for the final model, which will offer 50 sites over five floors, the footprint will be only 24 m2.

The idea germinated in 2017 when Antoine Cochou was still an engineering student at Icam in Nantes.

Since then, with his two classmates, he has won several prizes and was notably winner of the participatory budget of the city of Angers.

Today there are many projects.

"We are in discussions with several communities in the West," he reports.

The goal is to install four car parks next year.

"And especially in Nantes, where contacts are" very advanced ".

In these new models, cargo bikes will be accepted.

Next to it, there is an inflation station and "lockers", to store your helmet for example.

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  • Cyclist

  • Angers

  • Society

  • Nantes

  • Bike