24 ms·

Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

197 points by eplanit 9y ago

joelrunyon 9y ago
Can we only include non-paywalled articles? Hard to contribute to the discussion when you can't read the content.
- cryptoz 9y ago
  Click on 'web' above and then you should quickly find a source article you can read with no paywall... sometimes. Works for this one, for me.
- dang 9y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989 Users often post workarounds in the threads (edit: as someone now has in this one).
neonate 9y ago
http://archive.is/GrVXE http://archive.is/GrVXE
saudioger 9y ago
Does anyone know if going dockless increases ridership in any significant way? The consumer benefits seem great but it seems like such a nightmare to maintain compared to a docking system.
- gervase 9y ago
  I can't speak to the complexity of managing a dockless system (and in particular, their profitability), but from a UX perspective, it's a total game-changer. In my city, we started with docked, but after a dockless company arrived, literally no-one uses the docked bikes - why put up with the extra hassle of having to return the bikes for no user benefit? The prices are already so low that I can't really see them being able to compete on price, so the only differentiating factor is ease of use, which dockless will always win on. Also, in reply to a sibling comment, we have a pretty serious bike theft problem here, but they mostly don't bother with the dockless bikes except as a mode of transportation. Speculatively, perhaps most bike theft profits are in the gray market (i.e. Craigslist), where these highly-recognizable bikes can't be unloaded?
  - ggregoire 9y ago
    > why put up with the extra hassle of having to return the bikes for no user benefit? What about the extra hassle of finding and walking with your map to your dockless bike? (if you are lucky enough to find one close to you) Also in both cities I lived, docking stations are everywhere, it has never been a problem (maybe once or twice a year when my usual docking station was full. Still, I just needed to go the next one, 5 min from there).
    - jonknee 9y ago
      You might have to hunt for one, but then you can leave it right at your destination so it should even out somewhat. That said, dockless bikes are everywhere in Seattle right now. Docked bikes never took off here, but I see people on the dockless ones all the time.
    - icebraining 9y ago
      The system in Hamburg (StadtRAD) is an hybrid: you have to bring it to a dock, but if the dock's full, you can just lock the bike standalone near it. Although, last time I mentioned it here someone said they've had problems with the position detection, such that they kept being charged despite leaving it near a dock.
  - thiagocsf 9y ago
    Returning the bikes to a dock is a benefit to everyone else in the city. A dock is always placed in a location agreed by the council. It’s guaranteed to not be in anyone’s way or a safety hazard. Maybe the dockless users in your city are more conscious. In mine, they will happily leave their rentals blocking the footpath. I constantly need to stop my child’s pram and move the bike out of the way. Dockless bikes are an appropriation of public spaces by private companies and need to stop.
    - vkou 9y ago
      > Dockless bikes are an appropriation of public spaces by private companies and need to stop. I'll support this, as soon as we reclaim the millions of square feet of private space appropriated by curbside parking. This would free up enough space for everyone, and their extended families to park their bikes. If every block in my neighborhood has room for free parking for ~40 cars, then surely we could reclaim a few of those spots, for the sake of free parking for a greater number of dockless bikes.
- wpietri 9y ago
  Just the other day I saw some very dubious people on BART with dockless bikes. I had to wonder if there's a good secondary market in bike parts that makes those things worth stealing.
  - convolvatron 9y ago
    i work near a group of homeless bike chop shop people with trash bins filled with parts. they move alot* of bikes. i dont see any of the ford or jump bikes around. i think they are just so awash in parts and frames, there really isn't any strong pull to try to mine the bike rental stream. the frames in particular are probably worthless except as steel scrap. i wonder about the battery/motors though.
    - jfim 9y ago
      With regards to the Ford bikes, that's actually by design. The Ford bikes are basically the same as Montreal's Bixi, which uses custom parts; this means that since the parts only fit the Ford bikes, there's no reason to chop them for parts, as they won't fit on a regular bike. They also require custom tools to work on them, making it less likely that they'll be chopped up for parts in the first place. You can read more about the bikes at http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/fixing-bixis-nearly-indestructible-and-theft-proof-the-bike-sharing-fleet-still-needs-tune-ups-part-ii http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/fixing-bixis-near...
  - rishabhparikh 9y ago
    Why did you think they might be stealing the bikes?
    - thiagocsf 9y ago
      Don’t answer. It’s a trap!
    - wpietri 9y ago
      My usual profile for those bikes is tourists and young professionals. These were grizzled, grubby older men. Plus, the theory of these bikes is as last-mile transportation; I've never seen them on BART before or since.
- sagichmal 9y ago
  Data point of one here, but docked bike share programs are a novelty for me, maybe useful on occasional weekends, but dockless makes it viable for replacing almost all use of public transit and ride sharing, including (especially) daily commute. Orders of magnitude difference in my personal usage.
  - kasey_junk 9y ago
    Curious why? Just availability?
    - Parsnip1 9y ago
      The only times I've used a bike share, it was because I was walking somewhere and happened to pass a dockless bike that seemed like a really good idea to just rent and use right away. These were invariable in places that would not have had a docking station.
      - kasey_junk 9y ago
        I get that. But he mentioned that dockless made it feasible for replacing the commute. Those seem like the kinds of trips that dock based systems excel at because they are known routes.
        sagichmal 9y ago
        The closest city bike docking stations are a ~10 minute walk from my apartment, and a ~5 minute walk from my office. There is always a dockless bike within a ~5 minute walk from my apartment, even during morning and evening rush hours, and I can leave it directly in front of my office door. The time spent on the bike is the same in both cases, about 10 or 12 minutes. So a docked bike commute is 25 minutes door-to-door, with a lot of time kind of "wasted", whereas a dockless bike commute is between 10 and 15, and all of the time spent feels like I'm making progress toward my goal. It's worth noting that taking public transit (Muni bus) between these same two points takes at least 30 minutes (good day, light traffic, no mentally disturbed people interrupting the driver) and has taken as long as 55 minutes. A Lyft is also reliably slower, especially in the evening rush hour. To be honest, the time taken is not such a huge deal. The bigger draw, by far, is that riding the electric bike is completely effortless, and usually quite fun. And it's also important that they are extremely handsome, I don't feel like a goober when I'm on them. Riding the city bikes, in comparison, is a completely different experience. You feel how big and heavy they are, you can easily work up a sweat, and they're not handsome machines, everyone looks a little bit like a doofus on them.
- ggregoire 9y ago
  > The consumer benefits seem great How so? We have dockless bikes here (the Chinese Mobike) but it seems like you never know where to pick them up. At less with the public bikes, I know where is the closest docking station to my house.
  - Analemma_ 9y ago
    > but it seems like you never know where to pick them up. That's a major design failure on their part then. Seattle's dockless bikes all have GPS trackers so you can see them on a map on the phone app.
    - KerrickStaley 9y ago
      I actually like the consistency of knowing where the bikes will be without having to check an app. I have a dock less than a block from my apartment that is consistently stocked with bikes. It's convenient and less mental overhead than checking an app.
    - kweks 9y ago
      Do they actually have GPS? The Chinese bikes have a dirt cheap BLE module; the App pulls GPS data from your phone. Which is to say, when people displace the bikes "manually", the maps are no longer accurate.
    - ggregoire 9y ago
      No, I meant you never know before looking at your phone if there is a dockless bike at less than 15 min from your home. And I have 2 public dock stations at 5 min from my home so...
  - dx034 9y ago
    Where is here? In London, you can see them in the app. They allow you to "block" it for 15 minutes so it's less of a gamble if you have to walk a few minutes for the next bike. Works well from my first tests and cheaper/easier than the official version.
- chrischen 9y ago
  I tried dockless bikes in Taiwan and while being able to park anywhere is grrat initally, the chance your bike gets taken, the difficulty in locating a bike due to bariable locatioms and inaccurate GPS, really dirty bikes, are all huge problems.
  - barkingcat 9y ago
    Can you bring a bike lock and just lock the dockless bike?
    - mikepurvis 9y ago
      I'd be pretty frustrated if I used the app to locate an available bike but then found that someone had locked it up.
      - chrischen 9y ago
        I actually did find bikes like that in the wild. Luckily there were usually a group of bikes there. I'd imagine it's probably against their TOS to lock their bikes.
        barkingcat 9y ago
        what are they going to do? Aside from cutting the lock it's pretty much impossible to know who locked it. If we get a whole city of people doing it, even if they get the cops what are they going to do? arrest 500-1000 people?
- UncleEntity 9y ago
  I do wonder how they keep track of those things, I see them all over the place -- in front of houses in neighborhoods, "hidden" in apartment complexes, locked to random things, left in the middle of the sidewalk so you have to push it out of the way to go by (my favorite), left unlocked in front of the corner store so anyone can jump on and ride away, &etc. Rarely do I see anyone actually riding them though.
- Analemma_ 9y ago
  Anecdotally, Seattle had a docked bike-share a few years a go that shut down a short while later because no one used it, and recently launched a dockless bikeshare that I've been using a lot. From a customer perspective, it's a night-and-day difference in usability.
- bradly 9y ago
  Yes, because docked bikes need to be done in cooperation with a city or business to install a dock station. With dockerless, the streets where I live have just been littered with bikes and scooters.
  - hunter23 9y ago
    A lot of regulators in the US are thinking about requiring dockerless systems to coordinate with them now. Many cities don't want the littering issue.
  - thiagocsf 9y ago
    This has become a nightmare in Sydney. I see broken bikes everywhere, in piles, up fences, down in canals. I’m hoping for regulation to come soon.
  - dx034 9y ago
    And you get NIMBYism. In London, some neighbourhoods are excluded from bike-sharing because communities didn't want to have docking stations in their streets (takes away parking space and can create noise).
- eli 9y ago
  I think the additional overhead versus a docked system isn't as big as you think. The popular dock-based DC BikeShare requires a whole fleet of vans picking up bikes from completely full docks and redistributing them elsewhere. They finally set up a system where there's an employee waiting by a popular downtown bike rack to manually check in your bike because the rack would otherwise be full with a line of other people waiting for an open slot.
- joeblau 9y ago
  Another data point of one, but when I was in Arizona in March, I tried Ofo bikes. The fact that I could ride to exactly where I wanted to go without having to find a dock was the only reason I thought it was viable. I rode to an açaí restaurant, "docked my bike" then rode the bike to work. My office was no where near where the company would have put a dock so I would say that dockless was an extremely value feature. As far as Ofo picking up the bikes on their end... that's probably a nightmare. That being said, there is a Data Skeptic - Bike Share Rebalancing[1] episode so I'm sure there are data scientists optimizing the pickup and distribution algorithm to make deckles cheaper or as cheap as docked bikes. [1] - http://podbay.fm/show/890348705/e/1476457200 http://podbay.fm/show/890348705/e/1476457200
  - djrogers 9y ago
    > I rode to an açaí restaurant, "docked my bike" then rode the bike to work. Sounds nice, but what do you do when someone else takes the bike while you’re eating? Whe I hear ‘dockless’ I think about the hassle of finding a bike where I want it, not the convenience of not having to drop it off...
    - joeblau 9y ago
      To be honest, there were about 10 bikes within 400 feet of where I was. There just wasn't one exactly at the restaurant. I would have had to walk probably 2-5 mins to get another bike. That 2-5 mins is probably still better than where a dock would have been. It's really weird being out there because it seems like there are bikes everywhere in Tempe.
- SllX 9y ago
  Another data point here in SF. Up until last year I had zero bike share racks installed around my apartment, and as of this year, there are still zero in >80% of the areas that I actually go to in the City (mostly in the West). As of about a month or two ago, I have seen these Jump bikes pop up around the streets I frequent, even seeing a row of 4 of them at some point parked in a bookstore's bike rack parklet as if it were a dock made for them. I was considering trying out Jump up until this announcement, but I essentially can't use Bay Area Bike Share because there aren't any docks at any point in the city where I would ride to.
- zhoujianfu 9y ago
  In Santa Monica they have the breeze docked bike share... which originally when it launched allowed you to leave the bikes anywhere for no charge (so best of both worlds). I was an avid user and rode an average of four times a day! A few months later, they started charging $2 if you didn’t lock a bike to the dock. This made for a pretty good a/b test of usage... I started using them only maybe once or twice a month! I’d say dockless is about 50x better than docked. And since bird showed up here (dockless e-scooters) I basically never use the breeze bike share anymore, despite having prepaid for a year of it. I think the electricity probably makes it again 2x better and the scooter makes it again 2x better. So overall, dockless e-scooters are maybe 200x better than docked bike shares!
  - ztratar 9y ago
    While I'm giggling a bit at the pseudo-math, I have to agree with the sentiment of this post. Dockless E-Scooters, to me, just feel like the winner. They take up much less space on the sidewalk than the bikes.
wpietri 9y ago
This is a puzzle to me. Uber faces some critical issues ahead. If they can solve them, the bikes will be a rounding error. If they can't, the bike business won't be enough to save them. Why add the complexity when they could buy or build something later? I especially can't figure out why the Jump CEO would do it. The odds of their work surviving to the 10 year mark seems so small. It reminds me of something like Dodgeball. (For those who don't remember, it was a company basically like Foursquare, but years before. Google bought it and did little with it. Eventually the founders got tired of it, left Google, and started the same company again.)
- ska 9y ago
  The odds of their work surviving to the 10 year mark seems so small. Are you sure that the odds are worse than surviving the 10 year mark without an acquisition? Would hardly be the first time someone sold because they simply couldn't make the growth math work, and they were all out of good options for financing.
  - wpietri 9y ago
    I'm not sure, but that's the way I'd bet. They just took $10m in January, which is a fair bit of runway for testing hypotheses. When they start to run low on that, they can go to every single VC firm for more. Inside Uber, they are going to have approximately one executive to get funding from. Currently that executive obviously likes them. But feelings change, and they're just a reorg or an executive departure away from somebody who gives zero fucks.
    - robszumski 9y ago
      Isn't this the same problem with a VC? The funds might like you now, but watch those ride numbers drop a bit and suddenly folks want ridiculous terms and you don't have many options. I would bet that getting $10m a year in the budget for a few years is no sweat at Uber...they had gross revenue of $37B in 2017. I realize they are trying to cut that, but increasing engagement in already profitable cities might have a material impact in the other direction.
dawhizkid 9y ago
Awesome! Having used Jump this weekend, I wouldn't say dockless is the main value prop to me as a customer - it's the power assist that makes it feel more like a scooter than a bike. Going medium distances (1-2 miles) and up and down steep hills in SF was a breeze. If you're commuting, it's "sweat free." IMO Uber Pool/Lyft Line has gotten so slow (I'm sure Pool/Line's share of total rides vs regular X/Lyft is more than 80% in many cities now) for short to med distances that powered bikes has become more and more appealing.
- jseliger 9y ago
  it's the power assist that makes it feel more like a scooter than a bike There are many comments online about how awesome electric bikes are and many skeptical responses. I think the basic divide comes down to one thing: Has the person tried an electric bike? Almost everyone who has immediately sees them as awesome. Many who haven't don't get the point. There are finally some reputable electric bikes available for around $1,000 (https://www.propella.bike/products/singlespeed https://www.propella.bike/products/singlespeed), but most people want transportation without having to deal with hassle on either end.
  - UncleEntity 9y ago
    > Has the person tried an electric bike? Almost everyone who has immediately sees them as awesome. Many who haven't don't get the point. Probably depends on your goals as well. I got one of those 2-stroke engines to put on my bike a while ago and when it arrived I was looking at it and thinking "if I put this thing on my bike I'll never get any exercise". Instead I went to the pawn shop and got another bike and put it on that one instead -- and it sits in the corner unused to this day. One of these years I'll get it out and ride it around because it's actually pretty nice looking, a "lowrider" beach cruiser that fits the engine perfectly like they were made for each other.
    - xur17 9y ago
      I had a similar response. I bike to work, and one of my coworkers got an electric bike that he let me try. I was very tempted to get one, as it would make longer distance much more viable, but I was also afraid I'd always use the electric bike and not get any exercise. I'd love something like Jump in Austin for trips when it's hot out, or longer distances.
username223 9y ago
"Yet in recent months, Dallas has become ground zero for a nascent national bike-share war, as five startups armed with hundreds of millions of venture capital dollars have blanketed the city with at least 18,000 bikes." -- https://archive.is/kczBY https://archive.is/kczBY It sounds like boom times for Dallas scrap dealers. No one who has ever been to Dallas could ever think this makes sense: Dallas and Fort Worth are about 80 km in diameter, and unpleasantly hot and humid for about half the year. No one wants to rent electric pseudo-scooters there.
- bagacrap 9y ago
  It's true there's an extremely strong car culture in Dallas (and the rest of Texas) for reasons of weather and geography. But the bike shares in Dallas are concentrated in the denser areas full of boutiques, restaurants, museums, etc. The idea is not to replace cars so much as allowing you to park once and then get around on the bike. The issue that's immediately apparent to anyone who actually goes there is that the sidewalks are littered with dozens of bikes, most of which have tipped over. The docks at least force you to keep the bikes somewhat organized and out of the way.
kchoudhu 9y ago
I thought Uber was cutting back and focusing on core competencies?
- tristanj 9y ago
  "Make transportation as reliable as running water, everywhere, for everyone."
  - kchoudhu 9y ago
    I look forward to Uber Airlines in that case.
    - notreallyauser 9y ago
      There's UberCHOPPER already. Which should really be a retro children's bikeshare instead of a helicopter service.
    - itakedrugs 9y ago
      What would it take for a airplane to be able to pickup someone without stopping?
      - nugi 9y ago
        The army figured this out in ww2 to extract soldiers and others. Using a harness and pole attached to the rider, and catch cable attached to a plane, the rider is plucked at speed into the air. Much like the old air-mail systems. There are youtube videos of it.
    - carb 9y ago
      https://www.uber.com/info/elevate/ https://www.uber.com/info/elevate/
frakkingcylons 9y ago
It'd be nice if they can expand their subscription plan to more than low-income users. Kind of sucks to pay $3 per ride no matter how often you use it.
decacorn 9y ago
has JUMP been profitable at all whatsoever? how can they possibly be valued at $200m? nothing against cycles or dockless sharing (love Birds), but this is just outright nonsense. another overvalued startup, another example of why Uber doesn't know how to properly use its capital resources.
ianamartin 9y ago
Self-driving bikes probably have a lower fatality rate than cars. Maybe this gives them some breathing room to improve their AI under-the-radar, so to speak.
- boxcardavin 9y ago
  How do you imagine a self-driving bike would work? (serious question)
  - ryanlol 9y ago
    You could gyro-stabilize it :)
jwilliams 9y ago
Just signed up for this in San Francisco -- Only to find that Russian Hill, Nob Hill, and North Beach are excluded. Plus Fort Mason, the Presidio, and anything west of the Panhandle. "San Francisco" it is not. Which I guess is fine, but they make you pay up-front, so I found that a bit of cheek. Admittedly it's only $2, but even on principle it's annoying. They should be much more transparent in the signup process. They even geolocate you, so they'd be aware you're out of their coverage zone. Edit: This is the coverage map: https://www.evernote.com/l/ACu5gnYkvnNKq6r8MPguZAczRDuT1B7p66U https://www.evernote.com/l/ACu5gnYkvnNKq6r8MPguZAczRDuT1B7p6...
- sagichmal 9y ago
  This is a result of NIMBYism in those neighborhoods, not any Jump bike policy.
  - jwilliams 9y ago
    Do you have any evidence of that? Just looks like they've excluded areas with more tourists. Irrespective, would still be easy (and overall nicer) if they made that transparent.
    - sagichmal 9y ago
      Sorry, nothing I can link to, just personal conversations with employees.
    - gjem97 9y ago
      > looks like they've excluded areas with more tourists If it's anything like NYC they did this to avoid upsetting the existing bike rental businesses in those areas. They need to do this to get local government buy-in of the program.
      - splonk 9y ago
        This is exactly the case. My understanding is that they've pitched themselves as a commuting solution to get approval, and the local tourist bike rental places complain as they get closer to the standard tourist biking areas of Golden Gate Park and the bridge. http://www.sfexaminer.com/bike-battle-ignited-rentals-fear-ford-gobike-will-kill-industry/ http://www.sfexaminer.com/bike-battle-ignited-rentals-fear-f... Edit: The lack of bikeshare on 24th street is a separate issue with Calle 24, which could reasonably be called NIMBYism.
bfuller 9y ago
I live in the biggest dockless bike market currently and its an eyesore. Our corrupt government has decided not to even think about making legislation about the companies until September. People are getting very sick of seeing them laying all around and its starting to go the way of Paris, whose people rose up against the bike share companies and got them to pull out through sheer vandalism. Someone cut one in half and mounted it on a telephone pole the other day
- dawhizkid 9y ago
  Jump's value prop is not so much being dockless but being an electric bike. You can't leave Jump bikes anywhere like other dockless bike companies (smart move on their part...I'm sure each bike is at least $1000) i.e. you actually have to lock/unlock the bike from a bike rack to use and if you don't properly lock the bike after use you're liable as a customer if it's stolen. It's an important difference IMO and means that you don't see these laying around everywhere.
  - bfuller 9y ago
    Unfortunately there's an ordinance in my city saying you can't use an ebike without a helmet or something so the bike shares here aren't touching ebikes yet.
- chaoticmass 9y ago
  Are you in Dallas?
  - owlninja 9y ago
    Sounds like it. It is jaw dropping how many bikes are littered in and around Dallas.
  - bfuller 9y ago
    yes
- baud147258 9y ago
  > the way of Paris, whose people rose up against the bike share companies and got them to pull out through sheer vandalism. I think you're confusing the cause for the vandalism, it is much more "casual", the bikes are vandalised because they are there and the companies stupidly provided fragile bikes. Also the opposition from the city council did not help.
alangibson 9y ago
I'm currently sitting in the Dutch city of Eindhoven. One of the first things you notice when you get here is that there are not bike lanes, not bike paths but very seriously bike roads on either side of the street. These are filled pretty much all the time by people of all ages on their personal bikes. There are no rental bikes anywhere. The moral of this story is that if you want people to bike, build bikeable cities, don't fill sprawled out and hazard filled cities with functionally useless rental bikes.
- calcifer 9y ago
  Just to add a little bit to this: I also live in NL and the cycling infrastructure is not limited to central locations; there are well maintained, separated, safe cycling roads between cities as well. It helps that it's a small country, but even fairly long distances like Rotterdam -> Den Haag (~25km/15miles) is easily done without ever mixing with vehicle traffic.
- pinot 9y ago
  OK we will start over.
  - calcifer 9y ago
    Actually, in the 70s Netherlands was very much a car-first country. The current cycling infrastructure is a very hard won victory, with thousands dead along the way [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o
    - ctw 9y ago
      . M.. Mm. Mmm
  - alangibson 9y ago
    There used to be no sidewalks. Streets were for people and the occasional horse. Then Henry Ford started making cars. Let's all be glad that we didn't decide to just let pedestrians be mowed down by cars because hey man it's just too hard to start over
horsecaptin 9y ago
Beginning of the end of Uber. Stay focused, stay hungry. Or perish.
throw15310 9y ago
would be interesting to see what lyft does. spin? $8m raised, based in sf, founded by lyft exec and yc alum
- relation 9y ago
  I too have heard this rumor picking up steam in SV.
codereflection 9y ago
We need to be aware of the problem that's happening in China with bike sharing [1]. There is a large saturation problem. Ofo seems to be one of the main contributors to the issue. In Seattle it seems like I see more and more Ofo bikes on the side of the road, and rarely do I see anyone riding them. [1] http://time.com/5218323/china-bicycles-sharing-economy/ http://time.com/5218323/china-bicycles-sharing-economy/
- dx034 9y ago
  I wonder how much of such a bike can be recycled? I'd think it's close to 100% and that it probably pays for costs of pick-up. If not, cities could make companies pay for costs of disposing of bikes. Shouldn't be a big environmental issue then, just Chinese subsidies that help recycling companies and consumers. Pretty similar to all those VC billions that provided free Uber/Lyft rides to millions.
r27d 9y ago
Walk to a Jump location in the app and there's no bike? Take an Uber Find your Jump hasn't been charged and is dead? Take an Uber Jumps are a little more expensive after a price increase? Take an Uber
- nugi 9y ago
  Aha! Someone found the value add!
r27d 9y ago
Riding your bike to work was one of the only things that is the same in San Francisco no matter what socioeconomic class you're a part of. Jump changed that. Disappointing. Everyone riding a bike used to deal with the same problems. Unfortunate as those problems are they could happen to a rich person, a poor person, or anyone in between which is an equitable sharing of the social cost. The privileged people used to be able to easily spend more money to replace a stolen bike which is the problem Jump solves for the people that can afford it. That's now a bigger burden on the people who can't afford Jump and are less likely to afford replacing a stolen bike at all.
- Swizec 9y ago
  Is Jump really that expensive? Last time I used it, it cost something like $2. It's cheaper even than the Ford bike shares. Plus it can't get stolen. I guess if you use it every day it does add up to a new cheapest walmart bike every 45 rides. Hmm.
  - r27d 9y ago
    Personal e-bikes for $1000-2000 (same experience as Jump) can easily be under $.25 per ride. I have 1000+ rides and 4500 miles on my $1800 ebike in under a year and I could sell it for $1400.
    - Swizec 9y ago
      Yeah but if it gets stolen you're out $2000 and since you said Jump benefits the not-poor, I assumed you meant "People who can't shell out $2000 on a bike". I also use a Boosted Board because I break even wrt Uber every 3 months or so. But if I didn't have $1600 to spend on that purchase, then all the future savings in the world wouldn't mean shit.
      - imtringued 9y ago
        A poor person is much more likely to get a used bike for $100 to $200 than spend $100 every month on bike sharing.
intrasight 9y ago
I stopped road riding several years ago. It's just gotten too dangerous in my opinion - probably due to smartphones. Unlike many European cities, ours are and will likely remain geared towards cars only. That isn't going to change in my lifetime. But if I'm wrong, and there are some US cities rebuilding their roads to separate bikes and cards, please do let me know which ones.
beedogs 9y ago
Of course Uber's doing another shitty thing. Dockless bicycles in Melbourne are being thrown into the river at an alarming rate, because people are sick of companies relying on littering in public as a business model. So of course Uber is joining the party.
- tejasmanohar 9y ago
  Share bikes have a huge potential for the environment and overall, commute efficiency. While there may be bad parts to start, I think there's plenty of great parts to come.
syndacks 9y ago
I think these bikes miss the mark on two major fronts: - Why do they need to be electric? Bicycles are phenomenally efficient, even for people who aren't in "good shape." In SF you can find routes around the really crazy hills. Furthermore, electric bikes reduce the barrier to entry for douches to "go cruising". Every day (NYC) I almost get hit by one of these things buzzing around. I'm sure these bikes are less powerful, but come on, exercise! - Dockless. There is plenty of room for docks, USE THE ROADS. This video does a great job showing how inefficient cars are with space: https://vimeo.com/223171024 https://vimeo.com/223171024. It's not right for a company to co-opt public space with their bikes. These should be designed into cities. It's not hard; make space.
- ryanlol 9y ago
  This really reads like someone who's never tried an electric bike, there's simply no way that is "missing the mark".
- bm1362 9y ago
  It's much harder to bike in SF without an electric assist. I biked for 2 years in Seattle with no problems, moved to NYC and enjoyed the occasional trip over the Williamsburg bridge. Now in SF and I've only tried to bike once. It was fun bombing the hill outside but I immediately hit another hill and another.. I've essentially given up on riding here. I use Jump regularly to run errands when I'm downtown and it's much easier to pickup/drop off bikes than it would be worrying about my own expensive bike getting stolen. These aren't quite dockless as they have to locked up properly and are tracked by the app/gps.
- foolfoolz 9y ago
  i am very for dockless for a couple reasons - fan out / fan in. in the morning commute centers (bart, caltrain) will have X bikes in the dock and many times that riders that want a bike. in the evening commute centers will have X dock spots, but many times that riders trying to drop off a bike - building docks is extremely expensive and time consuming. they should be designed into cities? sure, i agree. but you are talking about doing a public construction project that has to get approved by a planning committee, funded, scheduled, passed all kinds of environment and safety checks, and then a few years and $3,000,000 later a 10-space dock appears on some streets. having the space for docks is not the problem
kahnpro 9y ago
I've seen these types of bikes around from time to time (in London), but certainly not enough to consider them a reliable form of daily transport. Whereas the station near my work, and near home, always has a healthy supply of docked Boris bikes waiting for me. Does anyone have experience with these?
mulmen 9y ago
I can't figure out why e-bikes are considered bicycles and not mopeds or motorcycles. How does this not require a drivers license, with or without a motorcycle endorsement? Is the output limited (like the 50cc moped)? Why are motorized vehicles allowed on bike lanes just because they have electric motors instead of gas? I'm also totally blown away by Seattle's disregard for helmet laws to enrich some venture capitalists. We didn't even bother repealing the helmet law, we just don't enforce it.
- Qwertie 9y ago
  They are usually capped to 250W and 25KM/h. Anyone half fit could blast past 4x as fast on a regular bike than on an ebike. The benifit of an ebike is you get to your destination with minimal sweat and get about as much exercise as walking.
  - mulmen 9y ago
    100kph is ~62mph IIRC. I don't think the average person could pull that off on any kind of bicycle.
- kibibyte 9y ago
  They're basically regular bikes, but with an electric motor that helps you with pedaling. Unlike a moped or motorcycle, you still need to pedal an e-bike to get it moving. The Jump bikes in SF use 250W motors, which, when going uphill, is similar to having an extra person helping you pedal. People should be a little more careful on these because these bikes can go pretty fast. That said, from my own experience using Jump bikes in SF, people on road bikes still zoom by me regularly on streets.
  - mulmen 9y ago
    Yeah I get that but where is the line? Can I put a 10hp electric motor on a bicycle and ride it through a park? If so why can't I do that with a small gas motor? Are there actual regulations on this? If they go fast enough that people "need to be careful" where is the line where we ask them to prove they can be careful? In Seattle you have to wear seatbelts in cars and helmets on motorcycles and bicycles. In the case of bike shares and e-bikes we seem to just ignore those rules. If we can ignore them in one case why not ignore them in all cases? It strikes me as a double standard that benefits venture capitalists more than the public.
akskos 9y ago
I first read "Uber enters dockerless" and thought that it's now cool not to use docker :D

197 points by eplanit 9y ago

joelrunyon 9y ago

Can we only include non-paywalled articles? Hard to contribute to the discussion when you can't read the content.

cryptoz 9y ago
Click on 'web' above and then you should quickly find a source article you can read with no paywall... sometimes. Works for this one, for me.
dang 9y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989 Users often post workarounds in the threads (edit: as someone now has in this one).

neonate 9y ago

http://archive.is/GrVXE http://archive.is/GrVXE

saudioger 9y ago

Does anyone know if going dockless increases ridership in any significant way? The consumer benefits seem great but it seems like such a nightmare to maintain compared to a docking system.

gervase 9y ago
I can't speak to the complexity of managing a dockless system (and in particular, their profitability), but from a UX perspective, it's a total game-changer. In my city, we started with docked, but after a dockless company arrived, literally no-one uses the docked bikes - why put up with the extra hassle of having to return the bikes for no user benefit? The prices are already so low that I can't really see them being able to compete on price, so the only differentiating factor is ease of use, which dockless will always win on. Also, in reply to a sibling comment, we have a pretty serious bike theft problem here, but they mostly don't bother with the dockless bikes except as a mode of transportation. Speculatively, perhaps most bike theft profits are in the gray market (i.e. Craigslist), where these highly-recognizable bikes can't be unloaded?
- ggregoire 9y ago
  > why put up with the extra hassle of having to return the bikes for no user benefit? What about the extra hassle of finding and walking with your map to your dockless bike? (if you are lucky enough to find one close to you) Also in both cities I lived, docking stations are everywhere, it has never been a problem (maybe once or twice a year when my usual docking station was full. Still, I just needed to go the next one, 5 min from there).
  - jonknee 9y ago
    You might have to hunt for one, but then you can leave it right at your destination so it should even out somewhat. That said, dockless bikes are everywhere in Seattle right now. Docked bikes never took off here, but I see people on the dockless ones all the time.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    The system in Hamburg (StadtRAD) is an hybrid: you have to bring it to a dock, but if the dock's full, you can just lock the bike standalone near it. Although, last time I mentioned it here someone said they've had problems with the position detection, such that they kept being charged despite leaving it near a dock.
- thiagocsf 9y ago
  Returning the bikes to a dock is a benefit to everyone else in the city. A dock is always placed in a location agreed by the council. It’s guaranteed to not be in anyone’s way or a safety hazard. Maybe the dockless users in your city are more conscious. In mine, they will happily leave their rentals blocking the footpath. I constantly need to stop my child’s pram and move the bike out of the way. Dockless bikes are an appropriation of public spaces by private companies and need to stop.
  - vkou 9y ago
    > Dockless bikes are an appropriation of public spaces by private companies and need to stop. I'll support this, as soon as we reclaim the millions of square feet of private space appropriated by curbside parking. This would free up enough space for everyone, and their extended families to park their bikes. If every block in my neighborhood has room for free parking for ~40 cars, then surely we could reclaim a few of those spots, for the sake of free parking for a greater number of dockless bikes.
wpietri 9y ago
Just the other day I saw some very dubious people on BART with dockless bikes. I had to wonder if there's a good secondary market in bike parts that makes those things worth stealing.
- convolvatron 9y ago
  i work near a group of homeless bike chop shop people with trash bins filled with parts. they move alot* of bikes. i dont see any of the ford or jump bikes around. i think they are just so awash in parts and frames, there really isn't any strong pull to try to mine the bike rental stream. the frames in particular are probably worthless except as steel scrap. i wonder about the battery/motors though.
  - jfim 9y ago
    With regards to the Ford bikes, that's actually by design. The Ford bikes are basically the same as Montreal's Bixi, which uses custom parts; this means that since the parts only fit the Ford bikes, there's no reason to chop them for parts, as they won't fit on a regular bike. They also require custom tools to work on them, making it less likely that they'll be chopped up for parts in the first place. You can read more about the bikes at http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/fixing-bixis-nearly-indestructible-and-theft-proof-the-bike-sharing-fleet-still-needs-tune-ups-part-ii http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/fixing-bixis-near...
- rishabhparikh 9y ago
  Why did you think they might be stealing the bikes?
  - thiagocsf 9y ago
    Don’t answer. It’s a trap!
  - wpietri 9y ago
    My usual profile for those bikes is tourists and young professionals. These were grizzled, grubby older men. Plus, the theory of these bikes is as last-mile transportation; I've never seen them on BART before or since.
sagichmal 9y ago
Data point of one here, but docked bike share programs are a novelty for me, maybe useful on occasional weekends, but dockless makes it viable for replacing almost all use of public transit and ride sharing, including (especially) daily commute. Orders of magnitude difference in my personal usage.
- kasey_junk 9y ago
  Curious why? Just availability?
  - Parsnip1 9y ago
    The only times I've used a bike share, it was because I was walking somewhere and happened to pass a dockless bike that seemed like a really good idea to just rent and use right away. These were invariable in places that would not have had a docking station.
    - kasey_junk 9y ago
      I get that. But he mentioned that dockless made it feasible for replacing the commute. Those seem like the kinds of trips that dock based systems excel at because they are known routes.
      - sagichmal 9y ago
        The closest city bike docking stations are a ~10 minute walk from my apartment, and a ~5 minute walk from my office. There is always a dockless bike within a ~5 minute walk from my apartment, even during morning and evening rush hours, and I can leave it directly in front of my office door. The time spent on the bike is the same in both cases, about 10 or 12 minutes. So a docked bike commute is 25 minutes door-to-door, with a lot of time kind of "wasted", whereas a dockless bike commute is between 10 and 15, and all of the time spent feels like I'm making progress toward my goal. It's worth noting that taking public transit (Muni bus) between these same two points takes at least 30 minutes (good day, light traffic, no mentally disturbed people interrupting the driver) and has taken as long as 55 minutes. A Lyft is also reliably slower, especially in the evening rush hour. To be honest, the time taken is not such a huge deal. The bigger draw, by far, is that riding the electric bike is completely effortless, and usually quite fun. And it's also important that they are extremely handsome, I don't feel like a goober when I'm on them. Riding the city bikes, in comparison, is a completely different experience. You feel how big and heavy they are, you can easily work up a sweat, and they're not handsome machines, everyone looks a little bit like a doofus on them.
ggregoire 9y ago
> The consumer benefits seem great How so? We have dockless bikes here (the Chinese Mobike) but it seems like you never know where to pick them up. At less with the public bikes, I know where is the closest docking station to my house.
- Analemma_ 9y ago
  > but it seems like you never know where to pick them up. That's a major design failure on their part then. Seattle's dockless bikes all have GPS trackers so you can see them on a map on the phone app.
  - KerrickStaley 9y ago
    I actually like the consistency of knowing where the bikes will be without having to check an app. I have a dock less than a block from my apartment that is consistently stocked with bikes. It's convenient and less mental overhead than checking an app.
  - kweks 9y ago
    Do they actually have GPS? The Chinese bikes have a dirt cheap BLE module; the App pulls GPS data from your phone. Which is to say, when people displace the bikes "manually", the maps are no longer accurate.
  - ggregoire 9y ago
    No, I meant you never know before looking at your phone if there is a dockless bike at less than 15 min from your home. And I have 2 public dock stations at 5 min from my home so...
- dx034 9y ago
  Where is here? In London, you can see them in the app. They allow you to "block" it for 15 minutes so it's less of a gamble if you have to walk a few minutes for the next bike. Works well from my first tests and cheaper/easier than the official version.
chrischen 9y ago
I tried dockless bikes in Taiwan and while being able to park anywhere is grrat initally, the chance your bike gets taken, the difficulty in locating a bike due to bariable locatioms and inaccurate GPS, really dirty bikes, are all huge problems.
- barkingcat 9y ago
  Can you bring a bike lock and just lock the dockless bike?
  - mikepurvis 9y ago
    I'd be pretty frustrated if I used the app to locate an available bike but then found that someone had locked it up.
    - chrischen 9y ago
      I actually did find bikes like that in the wild. Luckily there were usually a group of bikes there. I'd imagine it's probably against their TOS to lock their bikes.
      - barkingcat 9y ago
        what are they going to do? Aside from cutting the lock it's pretty much impossible to know who locked it. If we get a whole city of people doing it, even if they get the cops what are they going to do? arrest 500-1000 people?
UncleEntity 9y ago
I do wonder how they keep track of those things, I see them all over the place -- in front of houses in neighborhoods, "hidden" in apartment complexes, locked to random things, left in the middle of the sidewalk so you have to push it out of the way to go by (my favorite), left unlocked in front of the corner store so anyone can jump on and ride away, &etc. Rarely do I see anyone actually riding them though.
Analemma_ 9y ago
Anecdotally, Seattle had a docked bike-share a few years a go that shut down a short while later because no one used it, and recently launched a dockless bikeshare that I've been using a lot. From a customer perspective, it's a night-and-day difference in usability.
bradly 9y ago
Yes, because docked bikes need to be done in cooperation with a city or business to install a dock station. With dockerless, the streets where I live have just been littered with bikes and scooters.
- hunter23 9y ago
  A lot of regulators in the US are thinking about requiring dockerless systems to coordinate with them now. Many cities don't want the littering issue.
- thiagocsf 9y ago
  This has become a nightmare in Sydney. I see broken bikes everywhere, in piles, up fences, down in canals. I’m hoping for regulation to come soon.
- dx034 9y ago
  And you get NIMBYism. In London, some neighbourhoods are excluded from bike-sharing because communities didn't want to have docking stations in their streets (takes away parking space and can create noise).
eli 9y ago
I think the additional overhead versus a docked system isn't as big as you think. The popular dock-based DC BikeShare requires a whole fleet of vans picking up bikes from completely full docks and redistributing them elsewhere. They finally set up a system where there's an employee waiting by a popular downtown bike rack to manually check in your bike because the rack would otherwise be full with a line of other people waiting for an open slot.
joeblau 9y ago
Another data point of one, but when I was in Arizona in March, I tried Ofo bikes. The fact that I could ride to exactly where I wanted to go without having to find a dock was the only reason I thought it was viable. I rode to an açaí restaurant, "docked my bike" then rode the bike to work. My office was no where near where the company would have put a dock so I would say that dockless was an extremely value feature. As far as Ofo picking up the bikes on their end... that's probably a nightmare. That being said, there is a Data Skeptic - Bike Share Rebalancing[1] episode so I'm sure there are data scientists optimizing the pickup and distribution algorithm to make deckles cheaper or as cheap as docked bikes. [1] - http://podbay.fm/show/890348705/e/1476457200 http://podbay.fm/show/890348705/e/1476457200
- djrogers 9y ago
  > I rode to an açaí restaurant, "docked my bike" then rode the bike to work. Sounds nice, but what do you do when someone else takes the bike while you’re eating? Whe I hear ‘dockless’ I think about the hassle of finding a bike where I want it, not the convenience of not having to drop it off...
  - joeblau 9y ago
    To be honest, there were about 10 bikes within 400 feet of where I was. There just wasn't one exactly at the restaurant. I would have had to walk probably 2-5 mins to get another bike. That 2-5 mins is probably still better than where a dock would have been. It's really weird being out there because it seems like there are bikes everywhere in Tempe.
SllX 9y ago
Another data point here in SF. Up until last year I had zero bike share racks installed around my apartment, and as of this year, there are still zero in >80% of the areas that I actually go to in the City (mostly in the West). As of about a month or two ago, I have seen these Jump bikes pop up around the streets I frequent, even seeing a row of 4 of them at some point parked in a bookstore's bike rack parklet as if it were a dock made for them. I was considering trying out Jump up until this announcement, but I essentially can't use Bay Area Bike Share because there aren't any docks at any point in the city where I would ride to.
zhoujianfu 9y ago
In Santa Monica they have the breeze docked bike share... which originally when it launched allowed you to leave the bikes anywhere for no charge (so best of both worlds). I was an avid user and rode an average of four times a day! A few months later, they started charging $2 if you didn’t lock a bike to the dock. This made for a pretty good a/b test of usage... I started using them only maybe once or twice a month! I’d say dockless is about 50x better than docked. And since bird showed up here (dockless e-scooters) I basically never use the breeze bike share anymore, despite having prepaid for a year of it. I think the electricity probably makes it again 2x better and the scooter makes it again 2x better. So overall, dockless e-scooters are maybe 200x better than docked bike shares!
- ztratar 9y ago
  While I'm giggling a bit at the pseudo-math, I have to agree with the sentiment of this post. Dockless E-Scooters, to me, just feel like the winner. They take up much less space on the sidewalk than the bikes.

wpietri 9y ago

This is a puzzle to me. Uber faces some critical issues ahead. If they can solve them, the bikes will be a rounding error. If they can't, the bike business won't be enough to save them. Why add the complexity when they could buy or build something later? I especially can't figure out why the Jump CEO would do it. The odds of their work surviving to the 10 year mark seems so small. It reminds me of something like Dodgeball. (For those who don't remember, it was a company basically like Foursquare, but years before. Google bought it and did little with it. Eventually the founders got tired of it, left Google, and started the same company again.)

ska 9y ago
The odds of their work surviving to the 10 year mark seems so small. Are you sure that the odds are worse than surviving the 10 year mark without an acquisition? Would hardly be the first time someone sold because they simply couldn't make the growth math work, and they were all out of good options for financing.
- wpietri 9y ago
  I'm not sure, but that's the way I'd bet. They just took $10m in January, which is a fair bit of runway for testing hypotheses. When they start to run low on that, they can go to every single VC firm for more. Inside Uber, they are going to have approximately one executive to get funding from. Currently that executive obviously likes them. But feelings change, and they're just a reorg or an executive departure away from somebody who gives zero fucks.
  - robszumski 9y ago
    Isn't this the same problem with a VC? The funds might like you now, but watch those ride numbers drop a bit and suddenly folks want ridiculous terms and you don't have many options. I would bet that getting $10m a year in the budget for a few years is no sweat at Uber...they had gross revenue of $37B in 2017. I realize they are trying to cut that, but increasing engagement in already profitable cities might have a material impact in the other direction.

dawhizkid 9y ago

Awesome! Having used Jump this weekend, I wouldn't say dockless is the main value prop to me as a customer - it's the power assist that makes it feel more like a scooter than a bike. Going medium distances (1-2 miles) and up and down steep hills in SF was a breeze. If you're commuting, it's "sweat free." IMO Uber Pool/Lyft Line has gotten so slow (I'm sure Pool/Line's share of total rides vs regular X/Lyft is more than 80% in many cities now) for short to med distances that powered bikes has become more and more appealing.

jseliger 9y ago
it's the power assist that makes it feel more like a scooter than a bike There are many comments online about how awesome electric bikes are and many skeptical responses. I think the basic divide comes down to one thing: Has the person tried an electric bike? Almost everyone who has immediately sees them as awesome. Many who haven't don't get the point. There are finally some reputable electric bikes available for around $1,000 (https://www.propella.bike/products/singlespeed https://www.propella.bike/products/singlespeed), but most people want transportation without having to deal with hassle on either end.
- UncleEntity 9y ago
  > Has the person tried an electric bike? Almost everyone who has immediately sees them as awesome. Many who haven't don't get the point. Probably depends on your goals as well. I got one of those 2-stroke engines to put on my bike a while ago and when it arrived I was looking at it and thinking "if I put this thing on my bike I'll never get any exercise". Instead I went to the pawn shop and got another bike and put it on that one instead -- and it sits in the corner unused to this day. One of these years I'll get it out and ride it around because it's actually pretty nice looking, a "lowrider" beach cruiser that fits the engine perfectly like they were made for each other.
  - xur17 9y ago
    I had a similar response. I bike to work, and one of my coworkers got an electric bike that he let me try. I was very tempted to get one, as it would make longer distance much more viable, but I was also afraid I'd always use the electric bike and not get any exercise. I'd love something like Jump in Austin for trips when it's hot out, or longer distances.

username223 9y ago

"Yet in recent months, Dallas has become ground zero for a nascent national bike-share war, as five startups armed with hundreds of millions of venture capital dollars have blanketed the city with at least 18,000 bikes." -- https://archive.is/kczBY https://archive.is/kczBY It sounds like boom times for Dallas scrap dealers. No one who has ever been to Dallas could ever think this makes sense: Dallas and Fort Worth are about 80 km in diameter, and unpleasantly hot and humid for about half the year. No one wants to rent electric pseudo-scooters there.

bagacrap 9y ago
It's true there's an extremely strong car culture in Dallas (and the rest of Texas) for reasons of weather and geography. But the bike shares in Dallas are concentrated in the denser areas full of boutiques, restaurants, museums, etc. The idea is not to replace cars so much as allowing you to park once and then get around on the bike. The issue that's immediately apparent to anyone who actually goes there is that the sidewalks are littered with dozens of bikes, most of which have tipped over. The docks at least force you to keep the bikes somewhat organized and out of the way.

kchoudhu 9y ago

I thought Uber was cutting back and focusing on core competencies?

tristanj 9y ago
"Make transportation as reliable as running water, everywhere, for everyone."
- kchoudhu 9y ago
  I look forward to Uber Airlines in that case.
  - notreallyauser 9y ago
    There's UberCHOPPER already. Which should really be a retro children's bikeshare instead of a helicopter service.
  - itakedrugs 9y ago
    What would it take for a airplane to be able to pickup someone without stopping?
    - nugi 9y ago
      The army figured this out in ww2 to extract soldiers and others. Using a harness and pole attached to the rider, and catch cable attached to a plane, the rider is plucked at speed into the air. Much like the old air-mail systems. There are youtube videos of it.
  - carb 9y ago
    https://www.uber.com/info/elevate/ https://www.uber.com/info/elevate/

frakkingcylons 9y ago

It'd be nice if they can expand their subscription plan to more than low-income users. Kind of sucks to pay $3 per ride no matter how often you use it.

decacorn 9y ago

has JUMP been profitable at all whatsoever? how can they possibly be valued at $200m? nothing against cycles or dockless sharing (love Birds), but this is just outright nonsense. another overvalued startup, another example of why Uber doesn't know how to properly use its capital resources.

ianamartin 9y ago

Self-driving bikes probably have a lower fatality rate than cars. Maybe this gives them some breathing room to improve their AI under-the-radar, so to speak.

boxcardavin 9y ago
How do you imagine a self-driving bike would work? (serious question)
- ryanlol 9y ago
  You could gyro-stabilize it :)

jwilliams 9y ago

Just signed up for this in San Francisco -- Only to find that Russian Hill, Nob Hill, and North Beach are excluded. Plus Fort Mason, the Presidio, and anything west of the Panhandle. "San Francisco" it is not. Which I guess is fine, but they make you pay up-front, so I found that a bit of cheek. Admittedly it's only $2, but even on principle it's annoying. They should be much more transparent in the signup process. They even geolocate you, so they'd be aware you're out of their coverage zone. Edit: This is the coverage map: https://www.evernote.com/l/ACu5gnYkvnNKq6r8MPguZAczRDuT1B7p66U https://www.evernote.com/l/ACu5gnYkvnNKq6r8MPguZAczRDuT1B7p6...

sagichmal 9y ago
This is a result of NIMBYism in those neighborhoods, not any Jump bike policy.
- jwilliams 9y ago
  Do you have any evidence of that? Just looks like they've excluded areas with more tourists. Irrespective, would still be easy (and overall nicer) if they made that transparent.
  - sagichmal 9y ago
    Sorry, nothing I can link to, just personal conversations with employees.
  - gjem97 9y ago
    > looks like they've excluded areas with more tourists If it's anything like NYC they did this to avoid upsetting the existing bike rental businesses in those areas. They need to do this to get local government buy-in of the program.
    - splonk 9y ago
      This is exactly the case. My understanding is that they've pitched themselves as a commuting solution to get approval, and the local tourist bike rental places complain as they get closer to the standard tourist biking areas of Golden Gate Park and the bridge. http://www.sfexaminer.com/bike-battle-ignited-rentals-fear-ford-gobike-will-kill-industry/ http://www.sfexaminer.com/bike-battle-ignited-rentals-fear-f... Edit: The lack of bikeshare on 24th street is a separate issue with Calle 24, which could reasonably be called NIMBYism.

bfuller 9y ago

I live in the biggest dockless bike market currently and its an eyesore. Our corrupt government has decided not to even think about making legislation about the companies until September. People are getting very sick of seeing them laying all around and its starting to go the way of Paris, whose people rose up against the bike share companies and got them to pull out through sheer vandalism. Someone cut one in half and mounted it on a telephone pole the other day

dawhizkid 9y ago
Jump's value prop is not so much being dockless but being an electric bike. You can't leave Jump bikes anywhere like other dockless bike companies (smart move on their part...I'm sure each bike is at least $1000) i.e. you actually have to lock/unlock the bike from a bike rack to use and if you don't properly lock the bike after use you're liable as a customer if it's stolen. It's an important difference IMO and means that you don't see these laying around everywhere.
- bfuller 9y ago
  Unfortunately there's an ordinance in my city saying you can't use an ebike without a helmet or something so the bike shares here aren't touching ebikes yet.
chaoticmass 9y ago
Are you in Dallas?
- owlninja 9y ago
  Sounds like it. It is jaw dropping how many bikes are littered in and around Dallas.
- bfuller 9y ago
  yes
baud147258 9y ago
> the way of Paris, whose people rose up against the bike share companies and got them to pull out through sheer vandalism. I think you're confusing the cause for the vandalism, it is much more "casual", the bikes are vandalised because they are there and the companies stupidly provided fragile bikes. Also the opposition from the city council did not help.

alangibson 9y ago

I'm currently sitting in the Dutch city of Eindhoven. One of the first things you notice when you get here is that there are not bike lanes, not bike paths but very seriously bike roads on either side of the street. These are filled pretty much all the time by people of all ages on their personal bikes. There are no rental bikes anywhere. The moral of this story is that if you want people to bike, build bikeable cities, don't fill sprawled out and hazard filled cities with functionally useless rental bikes.

calcifer 9y ago
Just to add a little bit to this: I also live in NL and the cycling infrastructure is not limited to central locations; there are well maintained, separated, safe cycling roads between cities as well. It helps that it's a small country, but even fairly long distances like Rotterdam -> Den Haag (~25km/15miles) is easily done without ever mixing with vehicle traffic.
pinot 9y ago
OK we will start over.
- calcifer 9y ago
  Actually, in the 70s Netherlands was very much a car-first country. The current cycling infrastructure is a very hard won victory, with thousands dead along the way [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o
  - ctw 9y ago
    . M.. Mm. Mmm
- alangibson 9y ago
  There used to be no sidewalks. Streets were for people and the occasional horse. Then Henry Ford started making cars. Let's all be glad that we didn't decide to just let pedestrians be mowed down by cars because hey man it's just too hard to start over

horsecaptin 9y ago

Beginning of the end of Uber. Stay focused, stay hungry. Or perish.

throw15310 9y ago

would be interesting to see what lyft does. spin? $8m raised, based in sf, founded by lyft exec and yc alum

relation 9y ago
I too have heard this rumor picking up steam in SV.

codereflection 9y ago

We need to be aware of the problem that's happening in China with bike sharing [1]. There is a large saturation problem. Ofo seems to be one of the main contributors to the issue. In Seattle it seems like I see more and more Ofo bikes on the side of the road, and rarely do I see anyone riding them. [1] http://time.com/5218323/china-bicycles-sharing-economy/ http://time.com/5218323/china-bicycles-sharing-economy/

dx034 9y ago
I wonder how much of such a bike can be recycled? I'd think it's close to 100% and that it probably pays for costs of pick-up. If not, cities could make companies pay for costs of disposing of bikes. Shouldn't be a big environmental issue then, just Chinese subsidies that help recycling companies and consumers. Pretty similar to all those VC billions that provided free Uber/Lyft rides to millions.

r27d 9y ago

Walk to a Jump location in the app and there's no bike? Take an Uber Find your Jump hasn't been charged and is dead? Take an Uber Jumps are a little more expensive after a price increase? Take an Uber

nugi 9y ago
Aha! Someone found the value add!

r27d 9y ago

Riding your bike to work was one of the only things that is the same in San Francisco no matter what socioeconomic class you're a part of. Jump changed that. Disappointing. Everyone riding a bike used to deal with the same problems. Unfortunate as those problems are they could happen to a rich person, a poor person, or anyone in between which is an equitable sharing of the social cost. The privileged people used to be able to easily spend more money to replace a stolen bike which is the problem Jump solves for the people that can afford it. That's now a bigger burden on the people who can't afford Jump and are less likely to afford replacing a stolen bike at all.

Swizec 9y ago
Is Jump really that expensive? Last time I used it, it cost something like $2. It's cheaper even than the Ford bike shares. Plus it can't get stolen. I guess if you use it every day it does add up to a new cheapest walmart bike every 45 rides. Hmm.
- r27d 9y ago
  Personal e-bikes for $1000-2000 (same experience as Jump) can easily be under $.25 per ride. I have 1000+ rides and 4500 miles on my $1800 ebike in under a year and I could sell it for $1400.
  - Swizec 9y ago
    Yeah but if it gets stolen you're out $2000 and since you said Jump benefits the not-poor, I assumed you meant "People who can't shell out $2000 on a bike". I also use a Boosted Board because I break even wrt Uber every 3 months or so. But if I didn't have $1600 to spend on that purchase, then all the future savings in the world wouldn't mean shit.
    - imtringued 9y ago
      A poor person is much more likely to get a used bike for $100 to $200 than spend $100 every month on bike sharing.

intrasight 9y ago

I stopped road riding several years ago. It's just gotten too dangerous in my opinion - probably due to smartphones. Unlike many European cities, ours are and will likely remain geared towards cars only. That isn't going to change in my lifetime. But if I'm wrong, and there are some US cities rebuilding their roads to separate bikes and cards, please do let me know which ones.

beedogs 9y ago

Of course Uber's doing another shitty thing. Dockless bicycles in Melbourne are being thrown into the river at an alarming rate, because people are sick of companies relying on littering in public as a business model. So of course Uber is joining the party.

tejasmanohar 9y ago
Share bikes have a huge potential for the environment and overall, commute efficiency. While there may be bad parts to start, I think there's plenty of great parts to come.

syndacks 9y ago

I think these bikes miss the mark on two major fronts: - Why do they need to be electric? Bicycles are phenomenally efficient, even for people who aren't in "good shape." In SF you can find routes around the really crazy hills. Furthermore, electric bikes reduce the barrier to entry for douches to "go cruising". Every day (NYC) I almost get hit by one of these things buzzing around. I'm sure these bikes are less powerful, but come on, exercise! - Dockless. There is plenty of room for docks, USE THE ROADS. This video does a great job showing how inefficient cars are with space: https://vimeo.com/223171024 https://vimeo.com/223171024. It's not right for a company to co-opt public space with their bikes. These should be designed into cities. It's not hard; make space.

ryanlol 9y ago
This really reads like someone who's never tried an electric bike, there's simply no way that is "missing the mark".
bm1362 9y ago
It's much harder to bike in SF without an electric assist. I biked for 2 years in Seattle with no problems, moved to NYC and enjoyed the occasional trip over the Williamsburg bridge. Now in SF and I've only tried to bike once. It was fun bombing the hill outside but I immediately hit another hill and another.. I've essentially given up on riding here. I use Jump regularly to run errands when I'm downtown and it's much easier to pickup/drop off bikes than it would be worrying about my own expensive bike getting stolen. These aren't quite dockless as they have to locked up properly and are tracked by the app/gps.
foolfoolz 9y ago
i am very for dockless for a couple reasons - fan out / fan in. in the morning commute centers (bart, caltrain) will have X bikes in the dock and many times that riders that want a bike. in the evening commute centers will have X dock spots, but many times that riders trying to drop off a bike - building docks is extremely expensive and time consuming. they should be designed into cities? sure, i agree. but you are talking about doing a public construction project that has to get approved by a planning committee, funded, scheduled, passed all kinds of environment and safety checks, and then a few years and $3,000,000 later a 10-space dock appears on some streets. having the space for docks is not the problem

kahnpro 9y ago

I've seen these types of bikes around from time to time (in London), but certainly not enough to consider them a reliable form of daily transport. Whereas the station near my work, and near home, always has a healthy supply of docked Boris bikes waiting for me. Does anyone have experience with these?

mulmen 9y ago

I can't figure out why e-bikes are considered bicycles and not mopeds or motorcycles. How does this not require a drivers license, with or without a motorcycle endorsement? Is the output limited (like the 50cc moped)? Why are motorized vehicles allowed on bike lanes just because they have electric motors instead of gas? I'm also totally blown away by Seattle's disregard for helmet laws to enrich some venture capitalists. We didn't even bother repealing the helmet law, we just don't enforce it.

Qwertie 9y ago
They are usually capped to 250W and 25KM/h. Anyone half fit could blast past 4x as fast on a regular bike than on an ebike. The benifit of an ebike is you get to your destination with minimal sweat and get about as much exercise as walking.
- mulmen 9y ago
  100kph is ~62mph IIRC. I don't think the average person could pull that off on any kind of bicycle.
kibibyte 9y ago
They're basically regular bikes, but with an electric motor that helps you with pedaling. Unlike a moped or motorcycle, you still need to pedal an e-bike to get it moving. The Jump bikes in SF use 250W motors, which, when going uphill, is similar to having an extra person helping you pedal. People should be a little more careful on these because these bikes can go pretty fast. That said, from my own experience using Jump bikes in SF, people on road bikes still zoom by me regularly on streets.
- mulmen 9y ago
  Yeah I get that but where is the line? Can I put a 10hp electric motor on a bicycle and ride it through a park? If so why can't I do that with a small gas motor? Are there actual regulations on this? If they go fast enough that people "need to be careful" where is the line where we ask them to prove they can be careful? In Seattle you have to wear seatbelts in cars and helmets on motorcycles and bicycles. In the case of bike shares and e-bikes we seem to just ignore those rules. If we can ignore them in one case why not ignore them in all cases? It strikes me as a double standard that benefits venture capitalists more than the public.

akskos 9y ago

I first read "Uber enters dockerless" and thought that it's now cool not to use docker :D