For everyone else who's getting a 404: http://archive.is/HTfZh I hope they don't handle bikes like their do their websites...
The 404 seems to be geo-related; I used a US VPN and it loaded.
Same for me.
Uber Bike – A New Way to Commute or Explore
171–180 of 299 posts
Re: Uber Bike – A New Way to Commute or Explore
#172Page seems to have been moved: "Sorry, we couldn’t find that page We’ve moved a lot of stuff over the years, and it must’ve gotten lost in the mix. Please try retyping the address or just head back to our home page." This is the best link I could find with a quick search: https://jumpbikes.com/uber-bike
Same for me. They seem to block users outside USA (at least me). I turned on my VPN (gives me american IP), then it worked.
Re: Uber Bike – A New Way to Commute or Explore
#173I think uber has a strategic problem in that they want to do everything, everywhen, all the time.
...
How about a bit of focus?
Re: Uber Bike – A New Way to Commute or Explore
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
In DC we also have JUMP (tho this Uber integration seems to be SF only), in addition to ofo, spin, mobike & limebike. And in my experience JUMP doesn't suffer from the majority of the issues the other dockless providers do. Their bikes are much higher quality and lock to something. This quality comes at a price, so the provider is more invested in bikes remaining in operation, whereas the other providers' bikes are s…
What can you do with the API? I don't see any information on the website about an API.
I'm not sure what the full authenticated API[0] can do, maybe the sort of integration Uber did is possible. But with the open data APIs make it easy to find all bikes currently available in the system. I've used them to add JUMP to my bike finder webapp[2] and build a little service to send myself notification of where the nearest JUMP bike is in the morning[3] because they don't yet have huge coverage in DC (working on porting this from single user + pushover to a PWA using web push).
[0] https://app.socialbicycles.com/developer/
[1] https://dc.jumpmobility.com/opendata & https://sf.jumpmobility.com/opendata
Re: Uber Bike – A New Way to Commute or Explore
#175How do people who've used it feel about the dockless iteration of bike sharing? I've never had occasion to try it, but I'm very skeptical. It seems like letting people leave the bike more-or-less wherever is optimizing the end-of-ride experience at the expense of pretty much every other part of the operation aside from actually riding the bike. I don't think I'd want to start my morning commute by hunting around in a…
Absolutely love them. I wish there were more available near my house (in Tempe, Arizona. Essentially on Arizona State University's campus).
>I'd much rather have the consistency of walking to a known location near my house and grabbing a bike that I know will be there.
At least in Tempe, there are competing/complimentary services. One of them is exactly like this (Grid Bikes, is the name).
>I also don't know that, as someone who has to use the sidewalks when not riding, I'd want to have these things just scattered all over the place.
I haven't seen this be a problem yet. Although I have to be honest, if I saw a bike in the sidewalk, I would probably just move it to somewhere more convenient so that nobody else had to deal with it. Sidewalks are community spaecs, and I'd hope that most people would treat them that way.
>Last, having the bikes scattered at random has got to really do a number on the logistics costs. Going to a relatively constrained list of known locations to retrieve bikes that are due for maintenance sounds a lot cheaper to me than having to drive all over the city, possibly including going to places where the van can't go like random spots in the middle of public parks.
Apparently some of the Chinese hubless bike companies have a solution for this: they offer you a bounty (of ride credit) to go and fetch them broken, or out of the way bikes. Pretty cool! I haven't seen that on any of the US services yet.
Re: Uber Bike – A New Way to Commute or Explore
#176Does the price point of $2 for 30 minutes seem a little high to anyone? Ofo is 4x cheaper at $1/hour [1] in Seattle... even when taking into account the high COL in SF and the extra benefit of electric bike, this seems excessive. A uber pool with the express option can be $3-4 for a short bikeable ride, I think I'd rather default to that in a majority of cases. [1] https://seattle.curbed.com/2017/8/15/16153622/ofo-bi…
$1/hr seems pretty VC-subsidized. Assuming that the costs for one bike are $900/year (including broken motors, lost bikes, theft, docks, rent for docks, broken chargers, etc) that's 3 hours of trips needed per day... which might not sound like a lot, but with 10 hours of daylight a day that's a pretty large amount of usage IMO.
I live in the Netherlands, where everyone owns their own bikes. The biggest bikeshare program is run by the national railways, with bikes available at any station for €3.85/24 hours. They're non-electric, so probably cost about $200 per bike in bulk. I wish there were smaller rental periods available though.
[edit] googled bike costs out of curiosity, and apparently ofo builds their own non-electric bikes in China, which cost only $36 each (!).
Re: Uber Bike – A New Way to Commute or Explore
#177[deleted]
Re: Uber Bike – A New Way to Commute or Explore
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ofo and Mobike bikes use locks that block the wheel's rotation and can thus be parked anywhere. Seems like forcing to use an existing bike rack would be a non-starter, since the whole point of dockless bike sharing is that you can just leave the bike in front of your destination regardless of what is there. The "eyesore" factor is a trivial downside compared to the massive convenience of just being able to park the b…
It's not just a "trivial" eyesore in Dallas. It's gotten to the point where there are so many of these dockless bikes around Dallas that there literally isn't enough space on the sidewalk for them, so they start spilling onto roads, train tracks (which cause delays and accidents), blocking sidewalks/paths, etc. Dockless sounds great in theory, but in practice, humans are assholes and have no problem tossing the bike…
Ditto in Seattle. And I think it's important to understand that it's not primarily the riders (of whom there are very very few) who are paying to ride these things and then dumping them wherever, it is the "assholes" employed by the bike rental companies who are doing the park-uglifying, yard-infringing, sidewalk-blocking bike spamming.
"Dockless" in theory is only nice if there are a limited number of bikes in distribution. In practice, it means that the employees of the bike rental companies will leave as many of their bikes as they can wherever they want for however long they want (case in point: late last fall there were at least 40 bikes dumped by three rental companies on one two block length of one street in my neighborhood). Cities with city councils that actually care about the quality of life of their residents (SF, Oakland) moved quickly to prohibit these rental companies from spamming their products all over streets, parks, sidewalks, yards. The rest of us have to suffer.
Re: Uber Bike – A New Way to Commute or Explore
#179I love the idea of integrating the lock so that it needs to be attached to an existing bike rack. Lime bike and Ofo have infiltrated Dallas, and their bikes are somewhat of an eyesore, especially as they are strewn everywhere. It'll be interesting to see how they enforce the location requirement. i.e. will you be charged if it's stolen because you didnt lock it on a rack? Will they have a known database of every "sui…
Certainly not more of an eyesore than parked cars lining city streets.
I'm betting you don't live in a city where three of these rental companies are operating.
Re: Uber Bike – A New Way to Commute or Explore
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ofo and Mobike bikes use locks that block the wheel's rotation and can thus be parked anywhere. Seems like forcing to use an existing bike rack would be a non-starter, since the whole point of dockless bike sharing is that you can just leave the bike in front of your destination regardless of what is there. The "eyesore" factor is a trivial downside compared to the massive convenience of just being able to park the b…
>The "eyesore" factor is a trivial downside compared to the massive convenience of just being able to park the bike anywhere. Also, seems like less of an eyesore than the numerous cars we (including me) leave parked on the side of the street. Maybe it's just a question of what we are used to.
You should visit Seattle once the weather clears up. You'll see that they "eyesore factor" is very, very real.