A GLOBAL computer meltdown put a spoke in the wheels for cyclists trying to use the newly installed Belfast Bikes, less than a month from the launch of the initiative.
Problems that occurred with a server just as the bank holiday weekend clicked into gear, put the brakes on the bike hire scheme which came to an abrupt halt and prompted management to take to Twitter to warn customers on Friday.
The problem led to the shutting down of the system making it impossible for people to get on the bikes.
The malfunction that affected all bike rental schemes across the world run by Nextbike, the company that operates Belfast Bikes, was fixed on Saturday.
"Belfast Bikes are out of use until further notice. Nextbike are having global server issues affecting every city they operate in," said a tweet from the organisaton.
Nextbike, that started with 20 bikes in Leipzig now operates in more than 70 cities from Europe to Dubai and Saudi Arabia to New Zealand, Britain and the United States.
But on Saturday, city cyclists were back in the saddle after the company tweeted: "Server issues fixed. System resumes."
And Belfast Bikes revealed high numbers of cyclists using the service despite the system crash with almost 700 bike rentals in Belfast on Friday.
The scheme operates a total of 349 bikes and the highest ever rental to date is 881.
"Despite yesterday's server issues we had 695 rentals - the second highest Friday to date," the service reported.
