[steveintoronto]

How much of a difference will it make at this point? You aren't going to make or break this program with this - and if the cost is significantly higher, you should be choosing system expansion over higher-tech bikes that will be depreciate to nothing in years anyways.

AoD

At $4,000 a bike cost, in bulk, for the present behemoths, more efficient, better handling, more widely desirable models will actually cost *less*.

I can see one desirable aspect to the present 42 pounders (besides being 3 pounds lighter than many older US city models). No one would want to steal one.

 

[amnesiajune]

At $4,000 a bike cost, in bulk, for the present behemoths, more efficient, better handling, more widely desirable models will actually cost *less*.

And they'll break a lot sooner. A $4,000 bike that lasts five years is better than a $1,000 bike that lasts one year.

I can see one desirable aspect to the present 42 pounders (besides being 3 pounds lighter than many older US city models). No one would want to steal one.

Just stop arguing this. You've been wrong about a few things now. The current bikes are fine. If you want to explain how you know more than everyone else in the world -- after all, many cities use the same bikes, and practically every Bike Share system in the world uses something similar -- feel free to do so.

 

[LNahid2000]

At $4,000 a bike cost, in bulk, for the present behemoths, more efficient, better handling, more widely desirable models will actually cost *less*.

The bikes themselves may cost less, but the labour required to switch from one system to another will cost more.

 

[steveintoronto]

Oh my god. Their newest bikes still have aluminum frames!!!

lol...and in Toronto, or any northern city where ice-melt is used, they will corrode. What I initially stated is the claim that "they don't rust" was semantics. They corrode, and Al corrosion is much harder to check than steel rusting, as galvanic action of the attached steel parts (bearings, shells, bolts, stems, etc, etc) accelerates that.

Al is aslo much easier to weld and assemble with modern welding techniques. It is not the metal of choice in many cases, just one of mass production convenience. The model will continue to evolve towards lighter, stronger, and better handling and comfort.

 

[steveintoronto]

Just stop arguing this. You've been wrong about a few things now. The current bikes are fine. If you want to explain how you know more than everyone else in the world -- after all, many cities use the same bikes, and practically every Bike Share system in the world uses something similar -- feel free to do so.

[...]
Bad romance
Riding the oBike for the first time made me feel like Hercules wrestling the Nemean Lion. Forget going after Pokemon, this was about survival.

Unfortunately, the oBike eventually won. I crashed while trying to save my S7 Edge from slipping through the huge gaps in the bike basket. Thankfully the phone survived, though I couldn't say the same for my knee.

It was clear by then that the oBike was not for everyone. At 20 kilograms (about 44 pounds) and almost half my weight, the oBike is much heavier than what I've been used to. And as it turns out, I wasn't alone:

Enlarge

Some oBike users have taken to Google's Play store to reflect that the bikes are heavy.

Screengrab by Zoey Chong/CNET
But what may seem detrimental to user experience is actually a deliberate choice on oBike's end. oBike's general manager Elgin Ee told me that the weight is one measure the company has taken to deter theft.[...]

https://www.cnet.com/news/i-broke-up-with-bike-sharing-after-one-horrible-crash/

 

[LNahid2000]

https://www.cnet.com/news/i-broke-up-with-bike-sharing-after-one-horrible-crash/

This bike isn't even the same bike as the Bike Share Toronto bikes, so I'm not sure how this is relevant.

 

[amnesiajune]

They corrode, and Al corrosion is much harder to check than steel rusting, as galvanic action of the attached steel parts (bearings, shells, bolts, stems, etc, etc) accelerates that.

Again... You are wrong. I don't know how many times I'll need to say it before you stop repeating this lie. Every common aluminum alloy is extremely weatherproof, which is why they're regularly used for things like bikes, transit vehicles and car bodywork. It doesn't corrode. And in the real world (the one where aluminum is rustproof) the terms "rust", "oxidation" and "corrosion" are used interchangeably because, as a verb, they essentially mean the same thing.

 

[steveintoronto]

Again... You are wrong. I don't know how many times I'll need to say it before you stop repeating this lie.

Perhaps until you get your Science right. And it's far from just bikes, it's all vehicles and objects exposed to road and other salts. It's the basis of type of battery and ignition devices for God's sakes. Perhaps you don't understand what "galvanic action" means. I posted it prior.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium–air_battery

Electrochemistry
The anode oxidation half-reaction is Al + 3OH− → Al(OH)
3 + 3e− +2.31 V.

The cathode reduction half-reaction is O
2 + 2H
2O + 4e− → 4OH− +0.40 V.

The total reaction is 4Al + 3O
2 + 6H
2O → 4Al(OH)
3 + 2.71 V.

About 1.2 volts potential difference is created by these reactions and is achievable in practice when potassium hydroxide is used as the electrolyte. Saltwater electrolyte achieves approximately 0.7 volts per cell.

This bike isn't even the same bike as the Bike Share Toronto bikes, so I'm not sure how this is relevant.

Perhaps it's a bit too complicated for some. The post is about *weight*, the very point I've been making all along, and Amnesia's claim that "it's only me". Note all of the Tweets about the bike (44 pounds) weighing too much.

The caption under the tweets should offer a clue, but I digress:
"Some oBike users have taken to Google's Play store to reflect that the bikes are heavy."

Meantime, in Seattle, which knows and practices a hell of a lot more on cycling and bike share than Toronto does:

[...]
Does the city have a target number of bikes it wants in service?

We would just like there to be as many bikes as to meet the needs of Seattle bike riders. We definitely expect ridership to continue to increase. We expect there to be more companies trying to operate in the city. I think we’ll see probably lighter bikes or faster bikes or more gears or more electric bikes. As you see those types of bike innovations, I think that will probably increase people’s interest in usage.

Do you have a sense of whether this seems like a more sustainable bike share approach than a city-led model?

In comparison to Pronto, I think this model works better for Seattle: the ability to use a bike but then also quickly shift to other transit modes. I think as bike share technology becomes more smart and lighter and efficient for riders, we expect there to be growth within Seattle but probably across the whole bike share market.
[...]

http://betterbikeshare.org/2017/10/19/qa-techs-take-bike-sharing-hits-street-seattle/

Qs & As edited. Stay tuned for the next two posts in this series: conversations with Tom Fuculoro, the publisher of Seattle Bike Blog, and Gordon Padelford, the executive director of Seattle Neighborhood Greenways.

The Better Bike Share Partnership is funded by The JPB Foundation as a collaborative between the City of Philadelphia, the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) and the PeopleForBikes Foundation to build equitable and replicable bike share systems. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

I'll quote the essential part again, as some have trouble grasping the points, their denial is so loud:

"I think we’ll see probably lighter bikes or faster bikes or more gears or more electric bikes. As you see those types of bike innovations, I think that will probably increase people’s interest in usage.
[...]
I think as bike share technology becomes more smart and lighter and efficient for riders, we expect there to be growth within Seattle but probably across the whole bike share market."

Feel absolutely free to straighten them out...

 

[LNahid2000]

Perhaps it's a bit too complicated for some. The post is about *weight*, the very point I've been making all along, and Amnesia's claim that "it's only me". Note all of the Tweets about the bike (44 pounds) weighing too much.

The usual condescending tone from steveintoronto. Anyway, my point was that it's a different bike, and the weight may be distributed differently resulting in inferior ride quality. It also weighs 4lb more than the Bike Share Toronto bike.

 

[PinkLucy]

Last warning. Drop the condescension.

 

[Juan_Lennon416]

The usual condescending tone from steveintoronto. Anyway, my point was that it's a different bike, and the weight may be distributed differently resulting in inferior ride quality. It also weighs 4lb more than the Bike Share Toronto bike.

What do you expect? He brings up Trump in threads that have nothing to do with him.

Just stop arguing with him and move on!

 

[steveintoronto]

More from Seattle, the bikes mentioned in my prior post have arrived, to great success.

I'll quote the section most relevant to this string:

[...]
The cool thing about these bike share services is that you don’t have to bike in heavy rain if you don’t want to. Let’s say you take the bus to work because it is raining, but weather clears up by the time you are off work. Bike share is waiting there for you. I bet we’ll start seeing a lot of mixed travel based on weather conditions. That’s why having many transportation options is so great.

In a city where traffic only gets worse, bike share is taking real and immediate action to do something about it. And it appears to be working.

Spin releases new, vastly-improved bikes


Until now, LimeBike’s very low gearing and general sturdiness gave that company’s bikes an advantage over Spin when climbing Seattle’s hills. But that may have changed in the past week or so, because Spin has launched a new and vastly-improved bike. It is lighter, has a lower low gear, a better shifter, stronger brakes, a better kickstand, a locked seat post that does not swivel and is harder to steal, and a much better headlight.

In fact, the new Spin bike passed an informal test I have used to gauge each company’s bikes: I was able to climb up Pine Street from downtown to Cal Anderson Park without standing up to pedal. Before now, only LimeBike had passed this test.

Right now, Spin’s fleet is a mix of the old and new bikes, but the company is gradually phasing these bikes into the Seattle market. The easiest way to tell if it’s the new bike is that the kickstand is a double-stand style and the front basket moves with the handlebars instead of being attached to the frame. Give it a try and let us know what you think in the comments below.
[...]

https://www.seattlebikeblog.com/201...ter-bike-forbes-says-limebike-valued-at-200m/

I project that the designs and models will continue to progress, just as "Foreign Cars" became "World Cars" over two decades in North America. There's no need for weight and poor-handling.

Article continues:
[...]

Grace Lin, VP of ofo U.S., told Seattle Bike Blog that her company’s goal is “to unlock every corner of the world, and to make bicycles accessible to anyone, anytime, anywhere.”

This free-floating bike share thing is just getting started.

For the record, the OBike referenced earlier is 44 lbs. The Bixi model is 42 lbs.

 

[LNahid2000]

Those same spin bikes already exist in Toronto. I don't like their pricing model, but feel free to try them:

https://dropbike.ca

 

[steveintoronto]

Those same spin bikes already exist in Toronto. I don't like their pricing model, but feel free to try them:

https://dropbike.ca

They're the older model. If you access the links I provided they describe the differences.

Meantime Seattle appears to be breaking records, and doing it privately. Latest blog written yesterday, just up today states:

[...]
For the first two months, the brand new bike share services carried just under 120,000 trips. Since then, as the number of bikes ballooned, the number of trips accelerated even as typical seasonal biking trends say ridership should have been slowing down. By the end of November, the most recent figures Seattle Bike Blog has received from SDOT, the combined trip total reached 347,300. Riders even passed the million-mile mark.

To put that in perspective, Pronto Cycle Share carried 278,143 trips total during its entire two and a half years of operations. It took private bike share companies just over three months to pass Pronto’s lifetime total. The number of bikes permitted was about 9,400 by the end of November, though many of those are not in service due to maintenance. Pronto had 500 bikes.

At this point, Pronto is no longer a useful measuring stick for bike share in Seattle. Averaging 2,711 rides per day, bike share companies have already blown past ridership on the First Hill Streetcar (1,600 riders per day) and the South Lake Union Streetcar (1,400 riders per day). In fact, considering the accelerating rate of ridership, it’s likely that the bike share companies have had many days carrying more riders than both streetcars combined.

That bike share services are already rivaling two streetcar lines that cost about $190 million to build is pretty incredible. Free-floating bike share services have cost the City of Seattle almost nothing. In fact, these companies pay the city permit fees. And at $1/ride, bike share is the cheapest way to get around other than walking or owning your own (not-high-end) bicycle. That’s far, far cheaper than other private mobility services, like car share, taxis and app taxis.

Healthy, zero-emission, popular and affordable transportation that could lower traffic congestion at nearly no cost to the city? I understand that this all sounds too good to be true. But so far, that’s what’s been happening with free-floating bike share in Seattle.
[...]

Bike share pilot’s daily ridership blows past Pronto’s lifetime totals, rivals both streetcars combined
Posted on December 15, 2017 by Tom Fucoloro

 

[LNahid2000]

Meantime Seattle appears to be breaking records, and doing it privately. Latest blog written yesterday, just up today states:

They're comparing a system that only had 500 bikes to a system that has 4000 bikes...it's a shitty comparison. Of course more bikes is going to result in an increase in ridership.

Meanwhile, Bike Share Toronto had 118,675 trips with 2,750 bikes in November (which was pretty damn cold compared to the temperature in Seattle).