'That's a hell of a commute!': Boris bike spotted in The Gambia

 
Rachel Blundy16 January 2014

One of London's Boris bikes has been spotted more than 3,000 miles away... in west Africa.

An image of a man riding the bike in The Gambia was shared on Twitter this morning, sparking huge interest from users.

Ben Phillips, a campaigns and policy director for Oxfam, who tweeted the picture, said he had discovered it but was not the photographer.

Some people began posting jokes in response to the bizarre photo.

Chris Tierney said; "That's a hell of a commute, but with property prices these days...", while Ian Sanders wrote; "Good luck finding a docking station."

Lee Sam said: "That's a long distance cyclist there,"

BBC London's Transport and Environment Correspondent Tom Edwards added: "Some overcharge on that bad boy."

It is still unclear how the bicycle came to be in Africa.

A Transport for London (TfL) spokesman said it was a real Boris bike and that they were sometimes donated to African charities.

He said: "We have previously given a number of bikes to charities in Africa. We are still trying to work out where this particular one came from."

Two Londoners took a pair of Boris bikes to Paris in 2011 in order to demonstrate there was no geographical restriction on how far they can be taken.

Ian Mansfield and Tom Jones each ran up £50 hire charges for the bikes but Eurostar waived its £30-per-bike carriage charge because Mr Mansfield wrote about the escapade on his blog.

Last week Boris Johnson's cycle hire scheme was extended across south and west London as transport chiefs admitted it was losing popularity among casual users.

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