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Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

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Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#91

Post by jfim »

convolvatron wrote: post #57
wpietri wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just the other day I saw some very dubious people on BART with dockless bikes. I had to wonder if there's a good secondary market in bike parts that makes those things worth stealing.

i work near a group of homeless bike chop shop people with trash bins filled with parts. they move alot* of bikes. i dont see any of the ford or jump bikes around. i think they are just so awash in parts and frames, there really isn't any strong pull to try to mine the bike rental stream. the frames in particular are probably worthless except as steel scrap. i wonder about the battery/motors though.

With regards to the Ford bikes, that's actually by design. The Ford bikes are basically the same as Montreal's Bixi, which uses custom parts; this means that since the parts only fit the Ford bikes, there's no reason to chop them for parts, as they won't fit on a regular bike. They also require custom tools to work on them, making it less likely that they'll be chopped up for parts in the first place.

You can read more about the bikes at http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/fixing-bixis-near...

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#92

Post by andechs »

fataliss wrote: post #46
maherbeg wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you may underestimate the impact e-bikes are going to have on major (non-car centric) cities. They'll likely reshape cities significantly as infrastructure gets improved for biking. You can get significant traffic density improvements by pushing bikes instead of cars, and e-bikes make this more accessible.

That would take a lot of political will to do something like that though and it would take YEARS! I don't think the US is a great market (right now) for city-bikes. Outside of maybe Manhattan & SF I can't think of any major city where a bike would take you places faster/better than another way of transportation would. When you consider all the hassles that biking as a transportation comes with, I doubt this has any l…

I live in Toronto - a bike is ALWAYS the fastest way to get anywhere in the city under about 5km (although it's pretty close).

Traffic is pretty bad at core times and the hassle of parking adds quite a bit of time at each end.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#93

Post by chaoticmass »

bfuller wrote: post #75

I live in the biggest dockless bike market currently and its an eyesore. Our corrupt government has decided not to even think about making legislation about the companies until September. People are getting very sick of seeing them laying all around and its starting to go the way of Paris, whose people rose up against the bike share companies and got them to pull out through sheer vandalism. Someone cut one in half a…

Are you in Dallas?

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#94

Post by calcifer »

alangibson wrote: post #82

I'm currently sitting in the Dutch city of Eindhoven. One of the first things you notice when you get here is that there are not bike lanes, not bike paths but very seriously bike roads on either side of the street. These are filled pretty much all the time by people of all ages on their personal bikes. There are no rental bikes anywhere. The moral of this story is that if you want people to bike, build bikeable citi…

Just to add a little bit to this: I also live in NL and the cycling infrastructure is not limited to central locations; there are well maintained, separated, safe cycling roads between cities as well. It helps that it's a small country, but even fairly long distances like Rotterdam -> Den Haag (~25km/15miles) is easily done without ever mixing with vehicle traffic.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#95

Post by pinot »

alangibson wrote: post #82

I'm currently sitting in the Dutch city of Eindhoven. One of the first things you notice when you get here is that there are not bike lanes, not bike paths but very seriously bike roads on either side of the street. These are filled pretty much all the time by people of all ages on their personal bikes. There are no rental bikes anywhere. The moral of this story is that if you want people to bike, build bikeable citi…

OK we will start over.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#96

Post by yonran »

jwilliams wrote: post #63

Just signed up for this in San Francisco -- Only to find that Russian Hill, Nob Hill, and North Beach are excluded. Plus Fort Mason, the Presidio, and anything west of the Panhandle. "San Francisco" it is not. Which I guess is fine, but they make you pay up-front, so I found that a bit of cheek. Admittedly it's only $2, but even on principle it's annoying. They should be much more transparent in the signup process. T…

One factor that may limit the deployment is San Francisco’s permit requirement, which specifies that stationless bike share companies must commit to a “service area” which must have at least 3 bikes per square mile all day, and 20% of bikes must be in Communities of Concern. See regulation http://library.amlegal.com/nxt/gateway.dll/California/transp... and permit application https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/projects/2017/Bike...

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#97

Post by owlninja »

chaoticmass wrote: post #93
bfuller wrote: post #75

I live in the biggest dockless bike market currently and its an eyesore. Our corrupt government has decided not to even think about making legislation about the companies until September. People are getting very sick of seeing them laying all around and its starting to go the way of Paris, whose people rose up against the bike share companies and got them to pull out through sheer vandalism. Someone cut one in half a…

Are you in Dallas?

Sounds like it. It is jaw dropping how many bikes are littered in and around Dallas.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#98

Post by paulie_a »

JohnnyConatus wrote: post #62
hunter23 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but is the US the area where the product will have the most revolutionary impact? In my view, I would target high density cities like Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, Delhi, Paris, etc. Europe and Asia seem like the most important markets for the technology rather than the US which is littered with sprawled out cities.

Also winter. Most of the dense cities in the U.S. also have significant winter weather that makes biking less ideal.

While the amount of bike traffic definitely goes down during winter, I can't recall a day in Chicago this last year where I didn't see anyone in the bike lanes

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#99

Post by thiagocsf »

alangibson wrote: post #82

I'm currently sitting in the Dutch city of Eindhoven. One of the first things you notice when you get here is that there are not bike lanes, not bike paths but very seriously bike roads on either side of the street. These are filled pretty much all the time by people of all ages on their personal bikes. There are no rental bikes anywhere. The moral of this story is that if you want people to bike, build bikeable citi…

I am in the city of Sydney, where no less than 4 dockless bike rental companies started operating overnight.

They have become urban clutter. Users park them in locations where they’re easily knocked over and, from there, they usually get damaged.

There’s also a very high incidence of vandalism. Bikes with no seats, no pedals, bent wheels, on top of trees, in canals.

It’s common to see heaps of scrap bikes on the road. These companies not only are using public land to offer their services but also polluting my city.

All this has made me a vocal opposer of dockless rentals. Work with city council to put your bikes on a dock or don’t come here.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#100

Post by gjem97 »

jwilliams wrote: post #70
sagichmal wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a result of NIMBYism in those neighborhoods, not any Jump bike policy.

Do you have any evidence of that? Just looks like they've excluded areas with more tourists. Irrespective, would still be easy (and overall nicer) if they made that transparent.

> looks like they've excluded areas with more tourists If it's anything like NYC they did this to avoid upsetting the existing bike rental businesses in those areas. They need to do this to get local government buy-in of the program.
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