New e-bikes are now available for people to use as part of Greater Manchester’s Starling Bank Bike hire scheme.
The arrival of 300 new bikes this month means that half of the city-region’s bike hire fleet will be electric, providing scheme users with more choice on the type of bike they’d like to hire.
The new bikes have the added benefit of being lighter, with the battery integrated into the main frame, plus a larger basket at the front for users’ belongings.
The electric bikes are more popular to ride as they are ridden twice as often and tend be ridden further.
Starling Bank Bikes support Greater Manchester’s ambition to enable one million more sustainable journeys every day by 2040 and contribute to a healthier, greener and more productive city-region.
So far, Starling Bank Bike users have clocked up 1.23million rides, with 1,698 rides being made per day in April 2025.
Meanwhile, a record number of rides were made in the final week of April with 15,492 users clocking up rides, an average of 2,213 rides per day.
The scheme also broke the record for the most rides in a single day in the same week with 2,609 rides.
Dame Sarah Storey, Active Travel Commissioner for Greater Manchester, said:
“The arrival of the three hundred new e-bikes is a welcome sight in Manchester. I was fortunate to get to see the new design of these bikes prior to them being added to the on-street fleet and it is good to see the upgrades in the flesh.
“Not only are the bikes lighter but they have other features that make them easier to ride, such as the automatic gearing and rear wheel locking system. The bigger front basket is also very useful and they will be a popular addition to the scheme.”
Options are also being explored to fully-integrate bike hire with the Bee Network fare structure and app in future.
To hire a bike, people can either pay as they ride or save money as part of minute bundles with both payment methods available via the Starling Bank Bike app.
