August 2026 Newsletter

Infrastructure has a slow first year and a fast second one.

Nothing in this month's update is a debut. Finland is a partnership we started a year ago, now adding sites faster than at the start. Norway is a network growing one municipality at a time. Our Tallinn HQ is the same company in a bigger room. And the Finnish usage numbers below came from answering two questions riders were asking, on hardware that was already there.

That is what compounding looks like in this business. You build the thing once, then keep earning returns on it. More sites, more riders, and more reasons for the next city to say yes.

Bikeep news

A year in Finland, and we're just getting started

Finland is quietly becoming one of our best growth stories of the year.

A year ago we partnered with Bauer Media Outdoor Finland to bring smart bike parking, with free e-bike and e-scooter charging, to Citycon shopping centers across Finland. The stations sit right at the entrance, at no cost to riders. Since then we have kept adding locations, and more sites are already lined up.

The model works because every party gets something real.

• Shopping centers get riders arriving at the front door instead of circling for a place to lock up
• Riders get secure parking and free charging while they shop
• Bauer Media Outdoor gets premium street-level advertising that funds the infrastructure
• Cities get cycling infrastructure without new capital spend

See where it started in our Finland installations.

Bikeep station at Iso Omena, Finland

The infrastructure was never the problem

The story behind the Finnish numbers is the most useful thing we learned all month.

Two thoughts stop people from using secure bike parking. "It probably costs money." And "It's not for my bike."

Both are wrong, and neither corrects itself. A rider running late doesn't stop to investigate a payment flow that doesn't exist. Anything that looks like a system gets mistaken for someone else's, a rental fleet or a staff-only facility. So the bike gets locked to the railing outside, next to an empty station.

Bauer Media Outdoor Finland answered both objections where riders arrive, with promoters at peak hours and signage that says FREE before anything else.

145 parking sessions in July last year. 1,478 this July.

Same stations, same city, ten times the use. If you run bike parking that riders walk past, adoption is a communication problem long before it is a hardware problem. Ask us about the Finland playbook.

Read the full breakdown of how to increase secure bike parking usage.

10 secure stations in two Norwegian towns, used from day one

10 smart bike parking stations are live across Larvik and Stavern. Riders used them from day one, and several downloaded the app before we had even finished setting up.

That is the real signal. Safe bike parking is what makes people choose the bike.

Larvik is the latest stop on the growing Baia Mobility network. More municipalities are in progress, with stations rolling out over the coming years. It is a pattern we keep seeing. One town proves it, and the neighboring town stops asking whether it works and starts asking when.

Built together with Larvik kommune, Bauer Media Outdoor Norway and Baia Mobility. Learn more about the smart bike parking station.

Larvik kommune station installed by Baia Mobility

Bikeep HQ moves to Ülemiste City

Our Tallinn HQ has moved to Ülemiste City, a city inside a city where businesses, people and everyday life come together. Moving around by bike makes perfect sense there. The shelves are up, the vans are loaded, and we are closer to a community that shares our view of a connected city.

A bigger room isn't a milestone on its own. But it is what growth looks like from the inside, with more stations shipping, more partners to support and more people building them.

A challenge for you. How many Bikeep stations do you think are installed in Ülemiste City? The Ülemiste case study is a good place to start guessing.

A view over Ülemiste City

Why this matters

Four items, one argument. Growth in this business isn't a straight line of new installations. It is returns on things already built.

Finland didn't add hardware to get ten times the usage. It answered two rider objections at the point of arrival. Larvik didn't have to prove demand from scratch, because the Baia Mobility network had already proved it next door. Our new HQ is a bigger version of the same company.

The first site is the expensive one. The tenth is the easy one.

It works the other way too. An empty station next to a full railing is a compounding loss. Riders who get confused once don't come back, and a landlord looking at low numbers concludes cycling doesn't work there. The infrastructure was fine. The two questions just weren't answered.

How riders feel using Bikeep

More updates and earlier editions are in Bikeep news.