Go West: Brompton Dock opens at Bristol Temple Meads and Exeter St Davids stations

Brompton Dock has teamed up with First Great Western with the opening this week of hire docks at two key stations on the rail operator’s network – Bristol Temple Meads and Exeter St Davids – with others at Oxford and Reading due to follow shortly, enabling rail passengers to hire Brompton’s iconic folding bikes.

Launched last year at Manchester Piccadilly, Brompton Dock is a sister company to Brompton Bicycle, and with the Bristol and Exeter openings there are now eight locations open in the UK, the others being at railway stations in Guildford, Stoke-on-Trent, plus one opposite Ealing Broadway station and another on the campus of the University of Greenwich. The latter is only open to the institution's staff and students.

Members have 24-hour access to the bicycles, which can be accessed on a long- or sort-term hire basis, with a variety of tariffs available, as shown below.

Trial Rider Tariff

1-week membership + hire: £10

Occasional Rider Tariff

Yearly membership £10
Weekly hire £25 (£3.57 per day)

Daily hire £8

Frequent Rider Tariff

Yearly membership: £50
Monthly hire: £50 (£1.67 per day)
Weekly hire: £15 (£2.14 per day)

Daily hire: £4

Further details, including how to register and how to unlock bikes, can be found on the Brompton Dock website.

Referring to the opening of the dock at Bristol Temple Meads, First Great Western Retail Manager Central Mike Holmes said: “It's getting people out of cars and onto bikes. It will hopefully also encourage people to use fold-up bikes which are a massive advantage for us for travelling on the train itself.

“Passengers can get a bike and actually take it with them to their destination - say that be from Bristol to Bath or Chippenham for example – go to work and come back the day after, returning the bike to its dock."

Mark Antwis, Managing Director of Brompton Dock, commented: “We are very pleased to be working with First Great Western, helping to integrate cycling into the company’s network.

“Brompton Dock offers the train operator’s customers a simple, affordable and flexible way to travel to and from railway stations. It exploits all the advantages of the Brompton, a popular folding bicycle that may be carried unrestricted at any time on trains and buses.”

By the end of this year there are planned to be at least 15 Brompton Dock locations in the UK, with scheduled openings including Ashford International, Canterbury, Maidstone and Tonbridge in Kent, Peterborough, Southampton, and Hounslow, North Acton and Southwark in London.

The company says it is also planning to expand internationally.