Is it just me, or are there seemingly far more people trying to invest and profit off bikeshares than there are using them? I've lived in several cities in europe and i'm not actually sure i've ever seen anybody using them. Yet there seems to be tons of competing companies putting out bikes in the street. On top of that, they don't even seem to bother marketing or anything. The first I'll hear of a new company is see…
> i'm not actually sure i've ever seen anybody using them
As a datapoint, i almost crashed into someone riding one in London an hour and a half ago. The front lights on the Lime bikes are evidently not very reliable.
This response to the person ahead of you makes me think you either don't know much about bikes or you missed their point. I think we all agree, buy something shitty and you get shit, especially with things you put between you and the earth. A medium quality bike, which costs an order of magnitude less than a "fancy" bike, will do literally everyone who isn't a cat 1-2 racer fine, objectively. Price difference is $1-5…
You could win the tour de france doing the road stages on a medium quality bike. (if you put good tires on it). Also given your price range, some of the objectively best bikes (meets weight minimum, good aerodynamics) are in the $5k range, and the more expensive ones are worse but have big name value!
That's definitely not true...at the level of the TDF, every gram of excess weight matters, and there's a vast weight difference between a cheap $5k bike and a "fancy" $20k bike.
If you're not at the TDF level, there's no point in spending more than $2k on a bike since the difference in weight won't matter.
It's a shame that there's been little innovation from road bike manufacturers in the past 10 years or so. The last major innovation was aero carbon frames. Since then everyone is just copying each other and trying to improve by fractions of a percent for weight, stiffness, and efficiency. Most of the value and innovation has shifted to the groupset suppliers, with Shimano taking the lion's share of the market and a f…
> Or throw out the UCI rules and build a fast, comfortable bike for customers who don't care about competing in sanctioned races.
Recumbents are exactly that, but it's still very much a niche market. Furthermore, at any given component grade, a recumbent will cost more - and add a further premium if it's a trike.
It's a shame that there's been little innovation from road bike manufacturers in the past 10 years or so. The last major innovation was aero carbon frames. Since then everyone is just copying each other and trying to improve by fractions of a percent for weight, stiffness, and efficiency. Most of the value and innovation has shifted to the groupset suppliers, with Shimano taking the lion's share of the market and a f…
What kind of innovation are you expecting? Plenty of innovation is still happening in the realm of adding motors and batteries to bikes. Beyond that, what else is there to do with bikes? We're already deep into the realm of severely diminishing returns on weight and aerodynamics, and braking power is limited by physics. What else is there to improve? All I can think of is ABS.
Has anyone looked into a pneumatic powered bicycle? Is it way less efficient than a chain drive? What if you pedaled to compress air into a reserve tank that was then discharged to somehow propel the wheel(s)? That could soften the peaks and valleys of power and allow perhaps for regeneration during braking. With a large enough tank you could save up power during plains to propel you up large hills.
There might be at least the perception that the CEO will spend most of their tenure plotting their next startup (and quite possibly poaching employees and intellectual property on the way out). Think Anthony Levandowski. Are there any well known cases of startup CEOs who were wildly successful as employees in another company?
>Are there any well known cases of startup CEOs who were wildly successful as employees in another company? Wildly might be a high bar, but otherwise it's pretty much majority of acquisitions.
My impression is that the CEOs often (typically?) leave as soon as whatever vesting periods are defined in the acquisition have passed.
But now you mention acquisitions, it could be argued that NeXT CEO Steve Jobs did OK as an Apple employee…
I've pondered that question too. Something like Uber or Lyft works partly because of the cost and burden of car ownership. It's attractive to use someone else's equipment if you don't have to buy, maintain, finance, fuel, insure, and store (park) similar equipment yourself, to the tune of thousands of dollars per year. But then you look at bike ownership. I almost want to put "bike ownership" in quotes because even t…
Interestingly, a thing about Uber/Lyft is that the number of cars is limited because they are based on converting existing private cars to hired use. So Uber/Lyft don't eliminate private cars. The number of bike shares that can be pumped into a city is limited only by the capital that can be pumped in.
Are you sure nobody specifically buys or leases a car to do Uber / Lyft gigs?
Is it just me, or are there seemingly far more people trying to invest and profit off bikeshares than there are using them? I've lived in several cities in europe and i'm not actually sure i've ever seen anybody using them. Yet there seems to be tons of competing companies putting out bikes in the street. On top of that, they don't even seem to bother marketing or anything. The first I'll hear of a new company is see…
I've pondered that question too. Something like Uber or Lyft works partly because of the cost and burden of car ownership. It's attractive to use someone else's equipment if you don't have to buy, maintain, finance, fuel, insure, and store (park) similar equipment yourself, to the tune of thousands of dollars per year. But then you look at bike ownership. I almost want to put "bike ownership" in quotes because even t…
For me, the use cases are very different. I use rental bikes mostly as a complement to public transport - a metro/tram/bus line might take me 90% to where I need, then I'll get some bike in the area to make the 10% left rapidly. I also own a bike, but I mostly use it for local trips or pleasure rides. Plus, unlike the rentals, it's not electric.
What kind of innovation are you expecting? Plenty of innovation is still happening in the realm of adding motors and batteries to bikes. Beyond that, what else is there to do with bikes? We're already deep into the realm of severely diminishing returns on weight and aerodynamics, and braking power is limited by physics. What else is there to improve? All I can think of is ABS.
Has anyone looked into a pneumatic powered bicycle? Is it way less efficient than a chain drive? What if you pedaled to compress air into a reserve tank that was then discharged to somehow propel the wheel(s)? That could soften the peaks and valleys of power and allow perhaps for regeneration during braking. With a large enough tank you could save up power during plains to propel you up large hills.
Chain drive can be up to 98.6% efficient, you'd have a hard time beating that.
In my city (Milan, Italy) bike-sharing is an extremely common solution. I feel like the business model is the main problem. Low margins high-costs (you frequently need to replace thousands of bikes) and basically no moat. Every few years a new startup can enter the marketing with a better bike. The incumbents have to improve their or risk losing the entire market in a matter of weeks.
Can you help us understand why bike-sharing is popular in Milan? For example, why wouldn't someone just buy a bike?
Seems like a subscription to their BikeMi system costs 36€/year for unlimited free rides (up to 30mins/ride), so quite cost competitive with bike ownership. This is becoming common in main European cities (I know of Brussels, Paris and Lisbon).