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

Open source bike comparison and review

bikeindex.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 49 posts

Re: Open source bike comparison and review

#31

Post by listic »

bike_index wrote: post #18
listic wrote: post #16

Looks interesting. Do you consider selecting by bike category (e.g. I don't know all makes and models but say I'd like to narrow my search to just folding bikes or hybrid (cross, Wheel size 700c) bikes?) Do you accept suggestions to expand the list of brands? I would like to see Author http://www.author.eu/en/

We're prioritizing brands based roughly on the number of bikes registered on the Bike Index from that brand. So register more Author bikes and it'll happen. And yes, category search would be nice. It's something we'll work on.

I guess most of your users are US based and this is... more a European brand maybe? I don't know, I live in Russia and it's quite popular over here. I guess it's a decent budget-minded brand, though many people (who ride cheapo bikes) consider it overpriced.

Re: Open source bike comparison and review

#32

Post by adolph »

atourgates wrote: post #11

Horray! This is an idea I had a few months ago, threw around in my head, and realized it's something I'd never have time to build. I'm thrilled that you have! For those of you who aren't super-familiar with the agonizing process of choosing the proper bike, I'll try to clue you in. Say you wanted to buy a Full-suspension 29'er from a well-known manufacturer for about $2,900. You'd narrowed your choices down to the Gi…

Yes, and frame geometry too.

Re: Open source bike comparison and review

#33

Post by jzwinck »

bike_index wrote: post #29
jzwinck wrote: post #28

This is interesting. BikePedia is the site I'd currently go to for stuff like this. And at least for the bikes I have direct knowledge of, BikePedia has more of the bikes and fewer errors. For example, in 2005 we have the Trek 2100 WSD which you say has 700/650x25c tires (correct) but 650b wheels (incorrect). The 1500 WSD in the same year lists 700x25c tires only, despite that the smallest versions came with 650x25c…

Yeah, but bikepedia is ugly and isn't useable on mobile. It also, most importantly, doesn't have an API. We actually asked bikepedia multiple times if they had an API, or if we could help build one and were told they weren't interested. So we built a prettier, more useable, open source solution. The kinks will work themselves out.

Respectfully, your site is not as usable as BikePedia on a laptop computer. Here are some suggestions:

Let me change the model year without having to select the model again. BikePedia has quick links for this, so I know right away what other years there are.

Have the comparison tool default to something smart, such as the same year and manufacturer, rather than starting the second bike totally blank.

Add some sort of filtering to help people find bikes they might want ("about three years old, MTB, Shimano XT or similar").

Re: Open source bike comparison and review

#34

Post by listic »

bike_index wrote: post #27
codr wrote: post #23

Cool idea. Would love to see frame weights added, along with complete bike weights. Not seeing Raleigh, Focus, and a bunch of other brands listed. Will more be added?

Absolutely more will be added. And any listing of bike weight is bullshit. You have to find the bike and weight it, because manufacturers weigh different things (and different sizes). So we won't be adding that.

Yes; the weight seems to have become so speculative that many brands boycott stating it in the specs at all. In fact, I don't know of any brand other than Author who states weight. I kinda look at it, to compare between different Author models, but that's all I can do with it; I'm not sure if it would be fair to compare weight between models because every company weighs differently and there's some unfair speculation seemingly going on.

Re: Open source bike comparison and review

#35

Post by codr »

bike_index wrote: post #27
codr wrote: post #23

Cool idea. Would love to see frame weights added, along with complete bike weights. Not seeing Raleigh, Focus, and a bunch of other brands listed. Will more be added?

Absolutely more will be added. And any listing of bike weight is bullshit. You have to find the bike and weight it, because manufacturers weigh different things (and different sizes). So we won't be adding that.

Not sure I'd go so far to call it bs.. ballpark figures are better than nothing!

At least the listed frame weights are somewhat less subjective than complete bike weights - and there are a bunch of people that definitely care about that kind of "minutiae".

Re: Open source bike comparison and review

#36

Post by nl »

Looks pretty useful!

A few notes:

Each page should have a unique URL. That makes it a lot more sharable.

Different markets have different bikes. For example, the CAAD X Sora (http://www.cannondale.com/catalog/product/view/id/31945/s/ca... - I'd link to it on Bike.io but I can't...) isn't available in Australia. For other manufactures we get bikes the US get - I know Cervelo had different options in Australia to the US. Edit: Another example; Giant Australia has a Revolt 1 (http://www.giant-bicycles.com/en-au/bikes/model/revolt.1/149...) which you don't list.

Comparison pages need shareable URLs too - you'll get a lot of traffic from forums if people can share direct links.

In the absence of categories, showing prices next to the models would be a useful stopgap measure.

Edit 2: No way to reset the app when you want to start again.

Re: Open source bike comparison and review

#37

Post by doorhammer »

I don't think this is exactly what you're shooting for, but I'd love to see a site like http://pcpartpicker.com/ except for bike parts, and even if it's not what you're going for, they might have some interesting features or ways of doing comparisons that you could use.

I recently used it to configure a pc, and it was a pretty awesome and smooth experience nabbing parts, and figuring out the best place to buy them online/locally. Saved me around $200 or so on my build over the lazy way I used to do it, which is just buy on newegg.

Whenever I build a bike, I go with a frame, and then buy all my own components. An easy way to summarize components, find new ones, compare weight, reviews, etc, and save parts I have to know what I don't have to buy at a glance, etc. would be killer.

Re: Open source bike comparison and review

#40

Post by jakejake »

abengoam wrote: post #3

I parsed it as (open source bike) comparison and review, not as (open source)(bike comparison and review).

Same here, I thought it was going to be "open source" as in part lists that people had used to build their own bikes.

The site still looks useful and probably will be even more so when there's more bikes to choose from.

Post reply on HN