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France offers each cyclist €50 for bike repairs once lockdown ends

cyclingweekly.com

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Re: France offers each cyclist €50 for bike repairs once lockdown ends

#231

Post by Zenst »

bobthepanda wrote: post #225
Zenst wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The €50 is just a simple nudge for all those people to get it roadworthy so they can start using it again or sell it to somebody who will use it. Certainly do more to increase bike usage and keep the momentum of usage going than any marketing thing. What would be nice would be better incentive to use public transport and to not use cars, we have used the stick with taxes for a while, carrots like this can only work…

At least in the Parisian context, moving people to bikes is probably the most cost effective way to green transport, since the trains are all packed to the gills and getting some people on bikes is a cheaper way of making space than spending billions of euros on new lines (which they are also doing, but it's good to have more than one arrow in the quiver.)

I was thinking more about buses, had a look and https://www.ratp.fr/en/plan-bus

More useful in replacing cars in many area's, as using existing infrastructure, unlike trains.

Re: France offers each cyclist €50 for bike repairs once lockdown ends

#232

Post by loeg »

akgerber wrote: post #196
loeg wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience they mostly don't get maintenance; they're just built extremely cheaply and treated as disposable. Various parts that are easy to break (derailleurs) are elided by using Internally-Geared Hubs (IGH). The wheels are non-pneumatic and just a solid piece of rubber, so they never go flat.

Dockless bikeshare bikes are often built as you describe. Docked bikeshare (as mostly operated by Lyft in the US, formerly Motivate/Alta) generally uses bikes built similarly to high-quality Dutch city bikes and maintains them.

Docked bikeshare is pretty useless in my experience, so despite the lower quality bikes I prefer the dockless model.

Re: France offers each cyclist €50 for bike repairs once lockdown ends

#233

Post by lostlogin »

usrusr wrote: post #209
lostlogin wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> bikeshare bikes are usually one-size-fits-all, which I guess is fine if you're the perfectly average size. I think they are tiny. I have wondered how they got this so wrong, but decided that it must be intentional. It prevents long journeys and limits the frequency of curb hopping and other damage causing activity.

One size fits all cannot be average, it has to be tiny. You can fold a tall person into a small bike, but you can't stretch a short person onto a large bike.

There seemed to be a series of Chinese companies that offered particularly small bikes in Paris. Ofo and Mobike were (are?) just tiny. Maybe they came from a market where the average person was significantly smaller? The bikes were pretty much unusable on a shallow incline if you were of even average height. For comparison, my 9 year old child has a bike that has a larger frame than those ones.

Re: France offers each cyclist €50 for bike repairs once lockdown ends

#234

Post by karatestomp »

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #222
karatestomp wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the only reason I don't ride anymore. I don't get why my complex car full of caustic liquids and burning them to drive a bunch of parts super fast can go tens of thousands of miles with nothing but oil changes and nothing breaks or doesn't work almost-like-new unless I run over a nail, but bikes? Ugh. Every time I go to get on it, something's broken. Flat tires constantly. Changing them sucks and takes foreve…

Yeah it's annoying that you need to pay like a thousand bucks AND constant maintenance to have a joyful AND functional mode of conveyance that is so ridiculously simple compared to a car.

I dunno, I just look at the one thing, then look at the other, and think that given what each does, the complexity, the sheer quantity of material, the price, and the reliability, it really seems like a bike that pretty much never breaks should cost about $300—maybe less, I'm allowing a fair amount for lower economy of scale, which I'm not actually sure is a problem—and you should be able to buy any bike around that price and expect that kind of quality.

When I go to use one of our cars and it doesn't work, or something goes wrong while I'm driving, that's very surprising. When we try to use one of our bikes and it's broken, or it breaks while riding, that's just... how bicycles are, I guess. Been that way since I rode (and constantly fixed) bikes as a kid. Was that way when I commuted on one for a while. They're just so very damned unreliable and fiddly.

Re: France offers each cyclist €50 for bike repairs once lockdown ends

#235

Post by Jenda_ »

karatestomp wrote: post #211
cultus wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't get enough attention in cycling promotion. One of the absolute biggest reasons that people aren't on their bikes is maintenance. Wheels go out of true, shifting gets wonky, and it starts to look like an unreliable form of transport. Sturdier commuter bikes help a lot with this, but every commuter seems to think they need a bike with super-light wheels and a thin, weak 12-speed chain.

This is the only reason I don't ride anymore. I don't get why my complex car full of caustic liquids and burning them to drive a bunch of parts super fast can go tens of thousands of miles with nothing but oil changes and nothing breaks or doesn't work almost-like-new unless I run over a nail, but bikes? Ugh. Every time I go to get on it, something's broken. Flat tires constantly. Changing them sucks and takes foreve…

Regarding flats, try tires with Kevlar reinforcement. Flats went completely away since I switched to Maxxis Overdrive Maxxprotect. They are a bit heavy, but I think not having to care about flats is worth it.

Re: France offers each cyclist €50 for bike repairs once lockdown ends

#236

Post by loeg »

tomcooks wrote: post #169
loeg wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inner tubes are like $1.50-$2 and with some commuter-friendly tough tires like Schwalbe Marathons or Conti Gator-skins you probably avoid most punctures to begin with. I would not recommend shoving a second inner tube in your tire, that will probably not seat well and may adversely affect handling. Real tube patchkits are also very inexpensive, there's no reason to bodge something together with old tubes.

Where you live probably. Cycles 13k+ km and had no problem with second inner tube, it's pretty common. Your mileage might, literally, vary. It's not about the money but about recycling, feel free to buy more if you like the market, cheers

> Where you live probably.

Nah; I buy them shipped internationally for that price. (This doesn't help on the environmentalism angle, but IMO the impact here is pretty low, especially if it offsets car miles.)

They've gone up in price somewhat but still are pretty cheap: https://www.wiggle.com/lifeline-road-inner-tube/

Re: France offers each cyclist €50 for bike repairs once lockdown ends

#237

Post by agumonkey »

jamil7 wrote: post #73

People in this thread are getting really hung up on the idea that someone with a bike == cycling enthusiast. In Europe a huge amount of people just own a bike. Often some beaten up thing they probably paid €30-200 for at a flea market or bike shop and use to commute or meet friends. Maybe it's fallen into a state where it's unrideable. The €50 is just a simple nudge for all those people to get it roadworthy so they c…

Those 50 might actually make my bike rideable again.

Re: France offers each cyclist €50 for bike repairs once lockdown ends

#238

Post by michaelt »

zachrose wrote: post #183
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I've learned while I lived in Amsterdam is that you want to invest ~30% of the value of your bike to purchase a bike lock. That advice predates the battery-powered angle grinder, which many bike thieves in Western Europe now use. Even the toughest, most expensive U-lock can be broken in about a minute with an angle grinder.

I saw a guy outside a grocery store taking one of those to a U-lock. He said it was his own bike. Wasn’t sure what to do after that.

I challenged a guy I saw fiddling with one of the locks on a motorbike with its alarm sounding, by asking if he'd mind unlocking one of the other locks to show it was his bike. Which he promptly did - his alarmed disc brake lock had jammed.

Of course, my confidence to do so was buoyed by the fact there were two other bikers parking at the same time as me, it was in a busy public area, and I was wearing a bunch of leather and kevlar.

Re: France offers each cyclist €50 for bike repairs once lockdown ends

#239

Post by ogre_codes »

cultus wrote: post #69
ogre_codes wrote: post #66

Earlier 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.

This doesn't get enough attention in cycling promotion. One of the absolute biggest reasons that people aren't on their bikes is maintenance. Wheels go out of true, shifting gets wonky, and it starts to look like an unreliable form of transport. Sturdier commuter bikes help a lot with this, but every commuter seems to think they need a bike with super-light wheels and a thin, weak 12-speed chain.

If your bike chain breaks and you aren't hammering your bike on mountain bike trails, you've seriously neglected that bike for a long long time. Doesn't matter if it's 12 speed, 11 speed, whatever, bike chains are durable and last for years. Generally they are more likely to freeze up from rust and neglect than break. Clean the chain every few weeks and change it ~yearly (or every 2000 miles or so) and unless you are doing some burly stuff with your bike, it's not going to give you trouble.

Likewise wheels, even lightweight wheels aren't likely to fail on a commuter bike unless it's left in the weather.

The bigger danger to bikes is crappy builds and cheap-ass parts. A well made lightweight wheel is going to last 10 times longer than a cheap wheel. If you bought your bike at Walmart, if your chain breaks it's because it's more likely it's because the bike was badly out of tune when you bought it.

Re: France offers each cyclist €50 for bike repairs once lockdown ends

#240

Post by michaelt »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #227
com2kid wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing confused me about this. In major American cities bike theft is incredibly common, to the point that the police won't help at all. I've had bikes repeatedly stolen out of locked garages at home! I'd never buy a bike that was worth any reasonable amount of money, my commute pre-covid was a good candidate for an electric bike, but no way would I spend more than a 2 or 3 hundred dollars on something that will g…

The bike-locks are enough, the bike-locks are normally integrated with the bike themselve ( normal bikes), i've noticed a lot of foreign people are suprised by this. Racing bikes don't need locks, since you stall them at your garage or a private place during the night. Bike theft is usually common in student cities, were cheap bikes have cheap locks and one "steals" from another. The more expensive ones (> 400 €) are…

Here in the UK, there are bike thieves who will drive a van up to a bicycle park, load the van with as many bikes as they can get with some bolt cutters in a few minutes, then drive off. It would be surprising to see someone using a lock that allowed a bike to be carried away for this reason!

Of course it's mostly a problem at universities and train stations at night, where you can find big bike racks and no-one around. Lesser locks might be fine away from crime hotspots.

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