British Blaze bikes will land in NYC’s Staten Island in 2020.
British bike-share brand Beryl will be the new bicycle provider on New York City’s Staten Island. One thousand of the app-hired bicycles will replace the bike share bikes supplied since July 2018 by U.S. companies Lime and the Uber-owned Jump.
Beryl bicycles, like those from Lime and Jump, do not require docking stations. The bikes are unlocked through the Beryl app, and can be picked up and dropped off at geofenced and marked “Beryl Bays.”
Blaze’s Laserlight warns motorists and pedestrians that a cyclist is nearby.
The bike-share brand sprang from Blaze, a company founded in 2012 to market a dynamo-powered light which projects an image of a green bicycle on to the road a few meters ahead of the rider. These Laserlights were first specified on London’s bike share bikes and were introduced on New York City’s Citi bikes in 2017.
Beryl bike-share bike schemes currently operate in the City of London and the English cities of Bournemouth, Poole, and Hereford.
The Beryl bike has three gears and is fitted with Blaze’s patented Laserlight.
Emily Brooke founded Blaze in 2012 and later went on to create the Beryl bike-share brand.
Blaze was founded by Emily Brooke, who invented the Laserlight while still a student. She raised £55,000 in crowdfunding on Kickstarter in 2012 and later went on to raise more than £330,000 from venture capitalists, including Richard Branson’s family in 2014 with another £700,000 raised the following year.
Staten Island—known as “the Rock”—has a population of nearly 480,000.
