# The bicycle years

> Fifteen years of Santander Cycles, one line: the pandemic is the spike, not the dip.

- Category: Transport
- Cadence: monthly
- Status: Published on a monthly cadence.
- Dataset key: `cycle-hires`
- Source: [London Datastore](https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/number-bicycle-hires)
- Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0 — [terms](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/)
- Canonical page: [https://londongraph.com/g/the-bicycle-years](https://londongraph.com/g/the-bicycle-years)
- Machine-readable record: [https://londongraph.com/data/the-bicycle-years](https://londongraph.com/data/the-bicycle-years)

## Methodology

Santander Cycles hires per month since the scheme opened in July 2010, from TfL's daily totals on the London Datastore. Cycling was one of the few things the pandemic increased. The current month is excluded as partial, and TfL notes that recent daily figures shift slightly as delayed system events settle.

## Visualisations

- [Trend](https://londongraph.com/g/the-bicycle-years): Fifteen years of Santander Cycles, one line: the pandemic is the spike, not the dip.
- [Seasonality](https://londongraph.com/g/the-bicycle-years?view=seasonality): Arrange repeated periods to reveal the calendar pattern.
- [Change](https://londongraph.com/g/the-bicycle-years?view=change): Show the change from each preceding published period.

## Citation guidance

Attribute the original publisher named above and identify LondonGraph as the visualisation and methodology layer. Do not describe live values as a historical census, and do not present placeholder values as observations.