Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The birth and death of a bike company: What happened to SpeedX

cyclingtips.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 134 posts

Re: The birth and death of a bike company: What happened to SpeedX

#71

Post by baybal2 »

This feels very typical of a Chinese "startup." Any company marketing its leadership on being some "whiz kids" is a red flag.

A gigantic amount of Chinese entrepreneurship is just about people trying to game the insane capital market in China under every pretext possible, without any genuine concern for the business being sound. Not much different from what you see in the US, except for even less curbs on outright fraud. After all, all of that came to China along with the first wave of "returnees" from US West Coast.

In this case, you have to admit, the company simply ran out of money, and you can not put that in any other way. Whether they would've or wouldn't have been descended upon by the communists wouldn't have changed anything about that.

I noticed a tendency that in China, whatever company can be called a substantial, solid business is much more likely to be privately owned, low profile, and kept as far away from capital markets as possible.

Best example — Bu Bu Gao group, the second in line after Samsung in smartphones, but is almost invisible.

Espressif recently went with a placement, but also very low profile, without much noise, and on a 3rd tier burse oriented to institutional buyers.

Allwinner, Rockchips — both companies are past their prime, but still super duper secretive with regards to ways of company's leadership.

Re: The birth and death of a bike company: What happened to SpeedX

#73

Post by com2kid »

rdiddly wrote: post #36
RugnirViking wrote: post #2

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…

Every bike I've ever had has gotten stolen.

Out of locked, "secured" garages.

It gets expensive after awhile.

Re: The birth and death of a bike company: What happened to SpeedX

#74

Post by 121789 »

camjohnson26 wrote: post #9
RugnirViking wrote: post #2

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…

The main problem with bike shares is the ridiculously short time limit. If you could check one out for a few hours they’d be more useful, instead most are time limited to about 30 minutes. My sister used one once to bike by a lake front and she said she was stressed the whole time about not making it to the next station to reset the time limit before it expired.

was that in Chicago? I felt the same stress

Re: The birth and death of a bike company: What happened to SpeedX

#75

Post by kohtatsu »

twic wrote: post #51
RugnirViking wrote: post #2

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.

Oh no. My girlfriend and I recently rented some Lime bikes in Calgary.

The brakes on hers weren't reliable enough to go down hills, let alone stop in an emergency. Mine weren't much better.

We left appropriate reviews, and were able to tell the next rider which to use, but they really need a quick maintenance survey, even just for brake shape, and perhaps a "flag bike as dangerous" button.

Also found the e-assist awkward, particularly at low speeds around pedestrians.

Would ride again, but just double check the brakes/mainteance.

Re: The birth and death of a bike company: What happened to SpeedX

#76

Post by dreamcompiler »

flyinghamster wrote: post #53
nradov wrote: post #14

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.

I love recumbents but they're too expensive because they're almost all built by hand by a guy in a garage; never at scale. And that guy tends to go out of business fairly quickly and then you're stuck with an unsupported bike. I wish it weren't so but it is.

Re: The birth and death of a bike company: What happened to SpeedX

#77

Post by walrus01 »

> At the time, early 2016, aero was the next greatest advance in the cycling tech space; like the Giant Propels and Specialized Venges it was pitched against, the Leopard featured a snugly tucked rear wheel, a wind-cheating profile and hidden cabling.

As a road cyclist - I'm no expert on this, but even in 2004 such a thing was becoming commonplace in Chinese CF frames and companies that were trying hard to copy Cervelo.

Re: The birth and death of a bike company: What happened to SpeedX

#78

Post by analog31 »

alvah wrote: post #57
analog31 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I'd be shocked if the economics made sense, but not all investments produce a return.

Re: The birth and death of a bike company: What happened to SpeedX

#79

Post by paulcole »

gamblor956 wrote: post #52
gameswithgo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If every gram matters why do they wear those little hats under their helmets?

Re: The birth and death of a bike company: What happened to SpeedX

#80

Post by CydeWeys »

paulcole wrote: post #79
gamblor956 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If every gram matters why do they wear those little hats under their helmets?

Not sure what you're talking about? Can you provide photos?
Post reply on HN