Those dockless bicycles keep showing up in the oddest of places in Cambridge -
some are in small (3rd policeman like) huddles outside what can only be a student party venue, but others are in the middle of nowhere, so perhaps they are part of a very good Dr Who episode where people walking across Lammas Land (or the reality checkpoint in the middle of Parker's Piece) suddenly mutate into bicycles (or they are alien bicycles lying in wait to feed on early morning joggers or dogwalkers)
I think we need to set up some drones to spy on them and see how they move around at night
**** update update update ***
Since writing this (nearly a year ago, nov 2018)) more and more of these bikes are appearing, in random places, and they mainly appear in two colours, emergency stop orange, or disaster lime green. I have been successful in tracking them, and now have uncovered their true, fiendish, purpose.
It is clear that we are being fought over by two alien species, and these bikes are the method for extracting smart humans from earth, and teleporting them from places where the beaming-up works best, to alien planets where these smart people can be forced to work on weapons systems to defend the aliens from incoming attacks by super violent hegemonic swarms of free-market borg.
In the first round (as reported in the excellent documentary, This Island Earth, the inhabitants of Metaluna directly took scientists to development centers and rarely used much stealth tech. The second round has seen the Thermians, frustrated at the lack of skills amongst 2nd tier actors (as seen in Galaxy Quest) who relied on pure blind luck, rather than intelligence, have combined forces with the Metalunans, to deploy these fiendish traps, in the form of weakly powered electric bicycles, thin disguises for matter transporters. As has been known since the very excellent Watkins Study of Ley Lines, there are only certain places where these transporters can achieve the range necessary to get from the surface of Terra, to the distant orbs of Metalina or Thermia. This is where the unwitting riders are misdirected to on their drunken way home from pubs. Once beamed up from, the bikes are now drained of power and await collection by passing ship (or policeman - what did you think that big blue hat was really for - its an emergency recharging unit, of course) and then returned to more likely places to find nobel and fields folks, or indeed, the occasional footlights polymath, to enlist in support of the defense technology development programs so very far away.
*** update #2 **
it seems we were wrong - from 20,000 meters, it is clear that the abandoned bicycles are left in the forms of messages back to home base on Tralfamadore, to explain that more dilithium crystals are no longer needed as a synthetic substitute has been found in the form of humbugs from a local sweetshop. Rumours that the bikes are left by works who are employed in digging the new Cambridge underground railway between Parkers Piece and the Three Horseshoes in Madingley are completely unfounded according to the Morlock spokesman from Pembroke.
some are in small (3rd policeman like) huddles outside what can only be a student party venue, but others are in the middle of nowhere, so perhaps they are part of a very good Dr Who episode where people walking across Lammas Land (or the reality checkpoint in the middle of Parker's Piece) suddenly mutate into bicycles (or they are alien bicycles lying in wait to feed on early morning joggers or dogwalkers)
I think we need to set up some drones to spy on them and see how they move around at night
**** update update update ***
Since writing this (nearly a year ago, nov 2018)) more and more of these bikes are appearing, in random places, and they mainly appear in two colours, emergency stop orange, or disaster lime green. I have been successful in tracking them, and now have uncovered their true, fiendish, purpose.
It is clear that we are being fought over by two alien species, and these bikes are the method for extracting smart humans from earth, and teleporting them from places where the beaming-up works best, to alien planets where these smart people can be forced to work on weapons systems to defend the aliens from incoming attacks by super violent hegemonic swarms of free-market borg.
In the first round (as reported in the excellent documentary, This Island Earth, the inhabitants of Metaluna directly took scientists to development centers and rarely used much stealth tech. The second round has seen the Thermians, frustrated at the lack of skills amongst 2nd tier actors (as seen in Galaxy Quest) who relied on pure blind luck, rather than intelligence, have combined forces with the Metalunans, to deploy these fiendish traps, in the form of weakly powered electric bicycles, thin disguises for matter transporters. As has been known since the very excellent Watkins Study of Ley Lines, there are only certain places where these transporters can achieve the range necessary to get from the surface of Terra, to the distant orbs of Metalina or Thermia. This is where the unwitting riders are misdirected to on their drunken way home from pubs. Once beamed up from, the bikes are now drained of power and await collection by passing ship (or policeman - what did you think that big blue hat was really for - its an emergency recharging unit, of course) and then returned to more likely places to find nobel and fields folks, or indeed, the occasional footlights polymath, to enlist in support of the defense technology development programs so very far away.
*** update #2 **
it seems we were wrong - from 20,000 meters, it is clear that the abandoned bicycles are left in the forms of messages back to home base on Tralfamadore, to explain that more dilithium crystals are no longer needed as a synthetic substitute has been found in the form of humbugs from a local sweetshop. Rumours that the bikes are left by works who are employed in digging the new Cambridge underground railway between Parkers Piece and the Three Horseshoes in Madingley are completely unfounded according to the Morlock spokesman from Pembroke.