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What caused Shimano's Coasting-program to fail? (2010)

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Re: What caused Shimano's Coasting-program to fail? (2010)

#81

Post by jdeibele »

Portland is supposed to be one of the most bike-friendly cities in the United States. What the city has done is paint bike outlines on streets that are supposed to be mostly for bikes.

It's supposed to be about every 10 blocks north-south and much further apart east-west. Downtown for most of the city is west. Every few streets there might be something that blocks cars (signage or physical barriers) or is supposed to slow them down (bumps, planters in the center of an intersection).

One problem is that they're not dedicated to bikes. So you're sharing the street with other cars. And it's gotten worse because the city is cutting 4-lane feeder streets down to 2 lanes. They call it "traffic calming", which is not what most people would call it. So frustrated drivers are moving over to residential streets and zooming down them as fast as they can.

It really seems like a lost opportunity to take the extra lanes and make them dedicated bike lanes. Have bollards in them that prevent cars from using them.

Re: What caused Shimano's Coasting-program to fail? (2010)

#82

Post by Aerroon »

medium_burrito wrote: post #40
zachrose wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, very much so, but the problems are self-fulfilling: no infrastructure because not enough riders, not enough riders because bikes are unstylish and expensive, etc. But this also means that improving anything is a step towards improving everything.

There were tons of younger riders both in the 90s and 2000s- one wave from mountain biking (when Americans were good at it, so there was enthusiasm) and fixies, which were cheap and cool and durable. Fixies especially seemed like they would usher in more urban cycling (especially with people switching to singlespeed, but keeping the cool look), and messenger culture was a thing. There was no specialized equipment, ex…

Bikes seem great, but they're limited. Bad weather and winter limit bikes a lot. Add on to that the worry about the bike being stolen and I find it hard to justify paying much for a bike.

Re: What caused Shimano's Coasting-program to fail? (2010)

#83

Post by analog31 »

zachrose wrote: post #4

The core thesis behind the program is exciting. The bike industry in America exists primarily serve a relatively small group of enthusiasts, but it doesn't have to. There's no equivalent to the Dutch department store bikes that, if memory serves correctly, were cheap but simple, low-maintenance, and better outfitted for casual riding (fenders, a light, a lock). As the article suggests, I suspect it's more a problem o…

>>>>> There's no equivalent to the Dutch department store bikes that, if memory serves correctly, were cheap but simple, low-maintenance, and better outfitted for casual riding (fenders, a light, a lock).

Schwinn made such bikes for decades. Folks stopped buying them.

Re: What caused Shimano's Coasting-program to fail? (2010)

#84

Post by analog31 »

jablan wrote: post #14
soared wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. It almost seems like Shimano was trying to get all the benefits of a single speed (low maintenance, reliable, zero-though when riding), but with gears. Single speeds are amazingly cheap, simple, near-zero maintenance.. but are not good for casual riders unless your city/metro is very flat.

IGH are not much more complicated than SS.

Indeed, I ride both, and the complexity of dealing with the gearing is negligible.

Re: What caused Shimano's Coasting-program to fail? (2010)

#85

Post by ldiracdelta »

OnlyOneCannolo wrote: post #39
dashundchen wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All that to address a practically non-existing problem: no one really has a problem learning how to use bicycle gears. It's definitely easy to learn once explained, and every enthusiast knows - but as a cyclist living near a popular bike route, I see a lot of casual riders who appear to have no idea how to use their gears. The most common thing I see are riders with the cranked up in a high gear on flat land, and y…

And even if people do know how to use gears, the gears are often in need of some adjustment, so people just stick to the ratios that happen to work.

Worse is better on shifters. Old school downtube, non ratchetting shifters just work.

Re: What caused Shimano's Coasting-program to fail? (2010)

#86

Post by scsilver »

redelbee wrote: post #24

Increasing ridership can come from tech but I think it’s much more likely to come from better and more bike-centric infrastructure and norms. Separated bike paths, bike storage, showers at offices/work, etc would all make it much more likely for someone to decide to bike. We could tell people: Decide to bike and save money. Decide to bike and save health. Decide to bike and save the environment. We can tell people th…

Decide to bike to save time and not have to park one of the most compeling reasons to bike over driving. Luckily I was living in boulder where biking to the main street was faster and easier than driving.

Re: What caused Shimano's Coasting-program to fail? (2010)

#87

Post by megablast »

fian wrote: post #71
brnt wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dutch person here. The thing you foreigners don't get is that cycling shouldn't be regarded as a sport. All your problems with cycling stem from that misconception.

Australian person here. When the summer temps are routinely over 30C and winters have many rainy days, cycling in casual clothes doesn't work except for only very short distances. Most commuters in my city that ride more than 5km to work have adopted at least some lycra as part of their kit. It handles sweat better in summer and can be rinsed of sand then spun and air dried in winter, so you aren't getting into cold…

This is a joke. Australia is one of the best places for cycling, weather wise. I’ve never missed a work day. And that’s in Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

The only problem with Australia is the majority are addicted to cars, so much do they can’t imagine going anywhere without them.

Re: What caused Shimano's Coasting-program to fail? (2010)

#88

Post by beerandt »

jdeibele wrote: post #81

Portland is supposed to be one of the most bike-friendly cities in the United States. What the city has done is paint bike outlines on streets that are supposed to be mostly for bikes. It's supposed to be about every 10 blocks north-south and much further apart east-west. Downtown for most of the city is west. Every few streets there might be something that blocks cars (signage or physical barriers) or is supposed to…

One of our local major surface streets went through this, but it was sold as helping make it more of a trendy shopping/market street.

4 lanes (2+2) reduced to 3 (1+1+turning).

People have been fawning over the proposal for years, and are only now realizing what a disaster it is.

And the businesses that thought they were getting a boost, end up with traffic counts cut by more than half, since people now avoid the purposely created congestion.

Re: What caused Shimano's Coasting-program to fail? (2010)

#89

Post by dheera »

riversflow wrote: post #73
dheera wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this. We need BIG changes in cycling infrastructure. My old bike commute in the Bay Area involved stupid shit like this: https://i.imgur.com/YajWMoY.png Having to constantly switch between pushing along sidewalk and waiting ages for pedestrian lights, dealing with broken road sensors where I had to wait for a car to come behind me and "rescue" me so the light to turn green, having to go back and forth in zig zag…

Wow, you did that every day? Controversial opinion to consider, if you have the attitude that traffic laws are only for cars and serve only to inform bicyclists of the expected behavior of cars, riding in the Bay Area becomes much safer and faster. Habitually running red lights is important as it gives you an open road and a red light behind you. Also I always filter to the front(which I think is legal), abuse cross…

I'm not convinced running red lights is safer. Red lights are red because of cross traffic, and that sounds a lot more dangerous to me.

Re: What caused Shimano's Coasting-program to fail? (2010)

#90

Post by zachrose »

analog31 wrote: post #83
zachrose wrote: post #4

The core thesis behind the program is exciting. The bike industry in America exists primarily serve a relatively small group of enthusiasts, but it doesn't have to. There's no equivalent to the Dutch department store bikes that, if memory serves correctly, were cheap but simple, low-maintenance, and better outfitted for casual riding (fenders, a light, a lock). As the article suggests, I suspect it's more a problem o…

>>>>> There's no equivalent to the Dutch department store bikes that, if memory serves correctly, were cheap but simple, low-maintenance, and better outfitted for casual riding (fenders, a light, a lock). Schwinn made such bikes for decades. Folks stopped buying them.

Interesting, do you know what they were called?
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