"we want the bicycle to be the queen of deconfinement"
I'll bet that sounds really beautiful in the original French.
France offers each cyclist €50 for bike repairs once lockdown ends
81–90 of 286 posts
Re: France offers each cyclist €50 for bike repairs once lockdown ends
#82People are focused on the relatively small amount here, and that's valid, but I suspect that some of the incentive here is to keep momentum in cycling going (from people avoiding transit, enjoying temporary bike infra, etc.) and trying not to lose that progress. There might be a lot of people for whom that €50 means a tuneup that gets them to take the bike out when before it would've just rusted. I mean, data would b…
"keeping cycling going" is much less important than spending that money to deal with job loss and unemployment. This is using a crisis to divert money to a person's pet agendas.
if you want to subsidize cycling and stuff, can we at least get the economy back up first and deal with the massive fallout from lost wages due to time off, and business closings?
Re: France offers each cyclist €50 for bike repairs once lockdown ends
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would they go through all of that in the hopes of getting upto $50.00?
I would. I also want to point out that you seem to be trivializing what most people would consider a non-trivial amount of money. That's easily a month of groceries for one person.
I agree that $50 shouldn't be trivialized. That being said, in America that's well below the standard for a month of groceries for one person (unless they're eating all of their meals out or something like that). Here[0] are the USDA food plans with budgets for "food at home". The cheapest category is "thrifty", and even there they budget about $100 per month for a one year old through about $190 for an adult male (those numbers increase by about 20% if it's a one person household rather than a contribution to a family budget).
I don't know how those numbers might compare in France, and there are obviously cheaper parts of the world, but the person trivializing $50 might well be in America where that's closer to a week's grocery than a month's for one person.
[0] https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/media/fil...
Re: France offers each cyclist €50 for bike repairs once lockdown ends
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bikes tend to degrade slowly over time if you don't do regular maintenance. Most people don't notice the slow decline until it's quite bad when suddenly it feels like an unreliable POS. Giving people who are just a little frustrated with their bike might go a long way to helping keep people from getting to that point at least once.
Now you have me worried about what maintance I should be doing. Going to a bike shop once a year at the start of summer seems to have been enough for me. After a quick google search I got crazy suggestions that I should be changing my cables every 6 months.
If you are going to a bike shop once a year for maintenance, then you are doing the maintenance you should be doing.
But many people have old bikes with rusty brakes, non-working gearing, and just go on using them until they fall apart.
Also, different bikes require different levels of maintenance. And your riding style and frequency of use affects the speed of wear.
Re: France offers each cyclist €50 for bike repairs once lockdown ends
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your calculation assumes one never needs to replace brake pads, chain, tires; it also makes no allowance for lights, tools, incidentals, or the occasions one might need professional repair. Incidentally, WD40 is not a good substitute for lube.
Personally, I've very rarely needed to replace those consumables, and I ride my bikes very hard. Only time I have needed a new chain and cassette is when I let my bike rust because I rode it all winter without washing it. And I've got like one set of brake pads in the last 5 years for my 2-3 bikes, since disk brake pads last pretty well forever as long as you don't foul them with something. I do go through a lot of t…
I doubt your story. Disc brake pads do wear out, especially if you ride very hard. The same is true for chain and cassette.
Re: France offers each cyclist €50 for bike repairs once lockdown ends
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bikes tend to degrade slowly over time if you don't do regular maintenance. Most people don't notice the slow decline until it's quite bad when suddenly it feels like an unreliable POS. Giving people who are just a little frustrated with their bike might go a long way to helping keep people from getting to that point at least once.
Now you have me worried about what maintance I should be doing. Going to a bike shop once a year at the start of summer seems to have been enough for me. After a quick google search I got crazy suggestions that I should be changing my cables every 6 months.
Really depends on how much riding you do and the components on the bike. Back when I was younger and more fit and riding 100+ miles a week I did a lot of maintenance. Some of it was necessary like adjusting brake pads, cables that developed slack, etc. Some of it probably wasn't but gave me an excuse to tinker.
Now I'm riding less, I find I don't need to do as much except keep the chain clean and tires inflated. I still check cables, chain slack, and stuff but they tend to need less work now.
Re: France offers each cyclist €50 for bike repairs once lockdown ends
#87I don’t think TCO is an issue with bikes. I would estimate the TCO of a bike to be somewhere between €15 and €50 a month†. That compares favourably to cars which would be somewhere up at €350 to €700 per month, so that’s an order of magnitude off. If that payment can be an effective incentive to use the bike more that’s nice, I guess, but I’m not sure it can. Infrastructure would be the most important (and also most…
That's for a fancy bike, not that there's anything wrong with it. You can get by with a tenth of that if you get a "beater", which may or may not be sufficient for your urban transportation needs.
Also, the annual repair costs are probably assuming you have someone else do them. I think that's a reasonable expectation for most people, but it can be quite a bit less if you can do some of them yourself. I'm pretty sure I average less than $50/year for all maintenance costs for about 2000 miles of commuting.
Re: France offers each cyclist €50 for bike repairs once lockdown ends
#88People are focused on the relatively small amount here, and that's valid, but I suspect that some of the incentive here is to keep momentum in cycling going (from people avoiding transit, enjoying temporary bike infra, etc.) and trying not to lose that progress. There might be a lot of people for whom that €50 means a tuneup that gets them to take the bike out when before it would've just rusted. I mean, data would b…
50 bucks is more than most of my bikes are worth. ;-)
But seriously I think that most bikes are within 50 bucks of being rideable. I tinker with a lot of old bikes, for family, friends, and at one time for a charity program. At least in the US, a huge fraction of bikes are gathering dust or rust, but the tires are flat, there's no pump in the house, some of the mechanisms are stuck, they haven't been properly adjusted for comfort, etc. Many of the bikes weren't properly built in the first place, and need attention to things like spoke tension and bearing adjustment. And the owners aren't handy with tools.
A bit of lube, air in the tires, and maybe a reassurance from the mechanic at a shop, and some accessories such as a pump, will have the bike up and running. At the very least it will help the shops stay afloat.
If the subsidy kicks in all at once for a lot of people, it could trigger a noticeable increase in bike use, which has a crowd psychology benefit.
For everybody, my consistent advice is that your experience with any kind of cycling will be greatly improved by becoming self sufficient for at least routine maintenance and minor repairs.
Re: France offers each cyclist €50 for bike repairs once lockdown ends
#89I don’t think TCO is an issue with bikes. I would estimate the TCO of a bike to be somewhere between €15 and €50 a month†. That compares favourably to cars which would be somewhere up at €350 to €700 per month, so that’s an order of magnitude off. If that payment can be an effective incentive to use the bike more that’s nice, I guess, but I’m not sure it can. Infrastructure would be the most important (and also most…
That's for a fancy bike, not that there's anything wrong with it. You can get by with a tenth of that if you get a "beater", which may or may not be sufficient for your urban transportation needs.
I paid ~$1,200 for my Rad Rover about 5 years ago, and maybe $100 in tubes/tire slime/etc since, and it's an e-bike. If someone handed me $50ish today for it, I'd still take it in for a full tune. I can do all of that myself, but the time savings would be great.
Re: France offers each cyclist €50 for bike repairs once lockdown ends
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is anyone really waiting for €50 to use or not use their bike on a regular basis? I'm highly skeptical. This seems like it will just benefit folks already doing it anyway.
Absolutely. There are plenty of people who have a bike with a flat tyre and a rusty chain and no lights or whatever. They might go back to taking the bus or metro, but if they were offered a free service (effectively) to make cycling a viable option, they'll take it. I know loads of people who cycle to work because of Ireland's Bike To Work scheme. They can all afford a bike without help, but the extra incentive was…
Its rare that you bike somewhere you can't just walk to. If you are that poor to need a government handout to fix it, you don't need it just for the bike.