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

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

#91

Post by notatoad »

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.

You've just described endurance bikes. but the reality is that the traditional bike design is still pretty much the best design, and anything radical has enough downsides and trade-offs to confine it to a niche market, so the endurance bikes still are pretty similar to any other road bike.

we've gotten really, really good at building bikes in the last 100 years. This year's model not being wildly different to last year's model isn't anything to complain about.

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

#92

Post by notatoad »

walrus01 wrote: post #77

> 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 Cerve…

completely internal cable routing was definitely not a thing in 2004 - shifter cables were still exiting the brifters horizontally.

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

#93

Post by Tepix »

nradov wrote: post #82
flyinghamster wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Recumbents have terrible visibility (can't see over cars), suck for really steep climbs and sprinting, and are kind of unsafe for fast group rides with multiple cyclists packed close together.

Also the air you breathe is closer to the exhausts of the cars.

We really need more recumbent bikes where the head of the rider is in a higher position.

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

#94

Post by cycomanic »

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.

It's not so much the weight but aerodynamics. The top aerobikes (not timetrial bikes) use about 10-20% less power than a non aerobikes at a speed of 45km/h (which is not a high speed during racing). That has actually been the big innovation in the last 5 years, the realisation that aero is more important than weight, except for the most extreme mountain stages. All the big manufacturers are now making aerodynamically optimized bikes.

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

#95

Post by TeMPOraL »

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…

> But then you look at bike ownership. I almost want to put "bike ownership" in quotes because even the mere phrase makes it sound so much more serious and demanding than it is.

Well, depends. Bikes take shitload of space inside the house, which in a city is often a low double-digit m² flat for singles, or slightly larger double-digit m² for families. Unlike cars, you can't keep bikes outside for too long, as they can get stolen quickly. Then, unless you know how and like doing it yourself, you'll end up bringing it into a repair shop for checkup and maintenance just as often as you would a car. At least you don't have much insurance paperwork.

Overall, bike ownership is still a hassle.

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

#96

Post by TeMPOraL »

analog31 wrote: post #78
alvah wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Uber had (probably still has) it structured so that if the investment fails, it's the driver that suffers, not the company.

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

#97

Post by benj111 »

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…

"they don't even seem to bother marketing or anything. The first I'll hear of a new company is seeing a new colour of bike"

Is that not the best marketing? Actually paying for inner city marketing is probably expensive, online marketing is probably going to reach more people that this isnt relevant to. If you're seeing the bike you probably are the target market and can see its a somewhat legit company (in the sense that they do actually have bikes at least).

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

#98

Post by terinjokes »

rmason wrote: post #86

Meanwhile incredibly Detroit Bikes appears to be doing quite well. So well in fact that they're attracting multiple competitors in Detroit. Perhaps because they're not competing on price and some people still value American made? https://detroitbikes.com/

I got my C-Type from Kickstarter, and while it's more expensive than a big box stores, I felt it was still pretty competitive for the quality.

It's only had preventative maintenance in the years I've ridden it. I grew up biking, and I've never had one more reliable.

I just wish the frame had rack mounts for a pannier rack.

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

#99

Post by wyclif »

com2kid wrote: post #73
rdiddly wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is why I always keep my bike inside my living space.

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

#100

Post by paganel »

bonestamp2 wrote: post #41
luqa wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> why wouldn't someone just buy a bike?

I live in a crowded European capital city (Bucharest) and one of the big reasons for me not buying a bike is that I don't have enough available place. I personally live in an one-bedroom apartment (before that I used to live in a studio) and yes, I could probably fit a bike somewhere around the place but that would be pretty inconvenient. I also live on the 8th floor and a regular bike doesn't fit in my building's elevator, so that would mean me having to carry it 8 floors up and down each time I wanted to ride it.

My gf does have a bicycle but for the reasons I mentioned above she decided to keep it at her office, which is at walking distance from where we currently live (about 10-15 minutes).

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